Music is Dead, Capital "D"

In 1969, The Who released an album where all of the songs were about a blind, deaf, and dumb boy who became a hero. The album, Tommy, redefined rock music. It expanded the diversity of Western culture (which had not actually been expanded since the 1860s). And it allowed people a way to alter their mindset positively without taking harmful chemical substances.

In 2008, songs are about a handful of things. Some sensitive girl with a guitar wants the guy she can never have. Some sensitive guy with a guitar will be with his girl someday. Some unjustly rich rapper will be having some illegal fun tonight. Some trampy starlet will not be wearing enough clothes tonight.

What went wrong?!

Music back then was about everything from hippieism to physical handicaps to religion (Jesus Christ Superstar, anyone?) Even warbly-voiced rockers had talent-- just look at Ted Neeley, Roger Daltrey, and John Kay! I am probably the youngest person alive to say we need a return to the "good ol' days."

I am not in favor of the stifling censorship of yesteryear. Don't kid yourself about that. Censorship (to a degree) is wrong. The truth deserves to be heard with a wide-open ear. But you have to admit: entertainment, even beyond the world of music, meant something back in those days. Are we not talking about the age of movies like The Godfather and Planet of the Apes, both of which changed the outlook of Hollywood? Was it not the era of Woodstock? In fact, the years between 1967 and 1973 saw perhaps the most diverse sprinkling of daring, risky films: the elaborate, expensive classic-musical Camelot in 1967; the highly cerebral 2001: A Space Odyssey and Apes in 1968; the irreverent war dramedy MASH in 1970; 1971's Fiddler on the Roof, the first truly successful movie musical since 1965's The Sound of Music; The Godfather in 1972; and the wealth of 1973 on the silver screen, from American Graffiti and The Sting to Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell.

Movies today can be very entertaining, but if someone says a movie nowadays is changing the way people think, it usually means it's a pretentious piece of insert choice expletive here.

Here's my solution.

Instead of vapid movie musicals like High School Musical 3, release updates of classics like South Pacific (now would be the time, since its Broadway return has recently done so well), and then try something new: Make a musical film version of The Who's other rock opera, Quadrophenia. Leave the western alone; that genre has been dead for years, so don't touch it unless you can rustle up talent the likes of John Wayne and Paul Newman (ain't-a gonna happen). Focus television away from moronic saccharine contests like American Idol and towards more intelligent fare like The Big Bang Theory and Heroes (although Greatest American Dog is more suitable for human viewing than AI), and the cinema will soon follow the example.

Kids.