Let it go...and so fade away

While driving back into the city the other day, I found myself in need of a change from the usual WFMU/Howard Stern/Spotify playlist selections that tend to dominate my listening these days. My ears craved the comfort food of NYC classic rock radio. Once upon a time there were three stations to choose from – WNEW, K-ROCK, and Q104.3. It was difficult not to find a song you liked on at least one of the stations at any given time. With the consolidation and corporatization of radio stations and formats, only Q104.3 continues to churn out the classic rock. If the #1 radio market in the US can support only one classic rock station, I pity the smaller regions of the country that have to slurp up whatever morsels are available to them among the selections of rock-type music that are being cranked out today.

When I tuned in, I stumbled upon a staple of classic rock radio – the workforce block. To the uninitiated, a workforce block consists of 3-4 songs of the same artist. These blocks are usually requested by some person whose job allows him to be in close proximity to a radio so he can hear his name being uttered by the DJ as his songs are queued up. This particular block happened to be devoted to U2. For one thing, it’s interesting how U2 went from college rock radio to alternative radio to Top 40 radio to classic rock. That trajectory feels like the journey of my own life from youth to middle age. The last song of the block was “Bad”, now 31 years old.

While listening to the song my mind drifted back to the years 1984-1987, the same era when U2 straddled the fences of alternative rock and Greatest Rock Band In The World. I thought about how, at the age I was during that time, bands and songs had the ability to transform and uplift me beyond my self-loathing being. In those days there was an excitement around hearing the new single from whoever was the hottest band around at a certain point in time.

These days, music has become a throwaway commodity. For $9.99 per month I have access to millions of songs. It’s not like it once was when you had to be more discriminating about what music you were going to purchase because albums and CDs were more costly. It would be quite the task to assemble my Spotify library if I had to buy each album or song individually. The upside to this is that I’ve encountered a ton of good music without incurring great expense. I tend to save a track or band that captures my fancy but much of it is in-and-out. There’s no sense of permanence here. Most of the artists and songs don’t burn themselves into my consciousness in the same way that the songs of my youth did.

I’ll still get excited listening to older stuff but I wonder why I’m missing the transcendent nature that was part of my youth. Is it because I have it all ay my fingertips to be punched up immediately? Is it merely due to the passage of time that has brought me away from the time in life where the spark can happen? Or is it simply a question of the quality of what’s out there?

In regards to the last question, it’s too early in the digital music game to know what the longevity of today’s streaming superstars will be. Perhaps I’ll know more when I revisit this topic down the road.