Who Forgot the Soundtrack to Our Lives?
Oliver Andrew Wells
September 27, 2022
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A NOTE BEFORE WE START:
This article was originally posted on Medium before the presidential election of 2020. I thought for anyone who doesn’t have a Medium account it might be nice to read it here, as it is still very relevant and holds true (every word) to today.
Music is a great and powerful gift that we have. Although I feel like much of today’s popular music is shit, I am happy that we are still creating with our brains and our hearts. People do listen to what is out there, what surrounds them, and what they can’t escape from. Make your words count. These are dangerous times and everyone is lost.
I also want to thank one of my favorite bands who I’ve been a fan of for over 20 years. I still have to say I’m more of a fun of the older albums, but THANK YOU TO MUSE, who’s new album is politically motivated in all the right ways and hopefully the world will spread.
I have to say that for being the most important election of our lifetime, the soundtrack really sucks. It’s the party of the century and everyone has been invited except the DJ.
Most people pretty much agree that 2020 has been a shit year. To put it in terms that most of us can understand, it’s been the high school senior year from hell, and the upcoming election is the year end prom where it all goes down. The prize, of course, is Homecoming Queen; and the biggest bully on campus, who we all know, demands the title.
Donald J. Trump, easily mistaken as Biff from Back to the Future in his younger years, is the selfish man-child who is going around spreading rumors and lies about, well, everything. All the meanwhile, he is trying to cheat the vote by just saying, well, that he is going to cheat. Yes, it’s really happening.
Of course, the whole court is there also. The Southern Republicans with all their outrage and dramatic gestures seem to capture the audience. If they only allowed Tennessee Williams to be studied in their high schools more of society would get the irony. Hypocrisy never looks good next to white linen though.
The liberals are also there somewhere, probably smoking in the bathroom, because no one has heard anything out of their mouths against all the of the illegal activities of the Right. Of course, it is also hard to hear anything over the roaring of the Homecoming (yes, I will be or else) Queen’s motorcade of followers who are always to be seen without mufflers, as well as masks.
The “others” were invited, so they say, although their invitations seem to have gotten lost along with the invites for the scientists, Hollywood, and most of the coastal cities. It was confirmed that invites went out to the rest of the world, but for some reason none of them responded to their RSVP. I wonder why?
Oh yeah, and there is an economic depression, Mother Nature is pissed off, and we couldn’t even get rid of the virus that started it all long enough to even call it a second wave. Yep, we still have the bar-fly loser version of the virus hanging around form the first wave; but hey, when you start off not really caring if everyone is gone when you lock up, you can’t really act too surprised.
This is your 2020 end of the year prom. Bring your sanitizer because they won’t be passing it out at the door.
Yet, there is something missing. You almost don’t hear it because everyone is on social media pretending to be an expert on subjects that they have no authority on. Do you see it now? Can you hear it?
No, you can’t hear it because its not there.
The music. There is no music.
When did music and culture stop reflecting the events in our world? In the 1960s we were ushering rock and rebellion in with open arms. The Vietnam war, the songs it inspired, and the images that come to the mind when you even think about it. I can practically smell the bras and draft cards burning.
The 70s brought dancing, sex, drugs, and painted the world in a color scheme to never be forgotten. Now, that was a time to be alive, and what a soundtrack that went with it. By the time you get the 80s you had an explosion of genres from hair bands to New Wave, and we even got videos to watch along with it.
Then something happened as we went into the 21st century. The internet fueled the narcissism of the individual and the culture started dying. Like being attached to a dying battery, the music began to get dim until we were left with what we have today — the outline of a burnt out bulb waiting to be tripped over in the darkness.
I was listening to Marilyn Manson’s early albums that came out in the late 90s, and I was blown away by how relevant the lyrics were to today (and it was nice to hear guitars in music again).
Hey victim, should I black your eyes again?
