April 23, 2017 — Last week, I gave you the ‘80s. I’ve always wondered something about the direction of music after the ‘80s, rock music anyways; I’ve wondered why when it went the direction it did, it never came back around. Lots of things come back around. I’m especially thinking of retro ‘50s design in furniture; that seems to be everywhere. For that matter, so are vinyl records. But what was it about ‘80s rock? Is it something that will be lost forever? A tangent in time, or will it come back around? And mind you, I’m not talking about nostalgia concerts. I get it. Those are doing really well. No, I’m talking about new bands picking up a style that has its roots, its influence in the ‘80s.

This week’s clip (an informal Part 2 to last week’s clip) is an ode to the guitar riff. It starts out historically pretty good, but it ends … downright sad, at least for me. It’s the guitar riff equivalent of the movie Marley and Me. If you’ve never seen that movie, stop when the dog grows up. Seriously, just stop. This one? I can tell you to stop around the 50:00 minute mark, when rock reigned supreme in the ‘80s, but if you don’t, you’ll get what I think might just be the answer to my question about why the ‘80s seems to have gotten lost in time. And the answer is the very thing that started it all – the guitar riff.

The clip starts with a Nirvana riff, and for a reason, because at the end, they have Nancy Wilson saying the ‘80s got away from us, then feature some bad garage-cover of Nirvana and proceed into actual Nirvana, as if the entirety of rock music was waiting for them. The message – that after the ‘80s, and continuing to today, rock, guitar-based music, went back to its roots, it’s guitar-riff roots.

Our theories as to the death of ’80s rock are simply wrong. No, it’s not that the grunge youth wanted to be depressed. No, it’s not that the times were tough and young people wanted music that wasn’t happy. At least one of us has argued that music dumbed down, that the guitars became much more simplified, that music became lesser. I don’t know if all of that is true. But I think it all could be. And the answer, according to this video, as to why it never got more complicated again (other than according to the laws of physics, things don’t tend to organize, they tend to move towards chaos, or so I remember), is because people like the guitar riff, and that music simply went on an illogical tangent away from the guitar riff, to return with Nirvana and the bands that came afterwards. Yes, I’m saying guitar riff a lot, kind of like repeating a guitar riff in a song. And seriously, the video could be right, who knows? But personally, I see the ’80s like an alternate time line.

Visualize time as a subway line that has two trains on it; let’s call them the Red Line and the Purple Line. By the way, this is my cities’ subway; there are other trains, but these are the main trains within the city of Los Angeles. I know, not so much in the way of trains here, but they are what I know.

If you’re traveling in or around downtown, the rail lines are the same, and both the Purple Line and the Red Line trains stop, alternating as to which train arrives. Both have their roots in the same place, along the same stops, but the Red Line took off, got built first, and went all the way to the Valley, past Universal Studios to North Hollywood. The Purple Line continues past downtown on the same rails with the Red Line, but veers off at Western and goes just one more stop to Vermont. At Western, the Red Line train switches tracks traveling then north to Hollywood, then into the Valley.

I’m not sure if it’s my daily drive over Wilshire and Fairfax, which is substantially west of Vermont, where the underground construction of what will become the Purple Line’s extension west on Wilshire from its current end at Vermont to its planned end at the beach, that is influencing this theory, or whether it’s just hopeful thinking. But….Picture this.

Let’s call modern rock the Red Line, and ‘80s rock the Purple Line. Nivrana, Nirvana is the Western-Wilshire stop, the convergence of the Red Line and the Purple Line. At Nirvana, The Purple Line tried to keep going, but it got only one stop down Wilshire where it stopped at Vermont … for decades. The Red Line, however, went a completely different direction all the way to the valley … and thrived. But the Purple Line wasn’t happy, so it woke up. (Okay, a whole bunch of bond measures woke up and tons of money is being spent on contractors, with Wilshire Boulevard closed to the point of driving us all nuts, but you get the imagery.) So, the Purple Line woke up, and said, “hey, I think I want to keep going; forget that one stop, I’m going to the ocean!” And (when all this construction ends) the Purple Line … will be!

Could it be that rock music is going to have its own Purple Line? A subway, an alternate time-line, that wakes up?

Personally, I think so. I believe, somehow, some way, that ‘80s music is influencing people. I see it in The Pretty Reckless, so why not more? I believe others elsewhere are working on music, music that’s not the same, but that rocks, and that has killer guitars, probably even guitar riffs too, and lyrics you can hear, and that appeals to all… influenced by music from the ‘80s. I’ve seen kids on YouTube doing ‘80s inspired music and covers, so hopefully someday, the radio plays them. I think it will happen. I think there will come a day when… the musical “Purple Line” will be born, and music will change back to its alternative time line.