Monthly Archives: September 2022

On Sept. 20, popular Chinese livestreamer Li Jiaqi, known as the lipstick king for his impressive ability to push sales of lipstick and other makeup products, reappeared on Chinese streams for the first time in three months. Li had disappeared from the Chinese internet for a mistake he probably had no idea he was making. In the middle of his summer sales push, on June 3, one of his employees brought out a cake in the shape of a tank. Alas, June 4 is the anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre of 1989, and the Chinese authorities relentlessly police any hint of commemoration.

Li and many of his fans were born after the massacre occurred. They may not have even been aware it happened. China has long policed historical memory, deleting and rewriting references to past atrocities and insisting on adherence to official narratives. As President Xi Jinping said in a speech last year, know history; love the party. Today, that relentless censorship is increasingly focused online.

Ahead of the critical 20th Party Congress starting on Oct.16, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) is inviting netizens to snitch on those guilty of historical nihilism.

On Sept. 20, popular Chinese livestreamer Li Jiaqi, known as the lipstick king for his impressive ability to push sales of lipstick and other makeup products, reappeared on Chinese streams for the first time in three months. Li had disappeared from the Chinese internet for a mistake he probably had no idea he was making. In the middle of his summer sales push, on June 3, one of his employees brought out a cake in the shape of a tank. Alas, June 4 is the anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre of 1989, and the Chinese authorities relentlessly police any hint of commemoration.

Li and many of his fans were born after the massacre occurred. They may not have even been aware it happened. China has long policed historical memory, deleting and rewriting references to past atrocities and insisting on adherence to official narratives. As President Xi Jinping said in a speech last year, know history; love the party. Today, that relentless censorship is increasingly focused online.

Ahead of the critical 20th Party Congress starting on Oct.16, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) is inviting netizens to snitch on those guilty of historical nihilism.

The term has been used by officials for decades, but it was given new importance when it was listed as one of the seven ideological threats the party faces in Document No. 9, which was leaked in 2013 and hinted at Xis intellectual agenda as he began his tenure as party chairman. According to the document, historical nihilism is tantamount to denying the legitimacy of the CCPs long-term political dominance.

Any fact, statistic, opinion, or memory that doesnt fit into the official line can thus be framed as a violation of the partys anti-historical-nihilism campaign. Authorities are taking action: More than 2 million social media posts alleged to be disseminating historical nihilism were reportedly deleted in the months before the centennial celebration of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) last year. In a speech last April, CAC Director Zhuang Rongwen described the necessity of powerfully refuting historical nihilism and other incorrect ideological standpoints on the internet.

Historical nihilism is important enough to merit its own reporting center, where netizens can rat on each other for sharing posts that distort the history of the party or the history of new China.

The incentives to snitch are strong. In the context of restrained civil liberties and curtailed political and, increasingly, personal freedoms, defending the partys version of Chinas history, the only version of history it can safely be proud of, is one way to guarantee your own safetyor to advance your career.

The leaderships incentives for tackling so-called historical nihilism are even clearer. Framing the past as a justification for present party leadership is existentially essential for the CCP and its leaders.

Subjects of Marxism and inheritors of Maoism, they argue the primacy of the party is the result of historical inevitability. As stated in Document No. 9, one facet of historical nihilism is denying the historical inevitability in Chinas choice of the socialist road. The explicit need to exert historical control, even and especially as online platforms get more advanced and intertwined with everyday life, demonstrates party officials and, specifically, Xis belief that tolerating contested histories threatens the legitimacy and stability of the regime.

As the researcher Joseph Torigian has written in Foreign Policy, Xi uniquely understands why historical grudges and differing views about the past are so potentially explosive. Thats because his father, also a prominent CCP leader, was part of a revolution-era clique from the northwest rife with violence and, later, controversy over how to write or omit such violence into party history. As Xi Zhongxun said at a meeting held to resolve the history of party violence in the northwest in 1945, while it was no big deal if people were ignorant about history, the most damaging is the distortion and falsification of history.

The apple doesnt fall far from the tree. Xis focus on historical nihilism similarly emphasizes the crime of distortion. To him, distortions are defined by their deviation from the party line. History either is official history, or its nothing, nonbelief, nihilism.

