Showing posts with label artist of his time. Show all posts
Showing posts with label artist of his time. Show all posts

Saturday, April 11, 2020

"An Artist Of His Time"

I read an article today about Joe Diffie's albums hitting the charts again since his tragic death from coronavirus. The story stated that Joe is considered "an artist of his time". I know that was meant as a dis, but what artist isn't considered of his/her time? That's kinda how time and music works.

The intimation is that Joe Diffie could never make it in today's country environment. Absolutely true, but that's more an indictment of new country than of the artist. The Beatles would be dismissed as a garage band today; thus no one should ever listen to their music Sinatra was a flash in the pan.You know how the forties were; people were such rubes.

I fully acknowledge I have a bias toward nineties country music. In my defense, I've been around a long time and I've heard approximately a million songs in my lifetime. I venerate nineties country because it was the best. I have things to compare it to. It goes like this: nineties, sixties, eighties, seventies (which was overall bad), nineties (which was overall worse), and whatever the hell today's music is.

For the most part, music is tied up with our life experiences, but if one takes an unjaundiced look and they're willing to admit it, some musical times were superior. If I solely judged music by the times of my life that were the most momentous, I'd worship seventies country. In fact, I stopped listening to country in the late seventies because it was so putrid.There was nothing particularly noteworthy about the nineties for me, other than the sublime music poring out of my radio speakers.

Unlike some, I'm not a musical snob.I like music that's good, or at least good to my ears. I don't politicize it; I don't subscribe to what's hip or dismiss what's unhip. I have nobody to impress.

So, an artist of his time? I'll simply fold it into my heart and enjoy it, no matter what any "woke" critic dismisses.Music is one of life's few purities.