Indelicately put but I can’t think of a better way to say it.

I was watching Gray’s Anatomy online this weekend (oh how I do love my mindless TV) and after the seventh or eighth cut of yet another meek and moaning fade-up — painstakingly cultivated by the supposed zeitgeist of Music Supervision 2.0 — I’m telling you, I wanted to rip my eyeballs out.

Has everyone lost their edge, lost their taste for edge? Is this even ROCK?

Cue Cracker now (God bless Lowery, Hickman, et al.).

For the most part, it’s all one end of the spectrum or the other, Idol Pop or Anti-Folk. Blech.

And I know, there’s a few bands out there who are managing it. But by my tally, not nearly enough.

Quoting the fine folks at the Air Guitar World Championships: “It is time to release your inner cock of rock.” Can I get a Hell Yeah?

I’m not saying I don’t like me some mellow plucking paired with a sweet, lilting voice. But have we learned nothing from Guitar Hero, the aforementioned inner “spirit” in action? It rules for a reason.

That said, weeping weenies, time to take up a diary. Tender, angelic-voiced, piano-accompanied muses, gazing out through overlong bangs, etc., kindly… step aside. Your brand of sensitive, confessional drivel, frankly, has me bored and longing for, well, cojones.

Everyone else, kindly bring the blessed guitar solo out from underneath what seems to be an epidemically over-dense assault of sound which has all but rendered it moot; its voice indistinguishable as the maelstrom of sound it once was. Those notes are meant to be heard, dammit. Blisteringly loud, front and center.

Even Rolling Stone Magazine has got it right (for a change):

“This is what makes a great rock & roll guitar sound: an irresistible riff; a solo or jam that takes you higher every time you hear it; the final power chord that pins you to the wall and makes you hit “play” again and again. Every song here has those thrills. But these are rock’s greatest guitar moments because of what’s inside the notes: hunger, fury, despair and joy, often all at once. You hear the blues, gospel and rockabilly that came before, transformed by the need to say something new and loud, right away. Rock & roll has been the sound of independence for half a century. The guitar is still its essential, liberating voice. These are the 100 reasons why.”

Amen.

You can see RS’s 100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time all on one page, thanks to Stereogum, here.

Now all they need to do is compile a monster box set. Ballsy.

RIP Bo Diddley.

© Outlandos MusicTM 2008