Such a stark contrast gives the party power. The CCPs official narrative positions its own rule as not only essential but inevitableboth in the past and the future. Part of this effort involves making explicit connections between past and current struggles.

Xis nationalism is very much looking forward to the 21st century, but it also draws upon some aspects of the 20th to strengthen itself, said Rana Mitter, a professor of history and politics of modern China at the University of Oxford.

The party has come up with two complementary terms to get at its envisioned future and its past failures. National rejuvenation refers to restoring China to its rightful position and a global actor in its own right, Mitter said. National humiliation refers to all the factors that have prevented that.Conveniently, only the CCP can deliver the Chinese people from humiliation to realized rejuvenation.

Along the way, its essential that the party comes up with a moral for every historical storyclear connective tissue between past events and their implications for the present and future.

One of the lines that [Xi] uses about the Second World War is that it was the first time China was attacked by an outside power and was able to fight back, which gives it a particular kind of cachet, Mitter explained.

This framing of World War II carries a strong nationalist narrative with clear contemporary applications in the context of U.S.-China competition. But coming up with a contemporary takeaway for every historical event is an ambitious projectand one that betrays the partys degree of dependence on historical narratives.

The current leaderships hefty investment in rewriting Chinese and international historians scholarship on Qing history, for example, demonstrates the depth of both its insecurity and its commitment to historical overhaul. Meanwhile, despite the official line that the Cultural Revolution was a disaster, authorities tolerance of neo-Maoist websites, which Mitter described as creating a nostalgic, rose-tinted version of the era, painting it as one of camaraderie rather than violence, shows there is more wiggle room to go beyond the party line if youre going in a positive direction.

But Xi has clearly deduced that for his own political protection, he should be the gatekeeper not only of Chinas history, but also of its historiography.

Societies that dont allow for nuance tend to create history that is more of use to politicians that it is to historians, Mitter said.

In a ramped-up effort to tighten control over all discussions of history, Chinas interagency speech control apparatus is also actively merging fighting rumors with taking down historical nihilism.

In 2021, a division of the CAC called the China Internet Joint Rumor Platform listed 10 historical events for which infringing on the official narrative constitutes clear historical nihilism. The Communist Party Member Website described the list of untouchables as 10 history-related rumors that have long flooded the online world. The announcement seeks to put these rumors to bed, claiming they have been disproved.

Since the party is highly defensive of its own reputation and, separately, the issue of Chinese history, it is perhaps not so shocking that it is extra sensitive about the combination of the two: party history. According to the announcement of the 10 irrefutable events, Online rumors involving party history severely pollute the ecology of the internet, mislead the public, and damage the partys image.

Even still, the 10 isolated events, posed in question form by the China Digital Times, appear laughably trivial: Was Hu Qiaomu, Mao Zedongs secretary, the real author of a poem by Mao, Snowto the Tune of Spring in Qin Garden? Was Mao Anying, Mao Zedongs son, martyred because he gave his position away while making egg fried rice? Was the Long March less than 25,000 li (7,767 miles)? Did the party center unseal Deng Yingchaos diary to research its own history?

That diary, which belonged to former Chinese Premier Zhou Enlais wife Deng Yingchao, reportedly includes suggestions that Zhou regretted supporting Maos policies.This rumor about the potential misgivings one long-dead former Chinese leader had about another was important enough to be the subject of an article released in 2018 by the Party Literature Research Center.

The article attempts to debunk the original allegations of Zhous opposition to Mao, arguing, This kind of deliberate misrepresentation, this concocted story, recklessly slanders and damages the reputations of our leaders. Its not just flawed history; its deranged history.

This alleged intentional disparagement of CCP leaders will not go unpunished. The post concludes: We should look into establishing responsibility for investigating [instances of historical nihilism] and punishing offenders, so we can regroup and come back even stronger.

In the aftermath of a controversy concerning some key CCP martyrs, the Politburo Standing Committee passed the Heroes and Martyrs Protection Act in 2018. According to the official story, the Five Martyrs of Langya Mountain in 1941 fooled and then fought off the Japanese Army as civilians escaped.

Then, when they had exhausted their options, they jumped off a cliff in a heroic show of bravery and defiance. Descendants of these martyrs sued Hong Zhenkui, who wrote based on his research in an academic paper that the men had slipped, rather than jumped, off the cliff. He was found guilty on the basis that the stories of heroes and martyrs are the Chinese nations common historical memory and the reputation and honor of heroes and martyrs are protected by law.

