On the other hand, maybe this time Rock 'n Roll really is dead: Top 40 is dominated by Hip Hop and Dance Pop--for that matter, so is the Indie World. Rock's cultural omnipotence has at last gone the way of Jazz, Swing, Blues, and Tin Pan Alley before it--that is, it will continue to find acolytes and practitioners, but never in a manner that totally dominates the musical landscape again. Modern Rock radio stations are dropping like flies, and the ones left over primarily play hits from the '90s, becoming indistinguishable from the Classic Rock stations that have also absorbed the '90s; if they play new songs, it is only those of long-established acts like Weezer or Blink-182 (which were considered second-tier acts even in their hey-days). Maybe Rock only sounded fresh when it itself was young; at 60+, its time for it to retire. In this sense, Beach Slang, fronted by a 40-year-old veteran of the '90s punk scene, is but the last, defiant gasp of a dying era.
On the other hand, these things are cyclical, and folks have been gleefully predicting the death of Rock ever since Decca passed on signing the Beatles cause "guitar bands are on their way out." Rage Against The Machine recently launched a reunion tour, and it hasn't been graying Gen Xers selling out the tickets but 18-year-olds; the teenagers I teach still obsessively listen to Queen, David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, Metallica, Pearl Jam, System of a Down, and want to talk to me about Kurt Cobain (which intrigues me, because they were born even further away from Cobain's death than I was from John Lennon's). There is clearly a deep-seated need to Rock that the current market is not filling. In this sense, Beach Slang does not signal an end, but a beginning--James Alex may be 40 but the rest of the band is much younger--they are the warning shot before the next round of Rock re-surges yet again.
On the other hand, what on Earth do I care whether Rock retains its cultural currency or not?! I was just complaining a few months ago about how much harder it is to find new music that resonates with my current age; songs about turning 23 certainly do not help me with turning 33. What's worse, far too many 30- and 40-somethings sing like they're still teenagers, in a misbegotten desire to stay "relevant". Why the heck would you want to stay relevant with teenagers?? Even teenagers hate being teenagers! But the list of musicians who know how to actually keep up with their ages is thin: Andrew Bird, LCD Soundsystem, Sufjan Stevens, Low, Kishi Bashi, TV on the Radio, Sleater-Kinney, Leonard Cohen, maybe Wilco (David Bowie was doing a bang-up job, but then he died). Beach Slang, then, is a much-needed addition to the pantheon of Rock music by adults for adults--not nostalgia trips. I don't need Beach Slang to save Rock 'n Roll, but to save me.
On the other hand, Beach Slang is arguably the very type and model for the aforementioned old guys pretending to be kids; as Pitchfork's review of their 2015 debut album notes, "In seven of those songs, James Alex sings the word 'alive,' in three others, he sings 'young,' and there's one song called 'Young and Alive.'" Geez guys, trying a little hard? And c'mon, that title on their debut, "The Things We Do to Find People Who Feel Like Us"? A little on the nose, isn't it? I mean, isn't that what all music's about, finding the songs that will connect us to people who feel the same way we do? It's not exactly a fresh idea--anymore than any of the other stale ideas on this record. Whatever happened to nuance, subtlety, playfulness? And now I learn that their second album (coming out September) is entitled, even more bluntly, "A Loud Bash of Teenage Feelings"--quit trying to relive your youth, man, and age gracefully while you still can.
On the other hand, few folks know how to value their youth more than those who don't have it anymore. The album's obligatory ballad opens with, "Too young to die/Too late to die young"--those are the lyrics of a man keenly aware of his age. Here the comparisons to Joy Division are perhaps instructive: 23-year-old Ian Curtis could maybe afford to indulge in such gloominess and darkness precisely because he was so young; death was only frightening because it was so strange, so foreign. Hence, he had to seek out death directly to touch it, to know it. But 40-year-old James Alex is sprouting gray hairs, showing wrinkles--he knows he need not seek out death, it will come for him much too soon enough. His, then, is the music of a man who has decided not to fade gently into the passing of the night, but to rage, rage, against the passing of the light. He does not want to die, but to live--an incredibly important pick-me-up for the aging.
On the other hand, at the end of the day, they still sound like every other Punk band you've ever heard of--calling theirs "The Best New Replacements Album in 25 Years" is both a compliment and a slam. "Bad Art" may sound different enough from "Ceremony" (not to mention "Bastards of Young"), but it's still not all that different.
On the other hand, at the end of "Bad Art & Weirdo Ideas," there's just that killer line, that all-important affirmation that should never be obscured under irony, sarcasm, or wit, that so many of my community college students need to hear--that maybe Ian Curtis needed to hear--that maybe we all need to hear: "We are not alone, we are not mistakes/Don't whisper now, we're allowed to be loud"--so reads their every lyric sheet, save I swear he actually sings, "We're allowed to be alive..."
We are.
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