A Stairway to Heaven

Music: Then, now and the global language of sound

There’s a lady who’s sure all that glitters is gold
And she’s buying a stairway to heaven. ~Led Zeppelin, “Stairway to Heaven” — 1971

My dad was born into the Beat Generation and grew up squarely amongst the Boomers. His was the last generation to be born in the era without music and the amazing, amplified, eardrum-shattering future of the soundwave that was to come would shape the world far more than any politician or advocate ever has. Music. It makes us, it breaks us. Of all human inventions, of all human interactions, music is perhaps the most human of them all. From German dance metal to Russian rap to French pop…all elicit an emotional response regardless of if I can understand a lick of the language. This is the global language, the universal method of communication we have all been waiting for and it is right before our eyes.

Of course this isn’t to say music didn’t exist before the ’40s. It did, and quite a lot of it, in fact. What we now over-generalize as “classical” has existed for some 500 years or so and folk music from varying cultures has existed far longer. Fun fact: What most people think of when they think “classical” music is actually “baroque” and is a subgenre that specifically applies to all the old heroes of music: Bach, Handel and my personal favorite, Mozart. Sorry Vivaldi fans, he came later, but he still practiced a style similar to those prior — some have actually found Vivaldi hard to classify because his style is simply so unique. This old stuff doesn’t get enough credit, probably because it’s hard to condense a 40 minute sonnet into a four minute MP3. But the beauty and innovation still stands. Take a moment and listen to some Mozart. Not just any Mozart though; I’ll make it easy for you. Listen to the Lacrimosa. Once it starts playing, you’ll probably recognize it because every movie ever has used it at some climactic point…and yet, it stands the test of time to the astute listener. This is a dark piece. Troubling in tone, deep and brooding. It is actually a very small portion of Mozart’s Requiem, about which entire books have been written. It’s an impressive piece in its entirety that goes from joyful to very dark (Lacrimosa is Latin for “weeping”) quite quickly, a veritable bi-polar song to say the least. There isn’t time enough to heap my praise upon it here, but dare I say this rather ancient sounding song set the stage for all later pieces to come. Mozart was quite punk. He courted controversy and made music that appealed to the emotions of his listeners rather than just some religiously glorifying happy orchestral pieces. He was perhaps the first modern musician.

And the sign said,
‘The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls/And tenement halls.’
And whispered in the sound of silence ~Simon and Garfunkel, “Sound of Silence” — 1964

Music is weird. It is so universal today with so many genres, styles, bands and sounds that it is almost taken for granted. And yet, it’s a very recent invention in the way we recognize it today. Style-wise, each genre has logical progressions that can be traced through history. The contorted, heavily sampled mashups of Skrillex owe their legacy to ’90s trance and techno beats which themselves stem from ’70s disco. The electronic-infused riffs of death metal bands like Disarmonia Mundi can, at some point, be traced back to classic rock music from the likes of the Beatles. The pop-synths of the latest Drake track have deep roots in old jazz and blues from the ’20s. But music as it’s consumed is far stranger.

Sing with me, sing for the years/Sing for the laughter, sing for the tears/Sing with me, just for today/Maybe tomorrow, the good lord will take you away ~ Aerosmith, “Dream On” — 1973

Music, for most of human history, was not personal. It was elaborate, a staged production that people paid good money to go and watch amongst their peers of other well-off individuals. It ranked with theater in terms of the arts and was about as glamorous and privileged. Beyond the well orchestrated pieces, there was, of course, folk music, but this was familiar and local and meant only for friends and family. There was never a market for that type of stuff beyond the local fair. Then Edison invented the wax tube record and everything changed. The ability to record sound changed the way we listen to music forever. By the time the tubes flattened out and become vinyl, music had been condensed into units of “albums” and “tracks”, each track lasting about 3–4 minutes and each album consisting of about 12 tracks. Suddenly, people could listen to music in their homes, at will and on the ready. Music became personal and rather than something that appealed to broad audiences, music became fractal, appealing to individuals on deep, personal levels. Your music might differ greatly from your friend’s music. It became an auditory revolution, a rebellion against the norms of society, a voice for those that had none. People discovered that, through music, they could relate to others that had the same experiences and feelings as they did. They were speaking a language of sound, a language much deeper than linguistic syntax had allowed.

Sweet dreams are made of this, who am I to disagree? ~Eurythmics, “Sweet Dreams” — 1983

But if the record made music a household experience, shared by friends and family, it was the cassette that solidified music as a personal habit, a drug of choice for anywhere and anytime. Small, cheap easy to record on and even easier to play, the cassette made music more personal than it had ever been before, bringing with it in car stereos, boomboxes, personal tape players and cheap headphones (no doubt with the Sony brand imprinted on their side).