As the Chinese government continues to invest in advanced technologies that diminish private spaces, the degree of monitoring Chinese citizens face is likely to rise. In such a society, history becomes another riskundiscussable unless and until it adheres to the party line.

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In China, Only the Party Tells History - Foreign Policy

The Infinite Nihilistic Jest of Brian Ennals and Infinity Knives

Blue Chips is a monthly rap column that highlights exceptional rising rappers. To read previous columns, click here.

Releasing music in relative obscurity can engender insecurity, the self-doubt mounting with every year critical acclaim and peer recognition doesnt arrive. Brian Ennals was intimately familiar with that disheartening reality for a decade. Throughout the 2010s, the Baltimore rappers sporadic solo projects gained little traction, and songs with short-lived groups either languished on hard drives or were quietly buried on the back pages of small blogs. Following the release of King Cobra (Phantom Limb), his second album of brilliant tragicomic nihilism produced by fellow Baltimorean Infinity Knives, Ennals career narrative is slowly changing.

It was always weird to tell people that I was an amateur rapper, even when I was younger, the 39-year-old says over the phone, fresh from a weekend at the beach with his two-year-old son. I always wanted to be able to say, Not only am I a rapper, not only am I a good rapper, but Im also a successful one. Thats just happening now.

Ennals and Infinity Knives briefly toured Europe this past spring, received an Album of the Day nod from Bandcamp in June, and both appeared on ascendant rap podcast Dad Bod Rap Pod and graced the cover of Baltimore alt-weekly Baltimore Beat in August. None of it happens without King Cobra, which expands on the sound and subject matter of 2020s Rhino XXL.

Produced, mixed, and mastered by Infinity Knives, the songs fuse organic and electronic sounds while contorting 80s and contemporary hip-hop. They are unique departures from the dystopian, Vangelis-meets-Bomb Squad instrumentals of early El-P with occasional nods to 80s boogie and R&B. Ever adaptable, Ennals offers pistol-grip insurrection, self-aware gallows humor, and vivid song-length narratives written in white lines. He affirms killing landlords, ending homelessness, and eating pussy with the same fervor, raging against the ills of late-stage capitalism while fuming over the Baltimore Orioles dismal playoff prospects. No politician is safe, no institution is sacred, and repentance may or may not begin after the next eight ball.

Story continues

The album is very nihilistic, Ennals explains. Me and Tariq [Infinity Knives] are very cynical guys. If Rhino XXL was Star Wars, [King Cobra] is Empire Strikes Back. Were trying to go for a little more hopefulness on the next record. Like Return of the Jedi, but no Ewoks and shit.

King Cobra warrants far wider acclaim before the next sequel. Together, Ennals and Infinity Knives sit somewhere between Dead Prez and Danny Brown. You could also make the case that theyre a hybrid of The Coup and Too $hort for fans of Cannibal Ox. If youre after contemporary analog, think of them as the more approachable and intentionally puerile Armand Hammer, the pointed sociopolitical commentary competing with Ennals unchecked horniness.

Every time I write something kind of profound, my goal is to write something disgusting right after, Ennals says.

Born in Annapolis, Ennals and his older brother were raised in Severn, a census-designated place (CDP) roughly 16 miles south of Baltimore. Now a burgeoning suburb, Severn was once a rural, no-sidewalk town with a mix of trailer parks, Section 8 housing, and single-family homes. The Ennals family fell into the latter camp. His dad worked as a public school principal in Baltimore, and the boys mother oversaw equipment training at various phone companies. While his parents worked, Ennals unconsciously fell in love with performing, obsessively watching Motown concerts on VHS at home and singing in the grade school choir.

Though his older brother played radio-ripped tapes of Baltimore club tracks, Ennals eventually discovered rap, reading The Source and buying albums from the Fugees and Crucial Conflict. High school lunchroom ciphers led the formation of his first group, Special Ops. With no industry connections and music journalisms blog era in its infancy, Special Ops fizzled out after Ennals graduated from Howard University and navigated the grim job market in the wake of the 2008 recession.

