This is why the song “She Blinded Me With Science” represents everything that was awful about the 1980’s. It is easy to mock the 80’s. We’ve all done it. It is easy to look back at the music, the fashion, the lifestyles, the Flock of Seagulls and laugh at ridiculousness of the culture. The sheer volume of 1980’s themed parties I've attended, comedic sitcoms, and parodies showcasing the most mockable 80’s stereotypes is staggering. It is easy to mock the past because it was a time that was unlike any other time before it and it is unlike any other time that would follow. Except that it is exactly like every time that has ever come before and it is exactly like every time that would and will follow. “She Blinded Me With Science” isn’t actually bad, embarrassing, annoying etc, it is simply 1980’s, and it was the 1980’s that was bad, embarrassing, annoying etc. “She Blinded Me With Science” is nothing more than a carbon footprint of everything that was wrong with the 1980’s.
But the 1980’s is, in a lot of ways, exactly like 2010. The only thing that really changes is, when you break it down, our vernacular. The 1980’s was not ridiculous because it was the 1980s. Instead the 1980s is ridiculous because the culture of 2010 is distinctly not the 1980’s. 2010 has evolved into something different, and our retrospective viewing of past culture makes for good comedy. Even though 2010 is a much different cultural atmosphere than 1980, in reality culture itself has not changed much at all. It brings with it its own music, fashion, lifestyles, politics, conflicts, and trends. While cultural high and low watermarks always vary, the concept of culture itself never will. Culture is constant, and culture is constantly changing.
Recently a close friend suggested that I download a particular current song which had been described to her as both “blazin” and “ballin.” My response was something to the effect of “I am pretty sure referring to a song as ‘blazin’ now is kind of like referring to a song as ‘rad’ in 1985.”
At the time this response was meant as a humorous way to impress the young lady by showcasing my rapier wit whilst deflecting a promise to listen to it without being insulting, but in the cold light of the next morning I started to actually think about my statement in the cultural sense, and realized that the implications of it extend far beyond just comic gold.
In case you weren’t aware, 2010 is the present year, but at one point in time, 1985 was the present. And, as we have already covered there is no time like the present, and that present had a distinct culture which was “rad” (for clarity’s sake, let’s assume “rad” is an abbreviation for radical even though much of the cultural advances of the time period could hardly be considered radical with a capital “R”). Much of the music in the 1980’s was rad because rad was the style. “She Blinded me With Science,” Bon Jovi’s “Livin on a Prayer,” Duran Duran’s “Hungry Like the Wolf,” Van Halen’s “Jump” all songs that could be and likely were described as rad in the 1980’s, but are no longer described as rad today. We, as a society, no longer say the word rad as a synonym of cool, good, entertaining, and/or emotionally relevant. The problem is that the songs are still rad. They will always be rad. From the moment they were recorded until the moment the final copy of the final recording is destroyed, those songs are rad. Always and forever rad. The fact that the cultural vernacular has changed has exactly zero effect on the historical significance of popular music.
Music is defined by culture, and, in many ways, culture is defined by music. Much of the music of the 1980’s was rad because the culture of the 1980’s was rad. The culture has changed over time, but the rad music has not. While every single day we as a society evolve into something new, recorded media never does. Recorded media literally cannot change. As soon as a song or a film or a television show is recorded with the ability for playback, it has a timestamp of that moment of that day of that year in history that does not change, and with it comes a veritable cornucopia of background information about culture, about art, about politics, about life in that era. Music and video is the closest thing we have to an ever-running time capsule of American culture. Recorded music of the 1980’s was not a reflection of how people made bad music for an era, music of the 1980’s was a reflection of the 1980’s. Just as Dark Side of The Moon was a reflection of the late 1970’s. Just as Nevermind was a reflection of the early 1990’s. Just as Justin Timberlake’s Justified was a reflection of the culture of the new millennium. Once recorded, the music never changes. It is constant. It does not age like fine wine, it remains the exact same age for its entire existence like Dick Clark. If recorded in the rad 1985 culture with the rad 1985 timestamp, it will remain rad unaltered for the rest of time even while culture is no longer rad. Born rad, live rad, die rad.