You got a fast car
Is it fast enough so we can fly away/We gotta make a decision/Leave tonight or live and die this way ~ Tracy Chapman, “Fast Car” — 1988

The Walkman was born. People started modifying their cars to play music loud and clear now that radio wasn’t the only the only option. Boomboxes adorned the shoulders of young people everywhere and became a symbol of hip-hop culture for years to come as they were bass-forward and generally just loud. Cassettes also brought with them a new culture of mixtapes: Now you didn’t have to just listen to one album at a time. You could mix and mashup your favorite tracks onto a single tape and there are many born of the ’80s that can remember the romance of a high school crush taking the time to create a mixtape as a simple gift. This was the start of a shift, a shift away from the “album” as an art in its entirety and a shift toward the “track” as the future of music. Records invite listeners to sit down and take time out to listen to a full album. Consequently, old albums like Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” are often long, interrupted ballads meant to be heard from start to finish. There’s a ritual involved: You sift through your album collection looking for the best fit for your mood (or whatever mood you want to be in). Then you open carefully the jacket, observing the fine artwork and maybe glancing at a lyric sheet in the process, cautiously removing the large LP from the sleeve and gently settling it upon your player’s platter. You carefully power it up, allowing the record to spin up to speed and then, with a perceived precision that you probably never really had, you drop the needle onto the first of many microscopic grooves and wait for the popping to give way to rich, velvety sound. Sit back, smoke a joint and allow the auditory show to begin. With a tape, this ritual dissolved and you could now fast forward and rewind at will, more easily picking individual tracks that you liked. Artists stopped creating ballads and instead made short stories, telling little, personal tidbits in the form of single tracks. I believe both formats have merit and some artists still adhere to the older method of creating: Green Day’s “21st Century Breakdown” is an amazing example of a modern album meant to be heard from start to finish in ballad form, as are many of critically acclaimed and (in)famous rapper Eminem’s works, perhaps surprisingly so. Regardless of artistic method, though, the tape set the stage for what was soon to be an explosion of music.

If you die when there’s no one watching/Then your ratings drop and you’re forgotten/But if they kill you on their TV/You’re a martyr and a lamb of god ~Marilyn Manson, “Lamb of God” — 2000

It happened in 2001. Apple released the iPod, a portable music player capable of easily storing and playing digital songs purchased from an online store. It was an instant hit and arguably the catalyst for all of Apple’s modern success. Actually, it happened much earlier. Portable media players had been around long before the iPod and digital audio files in the form of the MP3 had also been around since the ’90s. These were all ahead of their time. The music industry wasn’t equipped to handle the digital era and the ease with which music could be copied, archived and distributed meant piracy was rampant and music was suddenly seen as something that was free, not a premium art to be purchased. To this day, the industry is only just starting to figure out how to move into the internet era and streaming services have curbed piracy quite a bit, but in those days of the Wild West of the internet, bits and bytes were the bane of the record label. Apple’s iTunes software was a pleasant bridge, a way for artists to distribute digitally and still profit in the same way they would from a CD on a retail shelf, but also kept the convenience of the digital medium everyone craved. It was an instant success, though it did little to actually curb acute piracy. But it did set the stage and without Apple, it’s possible we’d all still be collecting CDs to rip, burn and play on shelf systems through an amplifier. The MP3 was, in my opinion, the single most important change in music the world has ever seen.

You better lose yourself in the music, the moment
You own it, you better never let it go/You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow/This opportunity comes once in a lifetime ~Eminem, “Lose Yourself” — 2002

The MP3 is not particularly good from an audio standpoint and anyone that appreciates really good audio quality will thumb their nose at the format. Traditionally, it is encoded at around 128 kbps (most modern MP3s are encoded around 320 kbps), though the earliest versions were really bad at around 60 kbps. For comparison, a true to master digitalized FLAC file (a format that maintains almost all the original quality from a studio recording…WAV files are the only thing better and are exact, bit for bit replicas of what would be pressed to vinyl) is often several thousand kbps. Consequently, MP3s are objectively shit in terms of quality, generally losing lots of the richness the artist intended to be heard. But in the day and age of cheap earbuds and low quality headphones, this quality loss was often not noticed and the end result was a file that was small, very portable and universally compatible with all devices (FLAC files are quite massive in size, making them difficult to copy quickly, store and, these days, stream on limited data plans). But with this unfortunate format came an unusual byproduct: Anyone could now produce music and upload it to the internet in record time, allowing the indie scene to explode, bypassing record labels altogether. Suddenly there was explosion of creativity on the music scene; entire genres were born overnight. Electronic music benefitted the most and millionaires were made instantly as gamer geeks began grinding out tunes using nothing more than software and uploading them to the internet for recognition: Many a modern pop star and EDM icon was born on MySpace. Jonas Altberg, aka “Basshunter”, was a known Dota player and used his talent with computers to become one of the most well known eurodance/trance artists of the previous decade. The more recent DeadMau5 has a similar story and similar background.

