Everything Old Is New Again

I’m hearing a lot of tunes on the radio lately that remind me of something I heard years ago. This isn’t a new phenomenon, of course, but I remain fascinated by which styles of music are in vogue at any given time. Right now it seems to be classic/progressive rock.

The Killers and The Hold Steady have songs out right now that call to mind Bruce Springsteen. The Killers’ “When You Were Young” could very easily be mistaken for Springsteen’s “Born to Run,” complete with glockenspiel.

My Chemical Romance has a song called “Welcome to the Black Parade” that features elaborate orchestration and sophisticated production. It sounds eerily like Queen — the guitar tones in particular are very fat and dry, and it’s obvious that someone has been listening to Brian May (the same can be said of Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo, and probably the guys in Smashing Pumpkins as well).

Tool has been compared to King Crimson for its technical approach to songwriting, with pieces that contain movements. Before that, Radiohead made prog cool again with the Floydish stylings of 1997’s “OK Computer” (incidentally, there is a CD out now that is a song-for-song copy of “OK Computer” in reggae style; sounds like a bad trip, but it works surprisingly well).

And before Radiohead, bands like Jellyfish (speaking of Queen) and Tears for Fears (”Sewing the Seeds of Love” pays homage to The Beatles) made an honest living by recycling the sounds of the ’60s and ’70s. They were able to do this by combining sounds that had a proven track record with the ability to write solid pop songs and execute them flawlessly. Seriously, listen to Jellyfish’s two albums — there’s not a bad note on either one of them.

Cycles. What goes ’round comes ’round. And when it does, we can be grateful that it’s artists like Springsteen, Queen, King Crimson, Pink Floyd, and the Beatles that are being copied. Lord help us if we ever get stuck with regurgitated Kansas or Foghat.

On this day…

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