RE: degeneration of rock

["Brian Cady" <cadyb@home.com>]

> I am putting my feet in Pete's shoes today.  He's looking back on where
> he feels he didn't live up to his own legacy (post Quad).  He is anxious
> about trying to do right by The Who's legacy still.  By espousing this
> 'rock is dead' line, he is able to both explain why the quality of the
> band's work declined and lower the bar of expectations for anything they
> have yet to do.

Perhaps. I'm just saying that in my opinion, he's right. Certainly The Who
could come out with another wonderful rock album. However, it would just be
a variation on what they or somebody else have already done. "The same old
song with just a few new lines."

I think a lot of people get confused by what he's saying. He's not saying
rock is dead which is no more true than saying jazz is dead. It's just that
there's nowhere new to go. Here's an example from jazz. Wynton Marsalis is a
great jazz performer who comes out with great music. But if you were to tell
the story of jazz you could just leave him out. The story of jazz is pretty
much written now; except for a few avenues that might come up from a
technical advance, no one is going to take jazz farther than say Coltrane or
Odetta. The same now goes for rock. You can still come out with great rock
records, but you can't go past what was accomplished by the late 70's. The
story of rock is over. Now we are in the legacy years (and have been for 20
years now).

        -Brian in Atlanta
         The Who This Month!
        http://members.home.net/cadyb/who.htm