Hey victim, you were the one who put the stick in my hand
I am the ism, my hate’s a prism
Let’s just kill everyone and let your God sort them out
“Irresponsible Hate Anthem,” and so many other songs, should not be dismissed as simple teenage angst trash that the kids of yesterday were listening to. They are words from the profits and the poets about the future in which we live.
I am so all-American, I’d sell you suicide
I am totalitarian, I’ve got abortions in my eyes
I hate the hater, I’d rape the raper
I am the animal who will not be himself
What? Maralyn Manson a profit and poet? Hey, we never thought Donald Trump, the luckiest failure America every produced, would go from reality TV show to the White House, but there it is. Now parents, which one would you rather have your children listening to?
A dull society with no solid backbone of youthful culture and music is a quiet ride to oppression and low-vibrational living. How can you start a revolution without a song? How can you fight the world without an album? How can experience emotion without sound?
Radiohead was great at writing political songs about the US, and they aren’t even from this country. Where are they now, because the passion that we all felt against Bush doesn’t even come close to this insanity. We are actually talking about modern civil war, and I can’t even find a clever bumper sticker anywhere.
Back to Marilyn Manson though. He did have a new album, but I hate to say that while I enjoyed it, the opportunity to become the long-needed cultural hero of 2020 was not met in the music. I hope that it is by someone before we aren’t allowed to spreak the words of change anymore.
It may not seem like a big deal, but music is a very powerful force in the universe, and it is difficult to inspire change without it. Love and loss, hate and motivation, creativity and rage — the building blocks of life carried forward by the youth and remembered nostagically by the aging. Our tapes and CDs were always by our side in the car as we drove forward towards someplace either better, worse, or at least familiarly different; yet our youthful equivalents are just sitting in the parking lot of the Taco Bell.
Those crazy beats and guitar solos have disappeared into dull bass lines that don’t inspire movement, just bitching about personal property and wealth. Our eyes don’t look up and out to the future anymore. Instead, our shameful heads look down, our eyes only lit by the screen on our smart phone.
Air guitar? Air drum solo? Anyone?
So, we can’t dance at the prom this year, not only because of the virus, but because without the music; no one wants to. Without the music; no one is even inspired to care. Without the music; we are left with the rantings of opinionated deceit instead of the honesty of our souls playing in our ears. all on an endless loop. Does anyone even stop to think if this was designed to happen? Did someone plan this?
So, Marilyn Manson, I am left with your words of just plain fact.
I wasn’t born with enough middle fingers
I don’t need to choose a side
America can not see anything
History was written by the winner
Fuck it!
Enjoy the prom.
Most people pretty much agree that 2020 has been a shit year. To put it in terms that most of us can understand, it’s been the high school senior year from hell, and the upcoming election is the year end prom where it all goes down. The prize, of course, is Homecoming Queen; and the biggest bully on campus, who we all know, demands the title.
Donald J. Trump, easily mistaken as Biff from Back to the Future in his younger years, is the selfish man-child who is going around spreading rumors and lies about, well, everything. All the meanwhile, he is trying to cheat the vote by just saying, well, that he is going to cheat. Yes, it’s really happening.
Of course, the whole court is there also. The Southern Republicans with all their outrage and dramatic gestures seem to capture the audience. If they only allowed Tennessee Williams to be studied in their high schools more of society would get the irony. Hypocrisy never looks good next to white linen though.
The liberals are also there somewhere, probably smoking in the bathroom, because no one has heard anything out of their mouths against all the of the illegal activities of the Right. Of course, it is also hard to hear anything over the roaring of the Homecoming (yes, I will be or else) Queen’s motorcade of followers who are always to be seen without mufflers, as well as masks.
The “others” were invited, so they say, although their invitations seem to have gotten lost along with the invites for the scientists, Hollywood, and most of the coastal cities. It was confirmed that invites went out to the rest of the world, but for some reason none of them responded to their RSVP. I wonder why?
Oh yeah, and there is an economic depression, Mother Nature is pissed off, and we couldn’t even get rid of the virus that started it all long enough to even call it a second wave. Yep, we still have the bar-fly loser version of the virus hanging around form the first wave; but hey, when you start off not really caring if everyone is gone when you lock up, you can’t really act too surprised.
