The Brooks piece struck a chord with me because of what it said about the fragmentation of the music marketplace, not because of criticism of today's music. It's not so much that I disagree with Fine, it's that I interpreted the Brooks piece so differently that we could be in parallel universes. But I will readily admit that my personal opinions on this topic are also inseparable from my personal experience, meaning that nostalgia is a major factor in how I see this topic.
Unlike Brooks, I think the fragmentation began much earlier; sometime during 1967. Before this time, I was a loyal listener of CKLW-AM in Windsor. In any given hour you could hear the Beatles, the Temptations, Petula Clark, the Beach Boys, James Brown and Dionne Warwick. It wasn't unusual to hear rock, pop, soul and even the occasional country tune in the same set.
Sometime in 1967, albums began to eclipse singles, with the release of The Doors, Sgt. Pepper, Surrealistic Pillow, Are You Experienced? and Disraeli Gears. At the same time, there was a ruling by the FCC -- details of which I don't recall -- that required radio stations to program different material on their AM and FM bands. As a result, "underground" stations started to spring up on the FM dial that focused on album-oriented rock. Around this time, I stopped listening to CKLW and switched to WKNR-FM in Detroit. Uncle Russ Gibb, my favorite DJ on Keener-FM -- would introduce whole side of albums with low-keyed hipness, without the manic silliness of AM radio.
I loved the new album-oriented format because it was a rebellion against the crass commercialism of Top40 radio. But in retrospect, the tragic part of this new trend is that playlists became quite segregated by race. The FM stations would play Hendrix and Sly Stone but never Motown or Stax. You had to turn to the AM dial to hear the latest soul releases. This was the beginning of a long-term trend from broadcasting to narrowcasting, with new formats targeting a smaller and smaller sliver of the audience.
But what bothers me is the cumulative impact of this fragmentation over time. Not only is there little connection among various audiences in the present, but these disconnects become more and more pronounced over time. Ultimately, there is little common culture that connects us together as a people. To me, it's a shame that America enjoys such an incredibly rich musical heritage but nobody knows about. We suffer from cultural amnesia. That's why I find it interesting that Miami Steve mentions the need for a curicullum in the schools to pass along America's musical heritage. I've been trying to write that book since about 1995.
Finally, for me, none of this implies that the music of the past is superior to the music of the present. But the music of today might be even better if it weren't so disconnected from the past.
