Tag Archives: music

Music for the Ages

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By Jason Menard

Sometimes it takes a new set of ears to remind you how powerful music can be – and how it can move your soul.

That new set of ears came from my five-year-old daughter. On the weekend, as I was cleaning the basement – that new mess, of course, also came from my five-year-old daughter with a healthy assist from her 12-year-old brother – I decided to break up the monotony by putting on a CD.

Compounding the fact that I was dating myself with that aging format – I find the MP3 format seems so cold – I decided to delve into my personal archives for a long-lost friend. The band doesn’t matter, but it’s safe to say that I haven’t heard them in over a decade. But as the first ballad on the CD played, my daughter perked up and came to me, arms extended, asking to dance.

As we danced, I thought about how powerful music truly is. How it can create such a heartwarming memory, and how it can literally help define who we are. That night, my daughter asked for that same CD as her nighttime music – and, with just a few chords, our common bond was strengthened again.

My daughter loves music. She sings all day. Whether it’s the songs she’s learning at school or the latest hits on radio, music is a big part of her life – just as it was for me.

But as we age, that passion for music seems to fade. As a youth, in my teenage years, my friends and I used music to define who we were – and, more importantly, who we weren’t. While others were listening to the Top-40 songs that saturated the airwaves, we were delving into our past to find music with meaning. I suppose, in a way, we were looking for depth in our music to make up for our relative lack of depth in life experience.

While others were listening to dance and pop, I was delving into Elvis, The Beatles, and Bob Dylan. Some were content to Fight for their Right to Party, while I was reliving a counter-culture youth I never experienced with Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. I chose The Cure, The Clash, and The Smiths, over The The.

I was deep. Even if growing up in a middle-class, suburban environment left me as deep as a puddle in reality, my music showed the world that I got it! I understood the world and wasn’t going to conform.

Then something funny happened. I grew up – and I started tuning out.

That same syntho-techno dance crap that I would rail against actually turned out to be pretty good. Those 80’s cheese songs that I thought were the bane of my existence actually turned out to be pretty damn fun to sing along to. And I stopped defining myself by what I listened to, choosing instead to define myself by who I am.

In essence, music no longer defined who I was. It was simply a part of my life. I didn’t need to be the tortured poet or the whimsical bard. I could simply be Jay. And if I find the new Avril Lavigne or Nelly Furtado song catchy, then who am I to second-guess? There’s no Sex Pistols’ credibility card out there – and it certainly wouldn’t be revoked if I’m caught bouncing my head to pop radio. Grandmaster Flash, NWA, and Public Enemy won’t turn their backs on me because I’m singing along with the flavour-of-the-month Hip Hop artist today.

Heck, even Parliament/Funkadelic wouldn’t begrudge listening to Justin Tim… well, on second thought, not even I’m ready to go there.

Looking back on it, the depth that I was conscribing from my music has been displaced by my life-earned knowledge and wisdom. Before I was searching for music that I could relate to, that I could play as a calling card exclaiming to the world “Here I am, here’s who I want to be.” Now, I am who I am and I’ll let that speak for itself.

We spend so much time in our adult lives searching for pleasure, it seems like such a waste when we deny ourselves a full range of musical enjoyment in our youth. But that’s just a fact of life, I guess. It’s a part of maturing. As youth, we define ourselves by those with whom we associate – for better or for worse.

In the end, I’ve found that those who are most prone to criticizing things that are popular or, even worse, not obscure enough, are usually those who are most apt to define themselves by their influences. Instead, I’d prefer to define myself by who I influence – and that starts with raising quality, generous, intelligent children.

Of course, if I can start them off with a few solid bands to help them find there way, well then there’s no harm in that? After all, eventually they’ll just tune them out and be themselves – defined by who they are, not what they listen to.

2007© Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

Losing My Appetite for Destruction

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By Jason Menard

Which will come first the Guns N’ Roses album Chinese Democracy or the actual advent of true Chinese Democracy in the communist nation? But perhaps the better question is while we all care about the latter, does anyone care about the former.