The next decade was a blur of empty liquor bottles, blunt smoke, and powder-filled plastic bags. Ennals dropped two solo records 2010s Untitled and 2013s Candy Cigarettes that drew local acclaim from the Baltimore Sun but little beyond that. Between his day job and the odd recording session, he spent much time battling substance abuse issues.

Im pretty sober now, Ennals says, but for a large part of my adult life I was a hedonist but very depressed in a lot of ways and wanted something to numb that.

Infinity Knives and Brian Ennals (Credit: Shae McCoy)

Infinity Knives initially contacted Ennals after reading about him in the Baltimore Sun, but the two didnt begin recording until Knives solicited Ennals for his 2020 album Dear, Sudan. In the six-year interim, Ennals briefly bounced to New Jersey while Knives became a fixture in the Baltimore indie rap scene that sprang up around Baltimores Bell Foundry and spawned JPEGMAFIA. After working on Knives Dear, Sudan, Ennals knew they needed to record their eventual debut, Rhino XXL.

[Working with Infinity Knives] is the first time that I feel Ive been produced. Its not just a guy sending me a beat and asking me to record over it. Its him saying, like, Hey, maybe you should take this approach or this flow. Maybe take this line out or switch it around. Hes a big boxing fan, so he likes to describe as Cus DAmato and [Mike] Tyson. Its very much him coaching me and making me a better fighter.

Like the best coaches, Infinity Knives knows his fighters strengths.

[One] reason Im so drawn to [Brian] is because of how malleable his style is. He definitely has his comfort zone, but the more he goes, the more I can tell him to do weird shit, Infinity Knives says. Ive just seen him get better and better. He can rap with a triplet flow or rap on a beat in 10/4. And hes a scholar of the arts.

They carried the momentum of Rhino XXL into King Cobra, spending the next year and a half of the pandemic politely butting heads and pushing one another past their creative comfort zones. King Cobra received some promotion from Phantom Limb, but the publicist they hired bailed. Fortunately, thanks to a network of supportive peers and growing journalistic support, word of the duos collective brilliance continues to spread.

The whole thing has been word of mouth. We knew a lot of people who knew a lot of people. Its a real grassroots type of thing. Im glad its not hitting everybody at once, Ennals says. The way everybodys attention spans are set up, if everybody heard it the first weekend it dropped, we wouldnt be talking about it three months later.

To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, click here.

The post The Infinite Nihilistic Jest of Brian Ennals and Infinity Knives appeared first on SPIN.

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The Infinite Nihilistic Jest of Brian Ennals and Infinity Knives - Yahoo Entertainment

There are lots of fans of slasher movies who seem to treat the subgenre as a kind of sport, that the pleasure in viewing them comes from rooting for the killer as he makes his way through the victims who obviously deserve what they get in some capacity. This has always been strange to me as the whole point of horror is to be horrified for the characters. Yet the new film Bodies Bodies Bodies still intrigued me because it seemed to be using this concept to make some kind of statement about the more obnoxious tendencies of modern culture a potentially interesting idea that comes off sadly far more mean-spirited than genuinely satirical in execution.

The film follows Sophie (Amandla Stenberg), a recovering addict who invites her new girlfriend Bee (Maria Bakalova) to a hurricane party being held by some friends she hasn't seen in years. As the hurricane rages outside, one friend suggests they play a murder mystery game that turns real when one friend is found dead. As the bodies slowly pile up, paranoia and mistrust rule the night, but who is the real killer?

The film wants to have some kind of message about the narcissism, ironic nihilism, and general hostility that can so often be found in the "Twitter/TikTok Generation" but I'm not quite sure what that message is beyond "laughing at the horrible people." Worse, the characters are so terrible to each other, it becomes difficult for audiences to even care about their predicament. I understand the desire to show people at their worst but that can't be all there is. All films even horror films need some kind of empathy and humanity to keep audiences engaged. And you'll find neither of those qualities here. Forest Taylor

Directed by: Halina Reijn // Written by: Sarah DeLappe, based on a story by Kristen Roupenian // Starring: Amandla Stenberg, Maria Bakalova, Myha'la Herrold, Rachel Sennott, Chase Sui Wonders, Lee Pace, and Pete Davidson // 93 minutes // Rated R // A24

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No Laughing Matter: Bodies Bodies Bodies Is Too Cynical to Be Much Fun - Erie Reader

