When Old Is New

I actually like Wolfmother. Andrew "Garbage Day" Miller clearly does not.

His review for their latest album, Cosmic Egg (2009), is a blistering attack on the essence of their retroness. In this context, it's hard to escape the points he makes in his deconstructionist stance. Like, say, this:

Before settling for Wolfmother, pick up not only everything by Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple, but also Blue Cheer, Pentagram, and really any fucking album from the '70s, including disco's entire discography and Debby Boone's You Light Up My Life. Then familiarize yourself with Australia's history of big, dumb crocodile-bludgeoning riffs. Then listen to modern stoner-rock groups, which sound sort of like Wolfmother except they actually include heaviness. After completing any of these tasks, you'll start to view Wolfmother with a combination of disgust, pity and regret, like a cosmopolitan adult woman recalling awkward grope sessions with her gross high-school boyfriend.

And this:

Making "new classic rock" is like manufacturing fresh Atari cartridges. Classic-rock radio isn't accepting new submissions from the dad-rock groups that are still recording, let alone from some newly minted simulacra that remains stubbornly uninformed by decades of musical innovation. Satisfying your classic-rock cravings by listening to Wolfmother is like addressing your hunger by chewing on a picture of a steak.

I can buy the criticism that retro-rock is essentially re-heated leftovers from the rock stylings of yore. Obviously, there's some kind of artistic and cultural yearning for such things. Even if this nostalgia occurs to people who weren't contemporaneously connected to the things they pine for.

But let's keep in mind that modern artists recycling the past is nothing new. The rockers of the '60s and '70s also went through a phase of exploring their rock "roots" by regressing to blues music. Most of them could hardly claim to being directly responsible for the creation and development of a genre "created within the African-American communities in the Deep South of the United States".

Also, most artists, at some point or other, are highly reliant on covers.

Some take it up a notch: the aforementioned Led Zeppelin actually faced legal troubles with claims that they plagiarised riffs and such from other artists. The Beach Boys were sued by Chuck Berry for pinching the tune from his "Sweet Little Sixteen" for their "Surfin' USA". George Harrison had to hand over the royalties derived from "My Sweet Lord" after it was declared to be a little too similar to The Chiffons' "He's So Fine".

Like I said, nothing new.

Cannibalising and regurgitating one's artistic influences is all part of the creative process. in the lead to developing one's own "voice" or style. This concept even has sociological parallels.

In this age of movie remakes, retro fashion and recycling, the zeitgeist appears to be nostalgia. We are living in a generation yet to find its own "voice". I mean, can you really cite the noughties as particularly remarkable from an artistic perspective?

Wolfmother are a manifestation of this borderline creative bankruptcy.

That said, they at least write their own songs, even if their style is hardly ground-breaking. I'm sure if their success continues, their style will continue evolving into something new and exciting. Give 'em time.

That said, there's nothing really wrong with enjoying retro-inspired music. It's one taste among many. Genres are built on this very concept. I mean, what aligns us to them but the familiarity we find in their tropes? How else could we even make such distinctions in the first place? 

I find that the only real problem occurs when the artistic medium it's found in contains nothing but this kind of stuff. That's when they tend to die. Afterall, there's a reason why the Western movie practically died out.

When this happens, the tropes are simply reborn as influences. And so, the cycle continues.

As Miller points out, "Classic-rock radio isn't accepting new submission from the dad-rock groups", so how does one combat such things? Simple: re-jig the format. That's where bands like Wolfmother, Oasis, Jet, Airbourne, The Darkness and so on, come to fill the "void".

There's obviously something they're bringing into the mix. Maybe their music is faster.  Louder. Maybe people can sense a more contemporary element or influence in their music, somehow making it more relate-able. 

Fuck knows.

Point is, once people get sick of such recycling, they'll soon turn to something new. Thus, a band needs to constantly "update" its sound unless it wants to stick with a core group of fans that'll diminish over time, anyway.

So, I welcome Miller's criticism, but I think it needs to be more far-reaching and considerate of a broader artistic, sociological perspective. And shit, maybe people just like this neo-retro stuff for its own sake!

Why else would there be Retro-Rock, Neo-Prog, Neo-Classical Metal, Rockabilly Revival, Surf Revival, Hot Rod Revival, New Wave/Post-Punk Revival and so on and so on?

That's because there'll always be a place for retro. It's embedded deep within the human psyche. People will always mine the past for inspiration, yearn for the good old days and sometimes try and replicate it, too.