When I was a young boy
My father took me into the city/To see a marching band/He said, ‘Son, when you grow up/Would you be the savior of the broken
The beaten and the damned?’ ~ My Chemical Romance, “Welcome to the Black Parade” — 2006

Regardless of medium, as music slowly progressed toward becoming more personal, it also progressed toward becoming more meaningful. Rather than a pure expression of a composer’s talent, music became a means of communication, a way for people everywhere to bond and relate with, if no one else, at least a singer that has, at least for one instant, felt the same way the listener does. This is true regardless of genre and even regardless of lyrical content to a degree: The emotion that music evokes goes beyond the pure value of the words sung and the notes struck and transcends itself into an amalgam of purely emotional responses. It doesn’t matter if the song is a one hit wonder of a pop ballad such as “Barbie Girl” by Aqua or a deeply introspective piece of lyrical genius such as the brutally difficult to listen to rock anthem “Jonestown Tea” by Otep, music affects each listener differently and some people will derive personal meaning where others find none. Music is an art unlike any other, and can become a powerful way to connect artist to consumer in a way that other mediums often lack. Movies often feel commercial, conglomerations and collaborations where the art is sometimes difficult to decipher from the entertainment value; paintings and sketches can feel distant and emotionless, a window into some far removed individual’s soul, perhaps, but less personal than intriguing to the casual observer. Music, however, creates a bond between the creator and the listener that is difficult to break and tends to stick around for a lifetime. It can become all the more powerful when an artist breaks from their mold and takes the time to use a completely different genre or sound to convey a uniquely personal message. Consider Slipknot, a death metal band known for brutal, fast grunge lyrics against a thrashing background of electric guitar and drums. Most of their music has this sound, harsh and desolate and angry. But one song stands out from the rest and shows the true talent of the artists involved: Snuff. The song is not a metal song in the traditional sense. It starts acoustically and the vocals are clean and left undistorted. Rather than convey intense anger and power, Slipknot chose to use a completely different genre of a hard rock/alt rock mix to embody the feelings of a deep depression and emotional loss within the medium of the soundwave. It’s a powerful song and made even more so if one is familiar with the band behind it. It shows real talent as an artist and is relatable even to those that don’t particularly enjoy other music from the band. Such is the power of music.

My reach is global
My tower secure
My cause is noble
My power is pure
I can hand out a million vaccinations/Or let ’em all die in exasperation ~ Flobots, “Handlebars” — 2008

Today, the world of music changes once again. Streaming services have brought with them a veritable end to piracy and with them comes analytics that makes music smarter. People can now find music easier, discovering new sounds and artists that they wouldn’t have heard otherwise. Today, the sound of music has changed from a few big bands that play on the Top 40 rotation and has blossomed into a scene of indie music where everyone’s tastes are deeply unique and personalized to them as individuals. The shift away from the collective experience of the concert hall is complete: We all can now have individualized tastes and live in our uniqueness of knowing this particular taste in sound is shared by only a few others. The bond between listener and creator has never been stronger and more intimate than it is now.

Take me to church
I’ll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies/I’ll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife/Offer me that deathless death
Good God, let me give you my life ~ Hozier, “Take Me Church” — 2014

The majority of this article has been spent contrasting the growth of music as an industry and pastime with the personal touches that make the soundwave so special to us all. Peppered throughout are a collection of lyrics, ordered primarily by date of release save for the first quote after which I titled this post. These are a few of the songs that I think are impactful for the eras in which they were released, pushing music forward as both an industry and as a personal form of entertainment. These are also songs that I believe are timeless in that they can reach through the decades of both past and present and still be apropos. Many (though not all) of these songs were and remain controversial. If you sneered a little at the cliche of the Aerosmith choice or recoiled at the inclusion of Marylin Manson, that’s fine. These are my choices, my list. It’s personal, an individual’s evaluation of the work these artists produced. And yet, each of these songs has reached a worldwide status, some becoming so popular as to become cliches heard on elevators everywhere. But that’s beauty of music after all: Sometimes, what seems like a deeply personal choice, a song that speaks to just one of us directly as if the artist wrote it specifically for us, can in fact be a song that millions upon millions of others enjoy. And in that moment, you realize what you’ve felt has already been felt before.

Excuse me if I seem a little unimpressed with this
An anti-social pessimist, but usually I don’t mess with this
And I know you mean only the best
And your intentions aren’t to bother me
But honestly I’d rather be
Somewhere with my people
We can kick it and just listen to
Some music with a message, like we usually do
And we’ll discuss our big dreams
How we plan to take over the planet
So pardon my manners
I hope you’ll understand that I’ll be here
Not there in the kitchen
With the girl who’s always gossiping about her friends
So tell them I’ll be here
Right next to the boy who’s throwin’ up
Cause he can’t take what’s in his cup no more
Oh God why am I here? ~ Alessia Cara, “Here” — 2015