Everything is tarmac and asphalt
-Escalators
All the men here dress like kids,
and all the kids dress like super-heroes.
-Greenberg
I'm not going to say that when I was a younger man, music had far more to offer in terms of artistic value, or that back then, music was produced by people with real talent. I'm not going to take the parental, authoritative view that all us snotty nosed little punk rockers and new romantics balked at back then, and say that the music the youth of today listens to is mostly just a load of old bunk. Alright, I am.
I can see why the older generation of my youth would feel that the songs and bands that influenced them as adolescents were far superior to the angry, volatile clusters of anarchy that we drew our inspiration from, but of course one has to remember that music tends to reflect the times in which it's written, and the music of our generation was created in the jet-stream of the failed love gurus and harmony poets of the 60's, and the faded family man crooners and homemaker divas of the 70's. All the sun-bleached, potpourri twaddle about never-ending devotion and blossoming adoration in the face of the global political chaos that galloped and shrieked around the edges of all that fluffy nonsense, well…something had to give. Now I know that all sounds a little harsh, but I'm not belittling the stars of yesteryear, indeed, I hold the greatest respect for such artists as Shirley Bassey, Jack Jones, Karen Carpenter and all the countless other great voices that defined the music industry of their respective eras, but as a young, raging ball of existential frustration and indignant hormones, these figures were merely something to be ridiculed, the stuff that old people listened to, and were thus rudely trampled beneath the (air cushioned) soles of our rebellious Doctor Martens. Nowadays, the insurrectionary fires of my youthful (mis)guided-missile-crusades have long since been stamped out to make room for the real world, which is, on reflection, far simpler. However, in these times of sado/masochistic shlock horror, and woefully bad, IQ butchering, soulless TV, where music's new generation has been conned into the sell, rather than drawn by the concept, it's easy to see that any decline in musical standards that has occurred since the advent of such institutions as MTV, is wholly the work of the corporate establishment. To put it another way, it's a sellout unlike any the world has seen before; an entire art form, packaged and sold to a junk-food generation who have been served with far too much garnish, and not enough filling, so to speak. As a younger man, I was a member of several bands, one of them, Pearldivers, formed together with my two brothers, and though we never got further than the demo-tape stage, we produced music that actually had a point, that had something to say. Nowadays, it seems that it doesn't matter what your message is, as long as you have the right abdominal muscles. Oh, I know there are still artists around today both upcoming and established that have actual talent (and if any of you ever read this; you know who you are), but they have been back-shelved by the über-consumption bling that seems to define today's culture, where 18 is no longer considered young, and 40 is the age at which people start trying to find direction. I'm not as bitter as this post may come across as being, however, despite being well aware that the primal scream that we all followed back then is now but an echo in this new, shifting, high-speed jungle in which we find ourselves. I maintain that one should never be sad because something has passed, but should instead be glad that it has happened.
For after all, it was those wild, mutinous days that defined who we would, and in many ways shouldn't, be.
Today's movie choice is Nicholas Stoller's Get Him To The Greek, a comedy starring Russell Brand, Jonah Hill, Rose Byrne and Elisabeth Moss. It's the story of a rookie talent scout from LA, Aaron Green (Hill) who gets roped into the arduous task of escorting fallen rock star Aldous Snow (Brand) from London to LA, so that he can perform a gig at the Greek Theatre, marking the ten-year anniversary of Snow's old band Infant Sorrow's infamous concert at the same venue. Snow has recently lost his superstar credibility following the release of his song African Child, described by NME as being "the worst thing to happen to Africa since apartheid". What follows is a roller-coaster ride of drugs, alcohol, women and more drugs, with Green trying desperately to keep up with Snow's formidable tolerance levels and equally punishing appetites while simultaneously trying to maintain his relationship with Daphne (Moss), his girlfriend. Similarly, Snow has issues with his ex, Jackie Q (Byrne), whose extreme lifestyle is the only thing Snow truly relates to. The film plays out at breakneck speed, resting only occasionally to allow the plot to thicken, before once again catapulting us into the mayhem of excess that is the world of rock. Funny and engaging, and spiced with the appearance of several big stars playing themselves, this is what has, sadly, become a rarity in today's cinema; a comedy that works. Both Hill and Brand are superbly cast, the chemistry between them perfectly conveying the confusion of social culture shock while generating just the right amount of sympathy for their lovably fallible characters. A slight dip on the overall performance scale would have to be said to be the ending, where the usual moral message is delivered which, after the quality and pace of the rest of the story, is about as welcome as the bill at the end of a meal, and is something you just have to accept. Stoller is no stranger to comedy, having already cut his teeth writing the screenplay for the Jim Carrey hit Yes Man. With the right creative licence, we could be seeing great things from this man in the future.
Quentin Beck,
November 17th, 2010
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