1994 was a big year for Tim McGraw. With his first single, “Indian Outlaw,” he deftly revealed just how far we have to go with our relations with and conceptions of Native American people. Not that he meant to; he just released a terrible song, filled with awful clichés that reached Number One on the US charts because white people, right?
When Michael Been passed away in 2010, it was a loss to true believers everywhere. Those who shared in his beliefs lost a spokesman, one who was absolutely transparent about the struggles of keeping your balance on the righteous path. Fans of Been’s band, The Call, lost the promise and potential of new music. Rock lovers in general lost one of the best, a man who went practically unsung during his career, yet one whose absence leaves a perceptible gap.
Been left behind a multi-faceted legacy; not only does his music endure, but so does the music of his son, Robert Levon Been, leader of the band Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. In April of 2013, the heir apparent joined the old guard for a tribute concert to the fallen leader.
If you were to ask me what the worst song I’ve ever heard in my entire life is (go ahead; ask me, quietly, just whisper it in your mind), I would tell you without hesitation that Tim McGraw’s “Indian Outlaw” is the Abomination that Causes Desolation, the Thing That Should Not Be, the Final Solution of Country Music.
Todd Rundgren’s music has always been an acquired taste. His chart hits have felt like flukes, strange cracks in the system. You aren’t supposed to know who Todd Rundgren is. He leads a cult that resides so far underground, they may as well be Morlocks.
One of the reasons for this status is Rundgren’s musical twitchiness. He jumps from style to style, from Philly white-boy blues to synth-pop, from down and dirty rock and roll to salsa. Never knowing what he’ll do next is exciting for some, laborious for others.
In the late Seventies, Rundgren formed a band called Utopia. It was designed to be his big foray into progressive rock, exploring grand concepts and incorporating deep philosophical lyrics. As it gradually shrank from seven members to four, Utopia became one of the sharpest New Wave bands of its time, delivering perfect three-minute pop songs, deliciously textured with soaring, shifting harmonies.
Owing as much to Emerson, Lake and Palmer as they do to John Carpenter and Fabio Frizzi, Detroit instrumental synth-rockers Voyag3r (pronounced “Voyager Three”), create harrowing sci-fi soundtracks for non-existent films. Their first full-length release is called Doom Fortress, and it is precisely as happy as it sounds.
Better Than Ezra deserves credit for being one of the few bands to make it through the Nineties with their personnel and integrity intact. Lead singer Kevin Griffin has one of the most recognizable voices in the business and the band’s standard blend of light ska and clever catchy choruses is time-tested and successful. At the very least, Better Than Ezra has always been less painful to listen to than Train.
As I’ve said before, country music is a train wreck, a big one, where you can’t identify the body parts because they’ve been replaced by twisted steel and tiny fragments of seats and gears. Everything is all jumbled together and, unless you’ve happened to luck onto some old stuff, you can’t tell the country from the can’t-ry.
So why do I still listen?
Hope.
There comes a moment in every parent’s life where you realize that your kid is officially cooler than you. It’s a humbling moment. They spend so much time as younglings, looking up to you, enjoying all the music and movies that you like, because it’s all they know. And they want to be you when they grow up, because they can’t imagine anything greater.
This is the South, damn it, and we are nothing if not polite. When attempting to obtain female companionship, we may leer at a girl from a distance for a while, but really, that’s the same thing women do while shoe shopping. Look at the shoes, imagine what the shoes would look like on, think about taking them out for a night, and then return them to the store the next day because they just don’t fit.
Is that wrong?