Oliver Jeffers still keeps a workspace in Brooklyn, where he lived for 17 years before returning to his native Belfast to be closer to family during the pandemic. When I meet the author and artist in his studio on a drizzly afternoona few hours before hell recite an original poem at a gala for the UN General Assemblyits awash in paint-splattered amusements. In one corner sits a ghost, a sheet with eyeholes that Jeffers proudly says glows in the dark and really freaks people out. On a ceiling-high chalkboard, written in his signature scrawla cross between a childs handwriting and a ransom notehis list of tasks begins: Glue moon. Sure enough, on a large painted moon, hes been testing out paper cutouts of astronauts from old books. Theres a can of Modelo beer by the sink, old wooden drawers whose labels read Sorry cards and Library cards, and every artistic instrument imaginable.

The scene is everything the mother of a 4-year-old Jeffers devotee could imagine, and then some. Jeffers, 44, best known for the nearly 20 picture books hes both written and illustrated since 2004, and another 10-plus hes illustrated, many of them best sellers and award winners, is a bedtime fixture in my house. In his work, he often balances his playful sensibility with serious topics. Earlier books constructed allegories around grief (The Heart and the Bottle) and friendship (Lost and Found). Recent ones have tackled capitalist greed and environmentalism (The Fate of Fausto) and walls (What Well Build).

His latest, Meanwhile Back on Earth, coming Oct. 4, follows a Jeffers-like dad and his son and daughter through the solar system in a car turned spaceship. They look back on dark moments in historywars, the devastating first encounters of colonization, cavemen fighting to survive. Images depicting tragic chapters are interspersed with those of the trios little green car, bickering siblings in the back seat. A dose of reality, a dash of whimsy.

Read more: The 10 Best YA and Childrens Books of 2021

In our conversation, I refer to Jeffers as a childrens book author, and he gently responds that he doesnt see himself that wayhe makes picture books. Theyre primarily consumed by kids and parents, but not specifically intended for them. It just so happens that most 5-year-olds share my sense of humor, he says. But whos got much use for boxes these days? When he went to COP26 in Glasgow last fall, none of the options for profession fit; whoever made his name tag chose observer and translator, which felt just right.

In 2017, Jeffers traveled to Nashville to witness a total eclipse of the sun. He recalls standing in that path of totality and youre suddenly looking at a black hole in the sky. He felt the distance of 93 million miles the way you feel the distance to a tree or a house: It buckled the knees from under me.

Meanwhile Back on Earth channels this sense of perspective. Its subtitle is A Cosmic View on Conflict, and it has strong Lennon-esque Imagine theres no countries vibes. It calls to mind Earthrise, the first photo of Earth taken from space, shot by astronaut William Anders during 1968s Apollo 8 mission, which Jeffers suggests was perhaps less about exploring the moon than it was about looking back at the blue marble we live on.

The book was largely inspired by another experience Jeffers had looking at someplace familiar from a distance: his attempts to explain the conflicts of his native Northern Ireland to outsiders, beginning when he first came to the U.S. at age 11 on a summer camp scholarship to New York state. The Americans he met hardly knew the difference between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, let alone why they were fighting. Decades later, shortly after his son was born, he watched news reports of violence in his hometown, flare-ups between Catholic and Protestant factions. Itd be teenagers, 12-, 14-, 16-year-olds. What do they know? Theyve just been told a story, he says. He looked at his newborn and thought about how he might use his particular talents to offer up a new narrative. I dont want to tell you that story, he remembers thinking. I get to change the story.

Storytelling, a deeply ingrained part of Irish culture, came naturally to Jeffers, much like his penchant for art. The two were intertwined as he grew up in a lively household with three brothers, a lot of cousins, and many nurses, doctors, and family members filing in and out to help because his mother had multiple sclerosis. He found that his talent for drawing had a pleasant effect: Being in a big family and often ignored, I did whatever the hell I could to get some attention. He began to specialize in art in secondary school, and as a fledgling artist a friend pointed out to him that his proclivity for creating series of paintings might lend itself to books.

As his bibliography grows longer, its also getting deeper. Sure, some of his books are just for funI still need to entertain myself sometimes, he says. But many of them wrestle with the very survival of humanity, and the many issues we keep failing to adequately face. Hes become increasingly aware of their interconnectedness. In interviews and discussions about the themes of his books, people have asked, Is this book about the climate crisis? and Is this book about equality? His answer: Well, yes. Everything is connected.

