Modern Music: Is it a lost art?

(Beatles and Queen...could two bands be any better?)

Okay readers, I want you to name your favourite song.

I don't mean whatever is in the top forty right now, I mean your favourite song, the song you used to listen to non-stop as a child or teenager, the one you would grab on 45/LP or CD from your parents collection, or your sibling, or even saved up money to get yourself.

Chances are, that song, the one you still listen to at any given opportunity, the one you purposely turn up on your Ipod/stereo so you can caterwaul along without missing out on listening your favourite part, was not written/preformed in the past ten years.

(Heck, chances are it wasn't even written/preformed in the past twenty years!)

What is going on? Well George Harrison, (lead guitarist of the Beatles and solo artist) once said:

“I think the popular music has gone truly weird.

It's either cutesy-wutesy or it's hard, nasty stuff. "

Was George right? Are we loosing something like

Rock and Roll/pop music that was perfected from the sixties?

How is it possible that every single talented person with a gift for music has lost the skill to turn out a song like George's own timeless guitar ballad Something, or John Lennon's Imagine, or Queen's mighty Bohemian Rhapsody (my personal favourite)? What about anything from the eighties, My Life by Billy Joel or Total Eclipse of the Heart by Bonnie Tyler?

Anyone who loves rock/pop music would most likely know all the words to these songs, ask someone on the street to sing all the words to anything by that insipid Rihanna or worse Fall out Boy. (Gag me!)

Don't get me wrong, there are some great artists out there who take great care and appreciate the history of modern music, Jet is a great band with many similarities to the Beatles and the Doors. Michael Bublé is funny, talented and loves what he sings.

So, in this society of a quick buck, selfish greed and little girls acting old before their time because of role models like Miley/Hannah Montana and the disgraceful Brittney Spears, maybe it's time to snub modern music like a lot of my generation is doing.

It's time to blow off the dust from a Sgt Pepper's LP/CD/(hell, get a copy on mp3!)

(Pfff, like my 1st Australian mono pressing from

1967 has ever had dust on it.)

Grab a couple of Billy Joel, Doors and Queen Lps/CDs/mp3 as well, pull up a bean bag, turn out the lights, put on your lava lamp and switch on that record player/stereo/Ipod.

Revel in what genius has been, pray for the future generations that might not have a similar luxury and have to listen to someone droning: "ella, ella, ella," played by an uncaring society who claims it as classic popular music.

This is LONE TIGRIS signing off, with a raise of a

scotch and coke, a merry curse on heartless

modern music, and (lucky you,) an old quote:

"If it ain't broke, don't throw it away."