zeitgiest

An overused and sometimes mispelled word.
I was thinking about the lucky combination that songwriter sometimes happen upon;
cultural relevance and a catchy hook. It's kind of the no-hitter of songwriting.
Acheiving one and not the other is still a win.
Elvis Costello has 25 years of hooks, but really, he was only culturally relevant (and this is often by accident--you can't really try. The masses follow the artist, not the other way around)in 1978-79.
The Beatles pitched no-hitters pretty much every year they were around. And John and George for about a year afterwards.

There are flukes, like The Simple Minds "Don't You Forget About Me" or The Count Five's "Psychotic Reaction". Perfectly capture the times, and forever will.
And that one memory will be etched in people's minds. More often than not even if, say the Simple Minds had another hit, it wouldn't be culturally relevant--it'd remind people of how in-sync with everything "Don't You Forget About Me" was.

The Violent Femmes first album, which gave me the idea to write about all this--though i was at work and so half of my ideas are lost--is amazing, seemed to come out of nowhere, blew everyone's mind, defined the mood of youth for a moment....and then that's it for them. People still just want to hear them do "Kiss Off" and "Blister in the Sun".

Or, Beck has his fans. I'm one of them. But his record label and critics can't optimistically say "he's returning to his Odelay/Mellow Gold sound" and expect that to mean anything. They did that with Dylan in the 60's, and he didn't regain his footing 'till the mid 70's.
We're all 8-10 years older, and we were enjoying watching to see how Beck evolves.
Don't go turning this genius into a nostalgia act already. Instead, try to justify the existence of the Rolling Stones' new album.


Oye...rock. Why'd you have to be such a forum of contradictions? Jazz has no problem. "Contemporary/smooth/pop jazz" sucks and we all know it. But no one complains, in fact we all love it if a sax/bass/drums/piano combo just goes and blows the house down doing a Monk tune. No one's accusing them of being retro. It's traditional and it's awesome.
But don't we want rock and its many offspring to keep reinventing itself and not say "they got it right 30 years ago"

Ok, I really just started all this so I could say that the other morning I listened to the new Green Day album and really liked it. I am surprised as you are. It had hooks, it had melody, it had energy, and it seems that driving on a summer day, it's the album to listen to in 2005. Except that tired old production. Let the friggin toms ring a little! It ain't 1992 anymore.
In some ways, listening to it and the Arcade Fire back to back, it made me think how I'll often wade in the shallow, warm waters of Neil Diamond and be content rather than wrestle with the scary creatures in Leonard Cohen's ocean.

I think it's time for bed.

Just remember--cultural relevance + a good hook= your song being played in the background in an episode of Six Feet Under.