Back in Jeffers Brooklyn studio hangs a small replica of a piano that appears to be on fire. Its from a 2019 exhibit of his work inspired in part by a quote from Buckminster Fullers 1969 Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth. To paraphrase, Fuller writes that if youre in a shipwreck, and a piano top comes along, it would make for a passable flotation devicebut that does not mean its an optimal flotation device. The point is: when facing todays global problems, we are clinging to yesterdays solutions, despite our potential to do better.

This is what Jeffers is so galvanized by: if we could just see ourselves with a bit more perspective, see with clarity that the systems weve built arent working anymore, maybe we would be more compelled to try to change them. And he thinks that we can change them. Its this belief hes trying to champion in his work. And thank goodness, because what kind of picture books would result from someone who thinks were doomed?

But if were going to succeed, he says, we need to take a wider point of view, which brings him back to outer space and his latest book. Its this notion of the overview effect that happens when astronauts look at earth, he says, and are far enough to see that this is one giant, single system.

A lot of people, when confronted with the unfathomable vastness of the universe, feel insignificant to the point of apathy, or even nihilism. Jeffers takes a different tack. When people feel nihilistic, they havent finished that thought: if nothing matters, in a strange way, everything matters, he says, the levity and optimism that make him a favorite of parents and kids everywhere shining through. So we should try to solve our problems, yes, but also have a little bit of fun while were at it. The chances of being here at all are so infinitesimal. Why not just enjoy it as much as possible?

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Write to Eliza Berman at eliza.berman@time.com.

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Oliver Jeffers Gets Perspective With Meanwhile Back on Earth - TIME

Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance

Lets set the record straight right away.

Little Richard was the true innovator of rock and roll. Every genre of rock and roll can be traced back to The Beatles. The period of music from 1968 to 1972 will never be surpassed in terms of the birth of legendary bands and output of classic albums. The 1970 Alberts Hall concert by Led Zeppelin set the gold standard for incendiary, sexually charged, tight-but-loose rock and roll. The Allman Brothers did not waste one note on their Live at Filmores East album. And, of course, there will never be anything like the Age of Bowie.

I am 58, and most of my vinyl collection (before I regrettably sold it in 2005 when I temporarily moved to Switzerland) was right in the creative wheelhouse of the late 60s and early 70s rock and roll. Looking back, there was an almost incomprehensible quality of music that lit up the world in that short burst of time. Even seminal records in soul musicMarvin Gayes Whats Going On and Sly and The Family Stones Standwere released during this period. Both those albums, like those of that generation, have held onto their musical and cultural value. In my forthcoming book Sonic Seducer: Lust For Life With The Transcending Moments, Memories, and Magic of Rock and Roll, I dedicate a whole chapter to this four-year period of musicand what was missed!

Here is an excerpt:The moon landing. Vietnam. Kent State Shootings. Political assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy. And, right in the middle of all of this was the end of The Beatles. These were just some of the global events that marinated with the cultural and musical impact of The British Invasion, led, of course, by The Fab Four. The resulting music stretched the emotional landscape from hippie optimism found in the musical Hair to the proto-punk nihilism that was rocket fuel for The Stooges. It was uplighting Age of Aquarius one second and hedonistic Down on the Street the next. And in between was some of the greatest music ever created.

However, most of the music I obsessively listen to now are from artists who exist in the here and now. The present I will get to the musical reason for this, but there is a larger, philosophical rationale for devouring the fruits of our presentand as such, framing our lives in this rock and roll effervescence.

Life exists only at this very moment, and in this moment, it is infinite and eternal. For the present moment is infinitely small; before we can measure it, it has gone, and yet it persists forever.

Our lives are enriched by the arts. They are enriched further if the time period that they are cherished is the only one that any human has ever lived inthe present. Dont get me wrong. The currency that has been attached to the high fermentation period of rock and rock culture of 1968 to 1972 will neverand should be neverdevalued. However, there is something quite special happening 50 years later. Something that just could not have happened back then. Having all the groundbreaking sounds of rock, metal, psychedelia, blues, and folk mix in the underground for many decades has created endless possibilities of mouth-watering fusion.