This is your 2020 end of the year prom. Bring your sanitizer because they won’t be passing it out at the door.
Yet, there is something missing. You almost don’t hear it because everyone is on social media pretending to be an expert on subjects that they have no authority on. Do you see it now? Can you hear it?
No, you can’t hear it because its not there.
The music. There is no music.
When did music and culture stop reflecting the events in our world? In the 1960s we were ushering rock and rebellion in with open arms. The Vietnam war, the songs it inspired, and the images that come to the mind when you even think about it. I can practically smell the bras and draft cards burning.
The 70s brought dancing, sex, drugs, and painted the world in a color scheme to never be forgotten. Now, that was a time to be alive, and what a soundtrack that went with it. By the time you get the 80s you had an explosion of genres from hair bands to New Wave, and we even got videos to watch along with it.
Then something happened as we went into the 21st century. The internet fueled the narcissism of the individual and the culture started dying. Like being attached to a dying battery, the music began to get dim until we were left with what we have today — the outline of a burnt out bulb waiting to be tripped over in the darkness.
I was listening to Marilyn Manson’s early albums that came out in the late 90s, and I was blown away by how relevant the lyrics were to today (and it was nice to hear guitars in music again).
Hey victim, should I black your eyes again?
Hey victim, you were the one who put the stick in my hand
I am the ism, my hate’s a prism
Let’s just kill everyone and let your God sort them out
“Irresponsible Hate Anthem,” and so many other songs, should not be dismissed as simple teenage angst trash that the kids of yesterday were listening to. They are words from the profits and the poets about the future in which we live.
I am so all-American, I’d sell you suicide
I am totalitarian, I’ve got abortions in my eyes
I hate the hater, I’d rape the raper
I am the animal who will not be himself
What? Maralyn Manson a profit and poet? Hey, we never thought Donald Trump, the luckiest failure America every produced, would go from reality TV show to the White House, but there it is. Now parents, which one would you rather have your children listening to?
A dull society with no solid backbone of youthful culture and music is a quiet ride to oppression and low-vibrational living. How can you start a revolution without a song? How can you fight the world without an album? How can experience emotion without sound?
Radiohead was great at writing political songs about the US, and they aren’t even from this country. Where are they now, because the passion that we all felt against Bush doesn’t even come close to this insanity. We are actually talking about modern civil war, and I can’t even find a clever bumper sticker anywhere.
Back to Marilyn Manson though. He did have a new album, but I hate to say that while I enjoyed it, the opportunity to become the long-needed cultural hero of 2020 was not met in the music. I hope that it is by someone before we aren’t allowed to spreak the words of change anymore.
It may not seem like a big deal, but music is a very powerful force in the universe, and it is difficult to inspire change without it. Love and loss, hate and motivation, creativity and rage — the building blocks of life carried forward by the youth and remembered nostagically by the aging. Our tapes and CDs were always by our side in the car as we drove forward towards someplace either better, worse, or at least familiarly different; yet our youthful equivalents are just sitting in the parking lot of the Taco Bell.
Those crazy beats and guitar solos have disappeared into dull bass lines that don’t inspire movement, just bitching about personal property and wealth. Our eyes don’t look up and out to the future anymore. Instead, our shameful heads look down, our eyes only lit by the screen on our smart phone.
Air guitar? Air drum solo? Anyone?
So, we can’t dance at the prom this year, not only because of the virus, but because without the music; no one wants to. Without the music; no one is even inspired to care. Without the music; we are left with the rantings of opinionated deceit instead of the honesty of our souls playing in our ears. all on an endless loop. Does anyone even stop to think if this was designed to happen? Did someone plan this?
So, Marilyn Manson, I am left with your words of just plain fact.
I wasn’t born with enough middle fingers
I don’t need to choose a side
America can not see anything
History was written by the winner
Fuck it!
Enjoy the prom.