I mean, really, Guns N’ Roses? I’m 33 and my memory of them is fading, so how can they compete in a market that’s already focusing on finding the next thing – not resurrecting the ghosts of fading rockers. Or should we say fading rocker? Because, in truth, the new Guns N’ Roses is nothing more than an Axl Rose vanity project. Slash is long gone… the other guys that you also don’t remember are gone, and in their place are a couple of guys who seemingly have no shame – or at least don’t mind appropriating the name that someone else built.

Yes, to no one’s surprise, the album Chinese Democracy, which was scheduled to be released in March is, once again, off the schedule. At this point, it’s probably safer for all involved just to flush the recordings down the toilet and call it a night, because nothing’s going to live up to 10 years of expectations.

Well, maybe we should qualify the term expectations. After all, is there anyone out there who thinks this album is going to be any good? Most memorable records – and I know I’m dating myself with this terminology – are reflective of a certain era or moment in time. They capture the cultural zeitgeist and translate it into an aural experience that transcends cultures, beliefs, and styles. Memorable music is such that it allows individuals to feel that they’re sharing a common experience, in the here and now, which allows them to find something to which they can relate in the music.

So when an album takes over a decade to record, can there truly be any cohesiveness? Will tracks on this new album already be dated due to the fact that, perhaps, they were penned three or four boy-band cycles ago?

Oh, by the way, did I mention 21 members? A quick search of the Wikipedia – admittedly, not the most reliable source of information, but certainly au courant when it comes to pop culture – shows that there are and have been 21 current and former members of the band. When that many parts have been interchanged, can it even be considered the same entity anymore? Or is Guns N’ Roses nothing more than Lee Majors’ Steve Austin with an amp?

Admittedly, I’m not the biggest G N’ R fan. I enjoyed Appetite for Destruction as a high schooler and will still sing along to some of the standards from that album like Sweet Child O’ Mine. And I liked the next couple of albums. But that was then, this is now. I don’t feel the need to find out what Axl thinks right now – I didn’t even care much then.

Over a decade’s worth of expectations have been built up. Even if Chinese Democracy was a modern-day White Album, there’s no possible way that it could live up to the amount of time it took to bring it to masses.

So what’s the alternative? In this case, perhaps the music not heard could grow in stature until it reaches the status of urban legend. If the band burned the masters now, then stories could start circulating from those privy to the studio sessions who could say that the music was unlike anything ever heard. Axl Rose could become the musical equivalent of J.D. Salinger! After all, many myths exist about the one great book that Salinger is sitting on in his self-exile – one that will never see the light of day after his death. Really, even if gold drips off the pages while you read it, no printed word could leave a more indelible imprint on one’s mind than what your own imagination has crafted to fill the void.

So too should it be for Chinese Democracy. Instead of releasing what’s sure to be a disappointment and staining the band’s legacy (kind of like what’s happened to Paul McCartney with his recent string of less-than-memorable releases) Axl and the boys should take solace that they were big once and not tamper with those memories.

And if absence truly does make the heart grow fonder, then the band – and its never-to-be-released album – could reach icon status just by doing what everyone else in the world has done – give up on the album ever seeing the light of day.

2007© Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

Rewinding the Soundtrack of Our Game

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By Jason Menard

Who knew that from the ashes of the organ would rise, Phoenix-like, a much more obnoxious beast? And, like the guy who recycles the same stable of jokes each time you meet him, it’s time to say enough is enough!

The majestic organ interludes of our past have been replaced by a far more insidious beast – the arena DJ who is overly self-impressed with his own wit. Anyone who’s attended a hockey game recently knows that the musical interludes during a game can be painful. Like a bad schoolyard pun, the music selections elicit more groans than grins and can, in fact, take away from an otherwise-improved product.

