RIP rock, more or less

The year the music died

I'm talking about the rock industry, of course. And after '95, a year in which the last breath was stamped out of punk by safety-pinned pop confectionists like Green Day and Rancid, and their canny marketers, what else could have happened?

You need turn no further than to modern-rock radio, where you'll hear limpid, tiresome swill like Fiona Apple's "Shadowboxer" (yes, Styx have been reincarnated as a young woman) and the Bloodhound Gang's "Fire Water Burn" (my condolences to Kurtis Blow) to know that programmers are being offered a shit-sandwich smorgasbord by major labels and the indies that are wealthy enough to muscle their way to airplay. (And let's not let programmers off the hook; they don't have to take a bite of everything on the table.)

Politically, mainstream rock -- which was birthed as the music of the moment -- was so out of touch with our lives that practically nobody but Michael Stipe even bothered to offer any opinions on the presidential race -- despite a year that was colored by racially motivated church burnings, legislation stripping immigrants of the kind of rights America supposedly stands for, the continued failure of the government to offer any battle plan against AIDS, the stripping of redwood forests, the Pentagon's denial of responsibility for Gulf War veterans' illnesses, and other very bad things. Kudos to MTV -- of all vapid things -- for really laying down the hustle on getting out the youth vote.

And so, now the industry people whine that their sales are way down. Why should we support them? What have they done for us lately? Continued to retail-price CDs at a minimum of 500 percent of their manufacturing costs; hustled an overabundance of artistically weak releases; pimped major artists who aren't speaking to us. For every Rage Against the Machine, there is a plethora of Dishwallas. For every Metallica, a Stone Temple Pilots. For every Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, a Snoop Doggy Dogg. For every Beck, a Hootie. Three major music retailers have already filed for protection from creditors within the past 18 months, and the New York Times recently reported that Musicland, the country's biggest music chain, may be joining that list if Christmas doesn't make it see major green. (Its stockholders have reason to sweat, with big labels offering soundtrack albums as their holiday sales cash cows.)

With nearly every rock and pop superstar except Céline Dion selling millions of copies less than his or her previous albums, the upshot is that the industry might make nearly a billion less than last year's $12 billion overall sales figure. And you know, as music lovers, that's not our fault, and it's not our problem. What's the last time you heard of a major label doing a slow, nurturing build on an artist's career the way IRS did with R.E.M.? Like the American steel and auto industries in the '80s, the music industry has in recent years gone for the fast buck and thrown quality and product development and consumer interest to the winds. And now they are paying the price.

Yeah, this is a screed. And I'm not a genius. But I'm not stupid enough to believe things are this way because everyone in the music industry sucks. That's simply not true. There are many people working at all levels of the industry who believe in the power of music and work hard to give or nurture the life of the songs and performers they believe in, for whatever reasons they believe in them. To them, I say fight the power in '97, more strength. They'll need it to contend with the overabundance of assholes in the business -- to whom I say, fuck off.

Best rock records

Beck's Odelay (Geffen), Curtis Mayfield's New World Order (Warner Bros.), R.E.M.'s New Adventures in Hi-Fi (Warner Bros.), Cibo Matto's Viva! La Woman (Warner Bros.), Sebadoh's Harmacy (Sub Pop), Smashing Pumpkins' Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (Virgin), and Fugees' The Score (RuffHouse/Columbia).

Spirit music

At a time when so much music seems to be about absolutely nothing, when groups seem to be aiming at nothing higher than the charts, two R&B artists made music to soothe and incite the spirit. Curtis Mayfield's an old hand at this; he's the author of soul classics from "Trouble Man" to "People Get Ready." But after his crippling spinal injuries, nobody expected him to make a wheelchair-bound comeback as inspiring as New World Order (Warner Bros.), let alone turn in the year's best vocal performance. And give Bone Thugs-N-Harmony a nod for their compassionate "Crossroads," which came accompanied by the year's best video.

Comebacks, good versus evil

Curtis Mayfield gets the nod (see above) for comeback of the year. Also notable was Floyd Dixon's Wake Up and Live! (Alligator), a marvelous piano-thumping CD from a peer of Amos Milburn that still practices the same colorful roustabout R&B style. And Donovan's Sutras (Geffen) was sent to Earth by Satan.

Best of blues

The hippest blues album of the year was available only in Mississippi and Arkansas: Robert "Bilbo" Walker's Promised Land (Rooster), which offers moaning, bad-ass real Mississippi juke blues with the reverb jacked to 10. It'll be out nationally in March, so grab it. Around here, Ronnie Earl's Grateful Heart: Blues & Ballads (Bullseye Blues), Paul Rishell and Annie Raines's I Want You To Know (Tone Cool), Mighty Sam McClain's Sledgehammer Soul and Downhome Blues (AudioQuest), and Darrell Nulisch's Bluesoul (Higher Plane) were tops.

Going up the country

Steve Earle came back in style with his powerful, semi-acoustic I Feel Alright (Warner Bros.), and nobody in Nashville cared. But that's all right. The maverick songwriter probably didn't care that the industry didn't care. And more power to him, since Nashville's handsome hat acts and pretty femme voices of the moment are utterly disposable. In 10 years, people will still be talking about Earle, whether he lives or not. Who's gonna give a shit about David Kersh or Deana Carter? Johnny Cash's Unchained (American) was also a rugged little gem. And 14-year-old LeAnn Rimes was the vocal discovery of the year, with her wonderful Patsy Cline-inspired heartacher "Blue." But as long as Curb Records keeps sticking her with the same kind of crap virtually all of Nashville's women are being offered these days, she might as well warble the phone book.

New and notable

This was not a year of Alanis Morissette or Sheryl Crow sized debuts. But blood-pumping music came from Sleater-Kinney, whose Call the Doctor (Chainsaw) rang with remarkable honesty, and Pulp, whose Different Class (Island) had a distinctly British irreverence and humor that -- thanks to Jarvis Crocker's vocal idiosyncrasies -- translated well.

All folked up

To judge by what we hear from upcoming folk acts like Eddie from Ohio and the vapid Dan Bern, the future of the music remains in jeopardy despite the best efforts of hard-hitting, eclectic singer/songwriter ani difranco. But there was one brilliant, homespun, emotional CD that was so rich in lyric detail, so buoyant in the straight-to-the-heart simplicity of its arrangements, so well sung that . . . well, I just kept returning. That was Michelle Shocked's Kind Hearted Woman (Private Music).

Emperor's-new-clothes award

Kula Shaker. They might sing in Sanskrit, but their CD is a manifestation of the eternal nothingness.

The murder of Tupac

That Tupac was not a saint isn't the issue. He was a vital young musician and actor who got lost in a morass of bad-ass posturing and even rougher reality, a confused man whose death may have had something to do with gangs, something to do with music-biz shady characters, or just with a bad turn of luck. But there are lessons in these riddles. The kind we can't depend on anyone -- the government, the police, the industry -- but ourselves to explain.

-- Ted Drozdowski