Please Stop Believin’

Summer is almost upon us, and with it, lots of outdoor activities. Sports, block parties, festivals, and other places that require people and upbeat music for those people to (allegedly) enjoy. “Music” that for some reason always includes Journey’s 1981 abomination, “Don’t Stop Believin’.”

I hate this song. If my hate for this song took corporeal form, it would look like the child of Saddam Hussein and the Green River Killer. Only angrier, because it can’t escape the ubiquity of this terrible power-pop aural assault. “Don’t Stop”  was used as the theme song to the White Sox’s World Series run in 2005. It was featured in Monster, the last episode of The Sopranos, and spawned a hit as a cover after it was used on Glee. Needless to say, it was also featured on Family Guy, because the show’s lazy writers will eventually use every pop-culture reference from 1978 through 1999. I wouldn’t know just how much the song has been used, except for the fact that every time people hear this song, they go out and BUY IT, generating news stories about its status as one of the the best selling digital singles of all time.
Why on earth would anyone pay money for “Don’t Stop Believin’?” I don’t believe anyone really likes this song at this point, they’re just paying ninety-nine cents for nostalgia. Or worse, their parents’ nostalgia. If you suddenly find yourself with the need to hear it, stand in a public place and wait a few minutes. And then wait a bit more after it starts, because the idiotic chorus isn’t until the end of the song. Getting to the arm-waving, eyes-closed affirmation requires a full three minutes of  wading through the banal dreck of this dumb, dumb, song. And not gleefully dumb, like the Black Eyed Peas’ “I Gotta Feelin” or “My Humps,” or “Let’s Get Retarded” or…well, the Black Eyed Peas in general. It’s also not intentionally dumb like Beck’s “Loser” or Phish. Just dumb, like the things that a person with low intelligence would say. A person like Steve Perry, who stopped believin’ himself, when he quit Journey – twice. Perry wrote and sang the song and only later figured out that the city boy wasn’t raised in south Detroit, but in Windsor, Canada. Look at a map. The area south of downtown Detroit isn’t in the United States. The song that is now synonymous with American celebrations is about a Canadian, the very people who believe in five down football, the metric system, and red money.

In an interview, Perry said that the song is about “looking for that emotion hiding somewhere in the dark that we’re all looking for.” That’s a great summary, given that it’s exactly what he says in the goddamned song. I never thought I’d say this, but if we’re going to go gaga over songs from the early 80s about boys, girls, and their dreams, John Mellencamp’s “Jack and Diane” is a much better song. It’s clear that with references to Tastee Freeze and Boobie Brooks, Mellencamp is writing about what he knows. He wasn’t going to find out later he was singing about Canada. Is it possible that people in the early 80s were smarter than we were? Say what you will about parachute pants, permanent waves, or One Day at a Time,  but “Jack and Diane” was number one for four weeks in 1982, “Don’t Stop Believin'” never made it past number 9. People in the 80s — people who elected a President based on the hokey positivity of “it’s morning in America” – didn’t make the song ubiquitous, we did. So the lyrics for “Jack and Diane” don’t ring the same inspirational bell.  But I think “life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone” would be a great lyric to play at Wrigley Field, especially from August on. 

Is anyone really inspired by this song or is it just a Pavlovian response? People tell me it’s catchy. So is herpes. Would herpes be something you could enjoy in public if it were accompanied by a hummable keyboard intro?  While we’re at it, should we change it a cuter spelling, like “herpeez?” That’s beside the point. What’s really pernicious about “Don’t Stop Believin'” is that it  suggests that in the face of evil street lights and nasty people, listeners shouldn’t stop believing. In doing so, it becomes the theme song for all the positive thinking nonsense that’s been spreading like blistering sores around the mouth of our culture. The infection is everywhere, from giant hoaxes and cheats like “The Secret,” Prosperity Gospel and Lance Armstrong, to research that shows all this positivity might make you feel worse, leaving you with nothing but burned feet and unprepared for setbacks. Barbara Ehrenreich even makes a compelling argument that positive thinking led to the economy tanking. (Follow the links. They’re hilarious).

So don’t stop believin’ if you don’t want. Keep company with cheats and hucksters and their hoaxes, make yourself feel worse, and cost America jobs. Why don’t you hold on to that feelin’?

But do it in private. Because the song really sucks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2013: My Year in Music That Was Better Than Yours

About a year ago, I discovered an alarming conversational trend: I spent an awful lot of time talking to other parents about Costco and the deals and products found therein. I’d formed very strong opinions on the merits of the boneless skinless chicken breasts in the meat section versus the individually quick frozen breasts in the freezer section. In one particular conversation, I tried to change topics and mentioned some concert tickets I just bought. “Ugh,” one mom said, “we’re just too old to go to concerts anymore.” Others nodded. I felt as if she’d hit me with her giant mom purse, the full weight of the goldfish crackers and Purell smacking me in the face. There I was, in the tail end of my 30s and discovering that my friends were giving up. I drove home in my four cylinder brown Honda with little footprints on the seatbacks feeling very depressed.

I’ve had these moments of realizing how pathetic I’d become before; most recently when it occurred to me in quick succession that buying “dry scalp” shampoo and “relaxed fit” jeans was letting marketing folks make me feel better about being fat and having dandruff. There was also the time my wife told me I was barrel chested then swore she meant it as compliment. And this had nothing to do with the time she came back from getting her hair done and I told her she looked like Cheetara from Thundercats.

One day last year, I was really enjoying Spoon’s “I Turn My Camera On” and I realized it came out in 2005. Not coincidentally, my oldest son was born in 2005. I’d thought I still had relevant and interesting taste in music. I’d convinced myself that I wasn’t one of those parents who hadn’t noticed that Sting became a punchline in the mid 90s at the same time that U2 became a mediocre U2 cover band.  I was wrong. I’d noticed that U2 became a cover band, but then failed to notice that Wilco hadn’t been a scrappy underdog Chicago band in an entire decade. Some folks are trapped in the musical world of their college years, and I was trapped in the musical world of pre-children. That’s not better.

While I can’t help getting up at 6:30 on a Saturday or having to command another human to urinate, my waning musical relevance was something I could change. I dug out my headphones, subscribed to some podcasts, and started actively seeking out concerts. Just not ones that took place on school nights. Or might not have a place to sit, or featured too many kids dancing, or started after 9pm. But then, all I needed was a babysitter, earplugs, shoes with good ankle support, convenient parking, and a low calorie beverage and I was ready to rock.

My taste in music comes with a big caveat: I just don’t care how sad some twentysomething with a Pennsylvania Dutch beard is about losing his girlfriend. For God’s sake, Bon Iver – you’ll meet someone else. I can’t understand what you’re so upset about. And if I want music I can’t understand, I want it to be because I don’t speak Tamasheq. Or French. For that, there was the best concert I saw all year – Bombino at Martyrs‘. His guitar spoke to me. It said “hold onto your pants, because I’m trying to rock them off.” Luckily for other people in the audience, I could execute arrhythmic knee bends in my comfort-waisted jeans without them dropping. Probably because of this great elastic belt I got at Target. Rock on!

If Bombino was the show of the year, my song of the year might have been Parquet Courts’ “Master of My Craft.” My sons heard the title as “Master of Minecraft,” which meant they thought it was a pretty great song, too. “Master” has all of the key elements of a great rock song: barely intelligible yet catchy lyrics, a driving guitar, and a singer of exceedingly limited range. If you want beautiful singing, get a canary. This song makes me want to engage in some full-out erratic and awkward dancing, which I would do but for the fear of a witness calling an ambulance and looking for one of those defibrillator kits.

“Master of My Craft” was rivalled in play by “Rouse Yourself” by JC Brooks and the Uptown Sound.  In food culture, the locavore movement is all about showing how connected you are to the earth and your community by buying crappy chard at prices that no one else on earth or in your community can afford.  Thankfully, there’s no equivalent in music – the local stuff is great, and costs the same as the GMO frankentunes Big Music is trying to shove down our gullets. JC Brooks and the Uptown Sound is a killer Chicago band on Bloodshot Records, a label that is a block from my house. How’s that for local, you foodie mope? This is what going local is all about: feeling superior to everyone else — and I just put my carbon footprint on your ass.

I further burnished my locavore cred when I caught the great Chicagoan Mavis Staples at the Hideout Block Party. You really can’t feel old or slow when the 74 year old performer on stage is openly joking about this being the first concert since her knee replacement surgery. I worry that my hairline is beating a hasty retreat to my ears, and Mavis is belting out both classic and new songs with her grandkids in the wings. Following her resurgence in the last couple of years has been inspirational.

Speaking of inspirational – as is well documented, I am not a fan of God. No one should spend a significant portion of their weekend praising such a petty, mean-spirited, and vengeful deity — much less writing songs to and about him. Mavis Staples and the Staple Singers are the big exception to this. Even their most downbeat songs are optimistic, and the upbeat ones are ecstatic. It makes me wonder why anyone would listen to sappy heavy handed Christian “rock” when there’s still gospel music in the world. (Side note: the best cover song I discovered last year was the Staple Singers doing Talking Heads’ “Slippery People.”)

When I went back and reviewed my purchase history, I noticed that I only bought about a dozen new albums during all of last year, and went to a similar number of shows. Not all of those were new – I drag my wife to Steve Earle and Amadou and Maryam whenever they’re in town, and I bought Neko Case’s and the Arcade Fire’s new albums. But I did get to take my kids to a couple of shows, in the hope that someday they’ll have their own years in music that’ll be better than mine. And in 2014, I’m going to do better. I also just bought two pairs of regular fit jeans.

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