You know how people who hate Nickelback are nonetheless forced to reconcile their distaste with the fact that, were it not for Nirvana, the band could not exist? Well, the same could be said for David Bowie and ABC. I’m a died-in-the-wool Bowie fan, and it both annoys and enthralls me that every aspect of this song — from Martin Fry‘s flamboyant baritone to the relentless electro pulse — is ripped from the Thin White Duke’s hymnal (with a sprinkling of Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music). But the song is more than a sum of its parts: ABC’s exuberance comes through loud and clear in every call-and-response chorus and gated snare thwack.

As you were.

As far as hoary, oft-repeated sayings go, it’s hard to beat “rock is dead.” The origin of the phrase is shrouded in mystery — like the etymology of “heavy metal” — but it’s not hard to picture Lester Bangs coining it while reviewing the latest Lou Reed long-player in his underwear, specks of Robitussin drying on his mustachioed upper lip.

In reality, people have been claiming “rock is dead” since the genre wriggled its way into the repressed loins of America’s bobbysockers. Every so often, a new pack of scruffy young kids with guitars are labeled as its saviors, but it never lasts. ROCK IS DEAD. Long live paper and scissors!

But what if we had empirical evidence that rock really was dead? Or at least in a state of such dissolution that its resurgence was a probabilistic impossibility? To know for sure, we’d need data.

Now we’ve got some.

This article in The Hollywood Reporter indicates that rock is a spent force in the marketplace, squeezed out by more persistent pop forms. Based on a recent study highlighting the ubiquity of synth-pop, the news may be the final nail in rock’s coffin. (I’m just shocked that there was room for one more.)

According to Hit Songs Deconstructed, 79 percent of top 10 pop hits used a synthesizer as the song’s primary instrument. That’s up from 62 percent a year ago and seems to signal that the current electro-pop fad is here to stay — at least a little while longer. Further boosting that theory: the fact that 88 percent of Top 10 songs used electric-based instrumentation. As for the least popular instrument? The guitar, which hit a low of 4 percent during the second quarter of 2011….

…as for lyrical themes in pop music, “hooking up” is the most popular so far in 2011, prevalent in 38 percent of hit songs, followed by “inspirational” songs, which have steadily increased to account for 25 percent of the Top 10 in the second quarter of 2011, “partying/clubbing” (21 percent) and “love/relationships” at 17 percent. Curiously, any “other” categories of lyrical themes have failed to register at all, coming in at zero percent so far in 2011. Last year, when music listeners were seemingly interested in a little more than sex, it was at 9 percent.

Now, it’s easy to come right back and say that the vast majority of rock songs have been about fucking. That may be true, but the flexibility and durability of the form was such that it could include both “Wango Tango” and “Roundabout” in the same canon. I’m not sure that today’s pop will evolve to the same extent.

For those of us who still traffic in this antiquated form, there are more troubling indicators:

Other curious trends pointed to a steep drop in solos, down from 17 percent to 5 percent of hits, and the once popular bridge portion of a song now only exists in 42 percent of songs, down from 54 percent last quarter and 55 percent a year ago.

You may think that it’s perfectly fine to eliminate the guitar solo. Years of co-existing with jam bands elicits a certain sympathy for that worldview. I still enjoy them (if they’re well-placed and say something), but they aren’t a musical necessity. I have more of a problem with the idea that nobody employs bridges anymore. Sure, some of them are useless, but they are a time-honored construct that helps to give songcraft a form. I’m all for experimental art, but eliminating the bridge is kind of like saying we’re no longer going to bother with paragraph breaks. Can you get away with it? Probably. But it says something about our society if we abandon such formalities. It’s a short hop from here to anarchy. Anarchy, I tell you!

One thing that I like about having quantitative data on the death of rock is that it liberates me to keep making it. I am The Contrarian, after all. It would hardly befit my status to toil in a popular genre.

As always, we’re interested in your reactions. What do you think of this data? Was rock dead all along, and we’re just now noticing? What if it turns into a zombie? Are we prepared for that?

HAPPY RAPTURE!

The Contrarian Media and LUX ETERNA wanted to take this moment to celebrate your imminent ascendancy to His Kingdom.

What’s that? Not getting Raptured? Well we’ve got the perfect consolation prize.

