I've heard all these great stories about music and it's effects on people, of the urgency to make music, and the people who got attached to that music. The visceral, spiritual power that music had. I've listened to people like Henry Rollins telling stories about how the first time he saw The Ramones, how it changed the entire direction of his life, and how he and his friend Ian MacKaye, were in bands later that year. I've gotten a chance, thanks to the new existence of an External Intellect in Wikipedia- as if it intellect was a hard drive to begin with- to research all these groups and albums and all this music from a bygone era.

And now there are people that make music because they like making sounds and not because it's all they have left. Happy people who let on that they're into having fun and getting out in the world, "living life to the fullest." The kids who thought they were the lowest of the low because they weren't popular in high school got instruments, and vowed revenge through music, through something that promised some kind of fame and legacy past being able to run fast or catch a ball. Then they'll see! They'll all see!

Don't get me wrong, there are some benefits to music not sounding dangerous. There's room for tonal expansion and explorations; now more than ever, there are more musicians plying their craft with their own unique aesthetics and sounds, and those bands are making it. Kanye West can make Graduation and still be a superstar. Radiohead released Kid A and grew their fan base at the same time. And progressive music has swollen to a degree that musical talent can actually pay for itself instead of needing the ability to play a political game.

But I want it all to burn. Most of this great music that's enriched my life and informed me, and expanded? I would trade it for more music that felt dangerous, that felt like it was something other than sounds that I thought made me happy. I don't want to hear about some crazy other world where hypersexualized warrior kings slaughter their foes, be it set in fantasy or on the streets.

So, here's my conclusion; this next decade is going to have the sound the world needs. Because we're inducing conditions that are going to drive desperation out into the open, because otherwise they would choke on it. Every big shift in music from the last century was born from terrible despair and desperation, and boy, there's an atmosphere of it. There are fields of discontent being sewn; the Iranian students, the internet generation in China, the return of the Iron Curtain, the destruction of Iraq, and many more situations. The political polarization of the USA doesn't even place.

The Blues needs no explanation, nor does Jazz; this wasn't music made by happy people, people who are content with life and live comfortable, people who have another way out. Soul music branches from the tradition of blistering hymnals and singing established from the days of slaves; music to make the work easier. Chuck Berry travels to gigs by car, and only takes his guitar and the clothes he wears; that didn't used to be by choice. The hippies didn't really have anywhere else to go and no one would accept how they saw the world, so they made music. The most recent example also needs no introduction; rap. 

People were raised in despair, smartened up too soon, and left to be who they were; unlucky. Some people handle that anger and disappointment differently; those who have hit rock bottom and made it back use a variety of things, but the most common seem to be family and creativity.

 I don't know what this necessary movement is going to sound like; I think it's too late for any of us to know what it'll be (and besides, if anyone really knew, they'd be making it instead of being on the internet screaming at no one) before it's already here. But it's not going to come from times of plenty.

I don't have a big finish for this. I was going to say something about Joy Division, but I lost it.