Old Glory
Surveying the state of American pop this Fourth of July weekend leaves little reason to stand up and cheer. Like last year, the biggest buzz in both rock (Bloc Party) and hip-hop (M.I.A.) comes from across the pond; the biggest Stateside breakthrough so far, the Bravery, might as well be from Manchester. The charts continue to be dominated by 50 Cent‘s gangsta cartel and Kelly Clarkson‘s tween-empowering pop, both equally vacuous, while after disappointing albums by Queens of the Stone Age, Weezer, System of a Down, Nine Inch Nails, and Beck, it’s going to take a lot more than Coldplay to reverse modern rock’s flat-out crisis. What little hope there is comes from Austin (Spoon‘s Gimme Fiction looks like their long-expected national breakthrough), Houston (Mike Jones, Slim Thug, and Paul Wall‘s syrupy rap is reams more compelling than Fitty’s tired thug theatrics), and Iraq (soldiers rhyming from the front lines on Live From Iraq offer a vision of the war not seen on CNN). Still, learning U.S. troops used Christina Aguilera songs to “interrogate” Al Qaeda suspects at Guantanamo Bay is one more Maalox moment in a year that, fittingly, brings to mind a line from Leonard Cohen‘s 1992 song “Democracy”: “I love the country, but I can’t stand the scene.” Amen.This article appears in July 1 • 2005.