Here’s a brand new track from Strange Angels just in time for End Times:

Did you know The Contrarian has an audio division? Well, we do, and it’s awesome.

The label is called LUX ETERNA and we’re getting ready for a couple of exciting releases this summer, with more in the queue.

First up is the new album from The Ten Thousand Things, who you all know as Contrarian Library Scientist Wes Covey.

The record is called Anastam, and we’re releasing it in a few exclusive packages:

Anastam I
1. Immediate download of the album in any file format you want, including high quality lossless
2. Limited edition litho album art suitable for hanging
3 High-quality art photos and zen poems inspired by Anastam (PDF)
4. Antique library card embossed with a unique magickal theorem
5. Liner notes
6. T-shirt

Anastam II
1. Immediate download of the album in any file format you want, including high quality lossless
2. Limited edition litho
3. High-quality art photos and zen poems inspired by Anastam (PDF)
4. Liner notes

Anastam III
1. Immediate download of the album in any file format you want, including high quality lossless
2. High-quality art photos and zen poems inspired by Anastam (PDF)
3. Liner notes

These nifty packages will be available exclusively at the LUX ETERNA shop.

Next up is the debut from Strange Angels — the recording project of composers/producers Arthur Leon Adams III and Casey Rae-Hunter. This baby runs the gamut from art-pop to Beatles bounce to psychedelica, with a little They Might Be Giants thrown in for good measure. Here’s a track called “Hotel Suite,” which is definitely more on the “psych epic” side of things:

Seconds after the Canadian critical darlings scored their Album of the Year Award for The Suburbs, the indignant masses took to Twitter, revealing the fact that a large percentage of viewers had never heard of them. Take that, Egypt! America demands Grammy satisfaction!

Forget for the moment that Arcade Fire was lauded in TIME four years ago; never mind the planetary fawning over their 2004 debut (I was the lone professional dissenter) — this win was clearly suspicious.

Check out Who Is Arcade Fire, which aggregates the outrage. Here’s a lovely example from Tawny Kitaen, the 1980s vixen best known for writhing on sportscars in that Whitesnake video:

OK, I’m not THAT old but whos Arcade Fire? & worse who the hell thinks their good? Did I just lose all my followers? Cuz they sucked, sorry.

What are these people gonna do when the Decemberists win next year?

Although it is amusing that anyone sees the Grammys as a bellwether of musical culture (or even record sales), the controversy underscores a broader trend in American life — namely, the emotionally unsettling effects of cultural fragmentation. And this phenomenon cannot be separated from contemporary politics.

The reason for this fragmentation is due to the saturation of information channels. No longer does commercial radio — or the Grammys, for that matter — shape the tastes of the masses. We’ve got a million outlets, and there’s an ass for every seat. This can be very discomfiting to the herd mentality.

Many Americans, still sucking on the Big Media teet, view this fracturing as suspicious, if not dangerous. It’s as if NPR and the Kenyan in the White House are conspiring to make culture something they just can’t comprehend. In actuality, Obama is more conservative than Nixon, and Arcade Fire closer to Bruce Springsteen than G.G. Allin (Google him.)

But that doesn’t matter. America’s heebie-jeebies are being played out on both the political and pop culture stages.

It ain’t about age. It ain’t about who’s “hip.” It’s about whether the tenuous fabric that connects us as a culture can be maintained in an environment where people ONLY get their news from FOX or MSNBC; where either you listen to Black Eyed Peas or Drake; whether you’re a birther or a rational human being.

Maybe it’s because Arcade Fire are Canadian. They do have single-payer healthcare and all. Not going broke due to medical expenses is socialist! Interestingly, Justin Bieber — who many people think was robbed of his rightful award — recently called America “evil” for our lack of a full-coverage medical system.

I wonder if we can make the Culture Wars part of our defense spending? Maybe build a virtual border wall between us and our neighbors to the north? That’ll create some jobs, right?

Baby sees the future, tells me it’s got nothing for us… Nostra… Nostradamus — sung to the tune of Lady GaGa’s “Paparazzi.”

Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, aka Lady GaGa, hasn’t been in the public eye for very long, but given the hype, you could be excused for thinking that it’s been just shy of forever. Credit where due: it’s no small feat to direct the attention of today’s attention-deficient masses and sustain it for more than the length of a tweet. Yet it seems the grains in GaGa’s hourglass have finally begun falling, and we all know what that means: time is fleeting for the new Queen of Pop.