It was bad enough that hockey arenas were the last bastion of ‘90s dance-pop. While Pump Up the Jam and Get Ready 4 This long stopped echoing off the dance floor and from the radio airwaves, they are in regular rotation at any arena across the continent. By all rights, 2 Unlimited and Technotronic should have faded into Behind-the-Music-esque obscurity, but their continued existence is validated by these faceless few manning the soundboards.

And it’s not enough to simply rehash the less-than-classics. Perhaps resentful of the fact that all those in attendance are there to watch the on-ice action and not appreciate their disc jockeying talents, these self-same few seem to enjoy inflicting aural pain on their captive audience. How else can you explain the repeated playing of Cotton Eye Joe, a song that sticks in your brain in much the same manner – and with a similar effect – of a tumour?

But all of this sadistic musical torture could be excused if not for the indulgence of their alleged wit. A phenomenon that I would like to refer to as Situational Song Styling is growing in popularity. You’ve probably experienced it first-hand: from the playing of War’s Why Can’t We Be Friends? during (or after) a fight to Eric Carmen’s All By Myself when a player finds himself alone in the penalty box, these stadium DJs attempt to dazzle us with their ability to reference song lyrics to on-ice situations.

The list just goes on and on: Carl Douglas’ Kung Fu Fighting after a scrap; Kenny Loggins’I’m Alright following an injury; Supertramp’s Waiting So Long during a stoppage in play or while the referees are reviewing a play. These songs – and the artists – have earned their rest and their rightful place in the back of the discount rack. And that’s where they should stay.

Bad music just cheapens the game and we as fans do nothing about it. While we could never imagine replacing Flight of the Valkyries with the Theme from Greatest American Hero (Believe it or Not) during that climactic scene in Apocalypse Now, we have no problem tarnishing an exciting hockey game with a rousing rendition of Mambo #5.

There’s something to be said for paying the game of hockey the respect it deserves. Yes, the game’s supposed to be exciting, yes it’s supposed to be fun, but the music is supposed to enhance the on-ice product. It’s not supposed to detract from it, or, worse, attempt to steal attention away from it.

That’s why it’s time to bring back the organ to our beloved game of hockey. PlayingY.M.C.A. does nothing but distracts the fans from the on-ice action and removes them from the game. However, a few notes on an organ can ramp up the fans’ involvement in the action. An organ fanfare leading to an enthusiastic, “Charge!” increases the shared experience. No matter what your denomination, Havah Nagilah is the perfect tune to build up a fan’s enthusiasm to a rousing crescendo.

There was something majestic about the pairing of organs and hockey arenas. And with the death of the arena in Chicago Stadium in 1994 that era passed. We’ve moved from a time where arenas bore symbolic names to where a team’s home is nothing more than a commodity to be sold. That commercialization has entered into the on-ice realm as well, with this cheapening of the musical experience. The grand ol’ game of hockey is in danger of devolving into a basketball-like spectacle, where every stoppage of play must be obscured by mind-numbing, pulse-pounding music. But fans have more of an attention span than that and it’s time to take back our game – and its soundtrack.

As it stands now, the ambiance of our game is overwhelmed by the ego and alleged wit of a faceless DJ. And perhaps they remain cloaked in anonymity because they know that if we as fans could, just once, face the music – or at least the person behind the music – there’d be hell to pay. While I’m not advocating violence, there are, in fact, fates far worse than that.

Yes, as punishment, we could subject these arena DJs to an endless loop of Who Let the Dogs Out and That’s the Way I Like It. It shouldn’t be too hard to find a copy – after all, we know these DJs have them in their library!

2006© Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

Gorging Ourselves on Media Pop Tarts

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By Jason Menard

So, after months of speculative bombardment – headlines shouting from the covers of the magazine racks infiltrating us through osmosis as we wait to pay for groceries – Nick and Jessica have officially split.

But it’s not the glossy celebrity rags or trashy tabloids that are spouting off this news – it’s the respected sites: CBC, CANOE, CNN, and MSNBC that have chosen to feature this minor piece of fluff on their respective front pages. On a day when the gauntlet has been thrown down in order to disband our Canadian minority government and on a day when the U.S. is celebrating Thanksgiving, Nick and Jessica’s breakup is on the marquee.

