Resolutions — 2017

January 14, 2017 — Resolutions? Anybody? Personally, I never keep them. In fact, I think I make at least one resolution a week, then, well, the next week comes along. I suppose, if I had a resolution as far as this place is concerned, it would be to rock more, give people what they want more. So I decided to look for some news of upcoming 2017 expected new releases in the rock world. The rock websites are all excited, but I had one overwhelmingly nagging thought (yep, breaking that resolution from the get-go). I think current rock is too … something, …  too loud, too much. You know what? Too ugly. I swear to you, it’s just too ugly. Mind you, I looked at an article on Loudwire, the website with trending tags at the top for Metalica and Avenged Sevenfold, so for sure that place is hardcore. Still, the place actually made my case, my case that whatever current rock is …  is too ________ (you fill in the blank).

Loudwire had an article for 2017’s most anticipated expected new releases from rock acts. Mind you, I come into my reading believing the type of rock I like doesn’t exist now, save for The Pretty Reckless, but this isn’t about them, and I’m determined to find something to listen to, to look forward to other than, hopefully, a continued 2017 tour by The Pretty Reckless. So I read the list of acts with releases planned for 2017 that Loudwire says are the most anticipated. They are: Tool , Mastodon, Rammstein, Sour Stone, System of a Down, Five Finger Death Punch, AFI, Black Veil Brides, Kreator (releasing “Gods of Violence” on January 27), Alice in Chains, Linkin Park, Nine Inch Nails, Judas Priest, King Diamond, Papa Roach, Sepultura (releasing “Machine Messiah” on January 13 and it’s their eight release, whoever they are), Marilyn Manson, Overkill (releasing “The Grinding Wheel” on February 10), Immolation (releasing “Atonement” on February 24), Soundgarden, Steel Panther (releasing “Lower the Bar” on March 24), Immortal, In This Moment, Incubus, Morbid Angel, With Our Arms to the Sun, Seether, The Offspring, XJapan, Three Days Grace, Halestorm, Thirty Seconds to Mars, and Zach De La Rocha. The article had a rave review of this song, a December 2016 advance release from Black Veil Brides’ upcoming 2017 album; you be the judge:

My thought, save some exceptions, I gave you. It, like most of the remainder of the expected releases, is too…much, too loud, too ugly.  And another article on Loudwire’s site told me why.

In the other article, Loudwire recites the top albums from 1987. Mind you, one wonders why 1987, but their text gives the reason, albeit, a rather depressing recitation of facts. As for their reason, Loudwire says 1987 was a key year in the history of “hard rock.” They say “hard rock” in the ‘80s was “what most of us would currently consider as classic rock”, they term it “holdovers from 70s rock radio as radio programmers held strong to the format while there was the occasional breakthrough for harder sounding acts.” The depressing part – their view that the take-over by “harder sounding acts” was somehow good, as opposed to my view that it’s too much, too loud, too ugly. Look at what I mean. Here’s their 1987 list: (10) Great White, “Once Bitten”; (9) Faith No More, “Introduce Yourself”; (8) White Lion, “Pride”; (7) The Cult, “Electric”; (6) Motley Crue, “Girls, Girls, Girls”; (5) Jethro Tull, “Crest of a Knave”; (4) Aerosmith, “Permanent Vacation”; (3) Whitenake; “Whitesnake”; (2) Def Leppard, “Hysteria”, and (1) Guns ‘n’ Roses, “Appetite for Destruction”. Sure those things rocked, they had guitar, they had plenty of loud, but nothing was too. And there was some very pretty everything — pretty melodies, pretty guitars, pretty outfits, pretty music, pretty lyrics, pretty much nothing I would think of as ugly.

I just wonder, and mind you, I recognize people apparently don’t want to actually be pretty anymore, or worse, this I took from reading the comments to the Black Veil Brides video, that is thought of as pretty now. But is it asking too much for the music itself to have some element of beauty? To me, it really doesn’t have it when guitars just sound like they are saying bang, bang, bang. I think we went too far away from the roots of our music.

And this leaves me with that darned resolution – more rock. Personally, I find myself listening to music to satisfy a need in my own soul, my own life. That need, right now at least, is for peace, for calmness, a place to be soft, the opposite of the pushy people I have to deal with in life, a place to be loving and emotional. But I just don’t get soft, and loving and emotional from the hard rock of today. This week, I got it from old-school Ellie Goulding. Mind you, even Ellie seems frenetic now. Sure, I do like the EDM-inspired, pop-driven stuff she focuses on now, but I feel in love with her music though the acoustic tracks she used to do, circa 2010. And I have great respect for a girl who can play guitar too. So that’s where my own mind was this week – listening to the simple guitar and vocals of a voice I know so well, music I find to be soft, calm, loving and emotional.

I think: to heck with resolutions. And really I do like Ellie’s old guitar work, so I just have to inflict this on you all. It even makes me wonder, wonder if perhaps the rumors of Ellie also planning to release something in 2017 will bring a return to her own roots, the roots of her playing acoustic guitar and singing simple songs with meaning. I hope so. I think that music was so pretty. And I just can’t find much rock that is old-school pretty, well, except The Pretty Reckless. There’s always them. Oh, and a resolution. I need one for me, or I’m just not going to keep it. Let’s see. Oh I know! I’m going to … oh please let this one happen, make my own music, just for me, a cross between all the things I love, yet something soft, calm, loving and emotional. It requires a resolution because, let’s just say, it requires guitar, pretty guitar. To 2017!