I’m not so bold as to call GaGa’s back-to-back appearances on “60 Minutes” and the Grammys a shark-jump, but it may be where her fame clock officially began ticking. For someone who claims dominion over the apparatus of fame itself, both events made a conspicuously feeble impression. Not among her fans — those already under her spell remain so. But if you are not a GaGa devotee (I believe she calls them “monsters”), you likely regarded Ms. Germanotta’s Old Media blitz as the definition of meh. Not even worth being annoyed/disturbed/fascinated/repelled by.

Probably not even worth a blog post.

In fact, the reason that I’m even bothering with this exercise is because I have an obsession with epoch-setting calendar events, however minor. So, I’m calling this one for the record: February 13, 2011 marks the official beginning of GaGa’s decline.

Since we’re here, let’s examine why. Admittedly, nobody under the age of 35 watches “60 Minutes,” so GaGa’s aimless interview with Anderson Cooper will have had a negligible impact on her core demographic. Actually, I’m willing to bet the venerable program was the true beneficiary, as GaGa’s most obsessive fans temporarily bolstered the number of viewers who tune in to witness Andy Rooney‘s burgeoning dementia. (Forgive me, Morley Safer, for I have sinned…)

On “60 Minutes,” GaGa came across like a distracted grad school gal sweating her final thesis. With regards to her peacockery and calculated weirdness, I believe this Lady doth protest too much. GaGa did everything she could to impress upon Cooper that she fully understands each symbol that informs her meticulously crafted persona. This is the wrong move for someone who trades in the techno-cryptic. We don’t need you to tell us that you know why we’re enraptured. It kind of ruins it.

GaGa keeps explaining that she’s a “student of fame.” Nice work if you can get it, but forgive those of us who have witnessed several historic superstar permutations for expecting a little more. It’s not that GaGa is drawing incorrect conclusions from her studies. It’s just that, unlike true alchemists of adoration, she adds no new ingredients to the stew. Everything GaGa does, says, or reflects is a pale reflection of her forbears’ more innovative expression.

Surely it is difficult to be original in a fractured culture saturated with corporate and brand symbols. But to be regarded as an artist of lasting stature, one at least has to try. GaGa’s schtick can be boiled down to Madonna and David Bowie, with a dash of Freddie Mercury and Elton John. Maybe some Cher, with her penchant for pantslessness and warbly singing. If only pastiche were a substitute for genius!

Back in Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust phase, he tapped into a similar longing for acceptance that animates GaGa’s fans. Bowie took the idea of alienation and turned it into an Alien Nation — a clan of disaffected youth who reveled in their estrangement by exaggerating it through gaudy makeup and “tacky things.” What Bowie did was hardly subtle, but at least he had the good sense not to fucking tell us what he was doing. He respected his audience more than that. In fact, he respected his audience so much that he dragged a portion of them kicking and screaming through his metamorphosis into the Thin White Duke. But that’s a tale for another time.

What’s GaGa’s next act? Does she even have one? Judging from her musical output, probably not.

Speaking of her music, it’s hardly worth mentioning at this point that her new single, “Born this Way” is a melodic and rhythmic clone of Madonna’s “Express Yourself.” Not that The Material Girl seems to care. The aging succubus will surely find a way to suck some extra lifeforce out of her sycophantic understudy.

GaGa’s performance at the 2011 Grammys was, despite the requisite costumery and dancers, surprisingly bereft of spectacle. My favorite part was the beginning, when she hatched out of some kind of space egg, a la Mork from Ork or Spinal Tap in “Rock ‘n’ Roll Creation.”

Seriously:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vbi5Zegp55o

And here’s Lady GaGa:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Jxm_NMwEdo

Many of us who can afford to eat more than once a day are any combination of bored, distracted or overwhelmed. We require escapism, and for some, GaGa delivers. Better still, she does so in a way that champions a vague sense of self-empowerment (Madonna) and commiseration with fellow outcasts (Bowie). But can that sustain a career? On some essential level, Madonna possesses the raw material of which lasting art is made (I can’t believe I just said that). Bowie, for his part, is an ace showman/manipulator. He’s also a fabulous musician who had to grow into that role. Yes, Bowie, too, struggled to transcend his influences — Velvet Underground, Dylan, Bolan, Iggy. But he eventually did so, and triumphantly.