In fact, why can I comfortably refer to them without their surnames and be reasonably confident that you, the reader, will know who they are? The reason is that we’ve let the banal and trivial become relevant!

All the news that’s fit to print – no matter if the substance is so light that it will blow away with the next gentle breeze. Which all goes to prove that, no matter how fluffy the meal may be – or no matter how full we are — if a meal is wrapped up in a pretty package we’ll gorge ourselves at the buffet of banality and head back for seconds!

Did you hear? Pamela Anderson is now pressuring the Loblaws grocery chain to label which eggs have come from caged chickens, in order to allow shoppers the freedom to choose whether they want to buy their eggs from free range, happy chickens, or continue to support the oppression and cruelty of evil doers who would force these helpless hens to pop them out in sub-standard conditions so that you can enjoy a nice omelette.

Really? Why? With all the people in the world who are eminently more qualified to speak to issues – or even clutter our airwaves – why are we so focused on these vixens of vapid (in Nick’s case he’d be a fox of vapid, but that doesn’t have the same cachet.)?

At least in Anderson’s case, I’d like to think that she’s using her powers for good. With Nick and Jessica, this he-said-she-said, on-again-off-again questioning, reeks of nothing more than a way to keep their names in the headlines for yet another week. Perhaps now we can state ourselves through the holiday season by being regaled with the inevitable reconciliation rumours and next round of spats.

And we buy it, hook, line, and sinker. In both Simpson and Anderson’s cases they’ve translated a paltry amount of talent and an ample bust into relevancy. But they’re not the first and they certainly won’t be the last, because when it comes to cornering the market on being newsworthy for nothing, women corner the market. In fact, although Nick Lachey is often tabloid fodder, it’s more as an appendage to the media machine that is Jessica Simpson (see, they do have last names!). On his own, he can now count down the remaining few ticks of his 15 minutes and start looking back at what was.

Yes, women mount the publicity pedestal and we can’t stop watching. The sex-kitten Madonna begat Whitney Houston and her drug whispers. Houston begat Mariah Carey and her breakdown. Carey begat Jennifer Lopez and her serial marriages. Lopez begat Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and Jessica Simpson who moved from chaste, virginal paragons of society to publicity-grabbing, borderline-jailbait, sex objects. This unholy trinity begat the over-exposed — in every sense of the word — Paris Hilton. And this is hardly a comprehensive list: the names Lohan, Doherty, Kournikova, Reid, Jolie, and Aniston have all hog-tied the headlines for nothing more than being themselves.

Guys are few and far between – although what we miss in quantity we certainly make up for in quality (a relative term): Michael Jackson anyone? Paging Mr. Simpson and Mr. Blake – the real killers are waiting.

No, our hunger for banality is only sated with a side order of salaciousness. Our Q&A needs to have a little T&A to have any, uhm, legs. And it’s only going to get worse. The Wired World has opened up new avenues for investigation and insinuation. The advent of 24-hour news means that each and every topic has ample time to be analyzed – and over analyzed – to death.

And with each of these stories, the accompanying images are always as lascivious as standards will allow. With almost every Simpson story, we are greeted with yet another image of her in a bikini taken from her acting debut. Yes, while only a handful of people subjected themselves to the horror of The Dukes of Hazzard, millions more have been exposed – almost fully – to Jessica’s acting assets. These starlets are always shown in various states of undress – as if they’ve never stepped out of their homes in a T-shirt or, perish the thought, a pantsuit.

While the eye candy may be sweet, ultimately it’s unfulfilling. And in the end, when all is said and done we’re left with disposable, fast-food trivia. What do we remember in life: wolfing down drive-through out of a paper bag or the well-prepared meals of substance that take us more time to enjoy?

Both we and our newsmakers decide what we want out of life. Do we want something of substance that takes time to chew over and digest, but allows us to fully enjoy a variety of flavours and textures?

Or do we simply want a Pop Tart?