The same is true for any style of music. The cultural timeline is not unlike variants on musical genres. Over time the genres don’t change, only the culture surrounding them which, by extension, influence our taste in music. Put another way: music that was popular in 1985 was rad. Music that is popular now is ballin or blazin, music that was popular when I was in college was tight, clutch, or solid (though to be fair, it is possible these terms only existed within one dorm at Elon University). The only thing that really changes over time is vernacular, slang, or colloquial speech. So, by describing a song as ballin now is exactly like describing a song as tight in 2003, which is exactly like describing a song as rad in 1985 because we aren’t actually talking about the music itself, we are talking about the cultural atmosphere from which the song was created and in which the song exists. In reality Ballin, while masquerading as a slang term describing the emotional state of the listener upon hearing the song, is really more like a one-word description for exactly what a song sounds like because ballin only exists in the here and now. By telling me a song is ballin, I can, within spitting distance, imagine what the song will sound like, the style, the beat, the indescribable tone of the music, and so can you. Just like if I were to tell you a song was rad, even without knowing it, you would know exactly what I was describing. It is not that ballin or rad are styles of music, it is that ballin is today’s rad, and it doesn’t take much to figure out what is popular now, and rad is 1980’s ballin with its own inherent qualities and traits. Even though the traits are ever changing and the language is constantly evolving, the concept remains constant. Different cultural periods plant their mark on history with their own unique vernacular reflective of the cultural experience.
The humor is in progressive foresight. It is easy to laugh at rad music, and most people who listen to ballin music often do. It is considered funny, it is considered annoying, and it is certainly considered cheesy, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that before long, the world will no longer be ballin. And before long it will be easy to laugh at ballin music because ballin will go the way of the dodo. We will look back and question our own reasoning for ever listening to ballin music. While Kanye West believes himself to be a ballin cultural icon who is the voice of a generation, he will ultimately exist as little more than a footnote on the culture of the first decade of the 21st century just as “She Blinded Me With Science” exists as little more than a footnote on the culture of the early 1980’s. In reality, rad and ballin are not similar, but instead they are exactly the same thing at different points on the cultural timeline. They are simply the terms that culture has given for their respective places and times. There is no knowing what the next style will be, but it will undoubtedly emerge as culture continues to evolve, but no matter what it is, it will fall right in line with rad and ballin and will be a response to its respective cultural trends. And we will look back and laugh at ridiculousness of past music just as we do now because that was the past and there is no time like the present. Laughing at changing culture is part of who we are. Culture is constant, and culture is constantly changing.
Musicians like to wax philosophical about how they create new and original music with every recording they make and how they are going to single-handedly revolutionize the future of music and, by extension, culture (see any tweet by @kanyewest for examples), but they are wrong, dead wrong. They don’t realize, or at least they don’t want to recognize, that the music they make is merely a reflection of the world around them. And in a very Ken Keseyan sense, this means that music is actually a step behind culture rather than an influencer of culture. Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, with the help of enough LSD to fry the brains of every man woman and child in the enlightened world, developed their own concept of the natural time-lapse: the idea that there is no such reality of being in sync with the world around you. For every moment one exists, for every word that is spoken, for every sight that is seen, there is an inherent delay between its occurrence and one’s own cognitive processing and reaction. Therefore none of us are every instantly in tune with the world around us. It is impossible. This is what the infamous “Acid Tests” were all about: a way to make everyone, at any given time “tuned in” to the world around them so that everyone can experience the world in real time with no lapse while consequently also being in full control of one’s own experience and destiny. Like I said, a lot of LSD was required.
The creation of music works the same way. It is not necessarily a driving force free of influence that evolves culture, but rather it is a cultural sponge that absorbs abstract culture and translates it to a concrete recording. There is an inherent and inescapable lapse between cultural influence and the translation to the musical end product. This is certainly not to say music can’t be revolutionary. Quite the opposite in fact as music has a tendency to absorb culture and respond to it in a way that no one ever has and can then act as a powerful source to further the cultural experience. It is, however, a way of saying that music, and all art, is created as a reaction to the cultural status quo. Granted, music can have an enormous influence on future culture (a la The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Justin Bieber, et al), but that occurs after music has been produced, and it is always originally produced as a response to status quo. Hence, music is reactionary before being visionary. In other words, before the world was captivated by “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” the song had to be written and recorded, and it couldn’t be written and recorded without the influence of the surrounding world. While it, as a musically artistic cornerstone, shaped the culture of 1964, it required the cultural landscape of 1963 in order to be created.
There really is no time like the present because the present is always new. It is not the memories of the past and it is not the mysteries of the future. It is right here, right now, and it is wholly unique. While it is connected to the past like a series of falling dominos, it is always a new experience devoid of the reasoning and analysis that is so valuable while studying past events. While the present draws a direct line to the future, it lacks the intrigue and ambiguity of the unknown. While it may not be the best time, it is certainly not the worst time, and no matter what is on the horizon or what roads we have travelled, the present is always a fresh experience unlike any other. This is the reason current music is always going to be more popular than past music. While it will not necessarily have the same staying power, and while it may not remain popular over time, and while it may not have the cultural impact of the past, current music is new, current music is fresh, current music is ballin just as current music isn’t rad, current music is present music, and there is no time like the present.
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