Can GaGa do the same? Clock’s ticking.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqY6mXULzpw

Billy Joel was angry at this live concert taping in the former Soviet Union due to the fact that the lighting crew kept shining on the audience. This made the kids stop dancing, because they were nervous the secret police would see their faces on video and harass them later. The Piano Man simply wanted them to have a good time at his show, and who can blame him?

The dude can certainly rage with the best of them, though. Reminds me of Trent Reznor at Lollapalooza ’91, minus the dorky braids and mid-afternoon strobe light.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkYfB1C0Zgc

According to the band, “all 215 loaves of bread used in the making of this video were past their sell-by date and rescued from the clutches of certain disposal.”

Disposal in mah belly!

This is one of those silly Facebook exercises where someone “tags” you, and you come up with a list of favorite whatevers. I got poked by this one a couple of times, and, since it involves the expressing of contempt, I figured I’d give it a go. It was actually kind of fun to take my music critic knives out of the drawer, which have retained something of their former edge.

At the end of the day, all I really care about is that Casey Niccoli — muse extraordinaire and fabled “Classic Girl” of Jane’s Addiction, whose unclothed effigy graced the covers of two of the greatest rock records in history — liked my list. I can now lay these tired bones to rest.

But I’ll stick around just for you.

————————————

Bands I Can’t Stand

Some of these are pretty dated. I used to keep a “nut-kicking list” with acts upon whom I would, given the opportunity, inflict testicular trauma. I’ve softened somewhat in my old age, but I still hate their music.

1. Live
There’s nothing more irritating than people pretending to be enlightened. Ed Kozwhaterverthefuckhisnameis is guilty of that and more. The “more” being an adenoidal singer in a third-rate alternative band. Live’s pseudo-revelatory twaddle belongs in the spiritual supermarket right next to the yoga pants and The Secret audiobook.

2. Soul Asylum
Fugly bastard dated Winona! That’s an unforgivable offense right there. Have you ever listened to the lyrics to “Runaway Train?” So bad it actually causes the part of my brain that processes poetry to seize up. Their music is terrible, too. No, I don’t need to hear about their Midwestern punk days. Shut up and listen to Gun Club, twerps.

3. Collective Soul
Clearly, I carry a lot of residual anger concerning radio rock from around 1992-1998. Collective Soul earns a sizable portion of my outrage. You know this band is worthless by the fact that  they haven’t been licensed for a truck commercial more than a decade after their “prime.”

4. Widespread Panic/Government Mule/moe.
Nothing worse than a blue collar jam band. I love the original Allman Brothers, but they had soul, chops and a fuckin’ fire under their asses. These half-assed classic rock noodlers have none of those attributes. And their fans are dumb as rocks (in my experience, anyway).

5. Styx
Worst rock band in history. Annoying on every conceivable level.

6. Ted Nugent
It’s not the politics, but that doesn’t help. It’s the fact that he’s a shitty guitar player and worse songwriter. He drifted in on the fumes of far greater talents, most of whose names the public has never heard. Nuge is like KISS but without the makeup and flash pots. Which is like Courtney Love without the drugs: totally forgettable.

7. KISS
I like the song “Detroit Rock City.” Well, compared to the rest of their catalog, anyway. To all of you fellas in suspended adolescence who still pathetically exalt these greedy no-talents: put the Gene Simmons doll on eBay and help your long-suffering wife get the kids ready for school.

8. James Taylor
Bangs said it best. No need to elaborate.

9. Iron Maiden
If only they’d kept their first singer, that cokehead UK pub punk. This particular wave of NWOBHM never should have never made it to shore.

10. Bruce Springsteen
I actually like a lot of his stuff, but he makes my list just because all of those sycophantic dinguses who can’t seem to understand that, taken in the aggregate, his work is MERELY AVERAGE. At least Dylan can suck profoundly. Bruce is even dull at that.

Instead of itemizing every single reason why I cannot stand “Glee” or “American Idol” or any other mass-culture product that further strips art from music, I’ll let this clip from Step Brothers speak for me:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbJHlrOJyng

I rest my case.