2005 © Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

Turning Down the Volume on Musak

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By Jason Menard

If silence is golden, then why can’t we turn down the volume on that most insidious corporate invention – Musak?

It’s as if we have to have some sort of background noise to drown out the empty spaces of our day. Perish the thought that we could actually talk, think, or enjoy a moment of quiet reflection without some not-so-golden oldie wafting out of the omnipresent speaker system.

Oddly enough, it is considered rude to walk around with a set of headphones so that you can enjoy your own musical selections. And it’s not like people want you to share – considering the looks we throw people who are cranking the tunes in their cars with the windows rolled down, or carrying a ghetto blaster (am I dating myself?) around with them blaring their tunes to the world.

Yet, some corporate entity can choose to drown out your thoughts with their pre-selected, mood-setting song stylings. Pacify the masses with Celine Dion’s back catalogue, because we don’t want someone getting riled up by Led Zeppelin in the freezer aisle and going postal with a package of pre-chopped spinach!

The problem with this mentality is that Musak is offensive by its very attempts to be inoffensive. In an attempt to be as broad-reaching and appealing to the widest demographic, Musak prides itself on its commonality. It caters to the lowest common denominator of easy listening. Instead of trying to spice up our lives, the question we are given to ponder is what particular flavour of bland we prefer! Yes, I understand that Richard Marx is a person too – but one would think that being regulated to the Musak rotation would symbolize the nadir of your musical career.

Normally, I’m a proponent of the concept of voting with your wallet and staying away from places that use Musak as the soundtrack of their shopping experience, but it’s impossible when every corporate entity is drinking the same Kool-Aid – just in different flavours.

Whether it’s at work, at any grocery store, in malls, or even in elevators, Musak follows us like a wandering minstrel of mediocrity. Variety only comes in the style of Musak, not the content. Do I want to listen to an instrumental version of Air Supply’s “All out of Love” or would I rather listen to the live version? Do I take the orchestral version, the synthesizer interpretation, or the pan flute rendering from Zamphir’s Greatest Hits?

And instead of pacifying the masses, Musak can actually backfire. In one particular working environment that I’m familiar with, we’re blessed to have musical accompaniment in our workday. However, the service that provides the music seems to be stuck on a permanent loop. For any given one-month period, you’re treated to the same selection of songs – repeated each and every day. I try, as a general rule, to avoid Cher’s “Believe,” yet, short of taking a sick day, I know I’ll be subjected to it on a daily basis.

I may, one day, have to have a root canal that’s unavoidable, but don’t expect me to enjoy each and every day knowing that this particular musical procedure is on its way.

To top it off, our own brains work against us when it comes to filtering out Musak. Instead of filtering out the sludge and letting the cream rise to our consciousness, our brains seem to get a perverse pleasure out of subjugating the songs we may actually enjoy and only alerting us when the tunes we hate are polluting the air waves.

And I know I’m not alone in having one of these infernal songs insidiously worm its way into your consciousness – sticking in your head on an endless loop, unable to be willed out of your thoughts.

When it comes to music, variety is the spice of life. When I cook, I enjoy using a little bit of that and a little bit of this, depending upon the meal I’m creating and the mood that I’m in. I don’t choose to season each meal with the same amount of vanilla each and every time! So why do we expect the same of our music?

Musak distributors around the world, lend me your ears! If you’re going to infest our airwaves with this noise pollution, at least make an attempt to engage our consciousness. Though I may detest it, I’m willing to put up with a little modern country if that means that some ’70s funk may worm its way onto the playlist. Lay off the Phil Collins drum solos and infuse some steel drums, bouzouki, or even a djeridoo!

What’s the worst that can happen? You may wake us up from the stupor brought about by this non-offensive, vanilla-flavoured, which-shade-of-taupe-do-you-like-better, Musak for the masses. You may, in fact, engage our attention, broaden our minds, and make us more energetic and enthusiastic shoppers and workers. That sounds good to me!

2005 © Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved