COLUMN: Don't play that again

From Jason Brenner's "My 20 Inches," Fall '96 From Jason Brenner's "My 20 Inches," Fall '96 It's the dilemma that's been plaguing mankind since the dawn of civilization, the perennial question that sages throughout the centuries have asked time and again: "What if God was one of us, just a slob like one of us, just a stranger on the bus, trying to make his way home?" What happened to the good old days when music sent a message to the public, whether to protest the Vietnam War, to give civil rights to all American citizens or to smoke anything that looks like it can fit in rolling paper? Those were the days when music actually meant something, when socially conscious artists -- for better or for worse -- made their songs a call to action. The public answered this call by growing crazy large afros, wearing ridiculously colored polyester bell-bottom pants and lying in the streets to protest the topic of the day. What do we have today? The Presidents of the United States of America (even the band names aren't creative) make this stunning observation: "Peaches come in a can. They were put there by a man in a factory downtown." The Presidents must have spent years intently researching and brainstorming in order to conceive that chorus. Even worse than the stupid people who make these albums are the even-stupider people who buy them. C'mon. I don't care who put the peaches in a can, and frankly, I don't think the whole subject merits that a musical "artist" -- note the quotes, please -- expose the ugly truths behind the peach-canning industry. If such a severe peach manufacturing conspiracy truly does exist, why don't the the Presidents of the United States of America just call the Food and Drug Administration? Instead, they waste valuable radio time that could be used for something important like another medical malpractice lawyer advertisement. The sad truth remains that the peach song isn't that much worse than a good deal of the other music "gracing" America's airwaves nowadays. Take, for example, this line from the song "Loser" by Beck: "So shave your face with some mace in the dark. Saving all your food stamps and burning down the trailer park." Please allow me to translate this one into English: "I failed out of high school. I just got fired from McDonald's and my mom kicked me out of the house. I have the IQ of a Dustbuster and I can't speak in complete sentences. Please buy this album." Hey, at least they got the title of the song right. But just as a silver lining peaks out beneath every cloud, we have the ever-prestigious Grammys to differentiate between music that holds some semblance of significance and that which was created by someone who is intellectually equivalent to Mr. Magoo. Or do we? The Rock Album of the Year and Album of the Year awards went to Alanis Morissette, a woman who decides she'll waste three minutes of her award-winning album to discuss things she believes are very ironic. "It's a black fly in your Chardonnay. It's a death row pardon two minutes too late. Isn't it ironic? don't you think?" No, I don't think so. According to Webster's Big Ass Dictionary, none of these instances contain the slightest bit of irony. Irony is "a figure of speech in which the literal meaning of the locution is the opposite of that intended." Basically, that means Alanis spends her time describing events that suck, but have no trace of irony whatsoever. Take me back to the '70s and '80s, when artists could at least check a dictionary if they had trouble defining such complex and enigmatic terms as "irony." Musicians back then wouldn't even waste time discussing such useless subjects; instead, they focused their attention on the most important issues facing American society, like the local YMCA. And their work impacted the American public. Imagine you're a runaway teenager with nowhere to turn. You take out your Village People album and pop it in your top-of-the-line American-made 8-track player. All of a sudden, you find yourself entrenched in a new world of opportunities. There is someone who can help you and "you can get yourself clean, you can have a good meal, you can do whatever you feel." All of a sudden you see the sun emerge from beyond the clouds. Your life has changed forever. Unlike the days of yore, the present-day American radio listener finds himself transfixed to the airwaves, listening to a variety of nonsensical and culturally insignificant musical lyrics. Or as Nirvana would have said: "Find my nest of salt. Everything's my fault. I take all the blame. Aqua seafoam shame." I couldn't have said it better myself.