Lemmys favourite artistsLittle Richard, The Beatles, and Gene Vincenthad at least an emotional impact on the music and attitude that was created in Motrhead. That is how culturally relevant the roots of rock and roll were, and still are.

Now, dont you think that the richest period of rock and rollthat saw the end of The Beatles and the beginning of Black Sabbathwould have a similar impact? Only this impact would be seismic. Except the musical earthquake would have far below levels of mainstream detection.

Which explains the problem with almost everyone of my peers especially if they are in the shallow waters of the music industry. That they firmly believe that todays music is vastly inferior to the period during the heyday of classic rock/FM radio.

The simple reason for that false narrative is that these people have been disconnected from the deep end of music since the early 90s, when the whole Seattle music scene was dropped ceremoniously on their front door and everyone elses. That same time period, coincidentally, a less audible sound was dropped on the world. It was heavier. It was more psychedelic. It was just more muscle and grease. Kyuss, Monster Magnet, Fu Manchu, and Sleep had all arrived.

The Four Horsemen of stoner/desert rock would have a collective influence that would help deeply shape the decades to come. And those bands, collectively at least, mined their influences feverishly from known and unknown artists of the aforementioned golden generation of rock music.So while the Seattle/Grunge(yes, we all hated that word) scene began to evaporate by the late 90s, with only Pearl Jam standinglike some Survivor contestthe stoner rock community was at the cusp of truly growing, when the label Mans Ruin came on the scene. But, all of this has been firmly entrenched outside detection of the limp, mainstream musical radars.

So a false confidence that rock and roll was dying seemed to envelope most music critics, especially the ones who got rightfully fat on Electric Ladyland, Abbey Road, Morrison Hotel, Paranoid, Zeppelin IV, Whos Next, MadMan Across The Water, Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust, Exile On Main Street, Deja Vu, Tapestry, After The Gold Rush, and so on, and so on

However, one of the best things that started happening with the onset of social media and its maturation, was the change in how information flowed.

It was no longer top-down vertical from institutions like radio stations and big ass publications, who were still pretentiously looking for the next R.E.M., Pavement, or Dinosaur Jr. No. Ideas and information started to flow horizontally, and everything got democratised. Just like in thermodynamics, you cannot destroy energy or matter. Here, you cannot destroy trust. It has to exist and move. And now it moves closer to the underground community of stoner rock, which also has folded in the more extreme sounds of doomin a nutshell, a sound that is slow and low on volume levels that Lemmy would approve of.

As such, the power of the gatekeepers in terms of what music was validated as being good, began to diminish considerably. Not that anyone should have ever paid attention to any Top 100 Rolling Stone poll. I think for the top 100 Debut Albums of all time, Zeppelin I didnt even make the top 50. Somebody hates rock music.

30 years ago, we waited with bated breath to listen to corporate radio and read corporate magazines like Rolling Stone and SPIN to find out what would surface in terms of new rock and roll. The underground of rock, which was even there in that golden age of the aforementioned years(have you heard of Granicus, Iron Claw, Atomic Rooster, Cathedral, etc.?), was still toiling away, not caring what happened above their subterranean dwelling.

Well, that institutionalised dominance of radio and print is gone. Rock and roll for these laggards sorry, no polite term is available here is some simple mash up of celebrating Pearl Jam and Metallica, while thinking The Black Keys are the lone heir to the throne of rock and roll. A throne which these boomer music critics would concede is a dying Monarchy.While there are several analogies which could symbolise the collective arrogance and ignorance that rock and roll somehow just shrivelled away, I think we need to find one which illuminates this simple truth:

Rock and roll didnt die. Your curiosity for it did. Great music still exists. Your sense of adventure does not.

Imagine telling your neighbour that there is this most stunning sunset happening right now, and they should come down to the beach and see it. All they do is simply step outside on their porch, squint at some distant clouds, and go back inside confidently thinking they didnt miss anything.

Well, you missed it. You missed an entire generation of deliriously creative music that has been evolving for 30 years now. The moniker which this music has gone under has been stoner rock. It is both accurate and misleading at the same time. Yes, much of the music taps into the psyche of heavy riffs, psychedelia, slacker lifestyle, and drugs. But, it is far more than that. Well, for one, it is the most knowledgeable generation of the same period of music that the older generation holds in high standing. There is a full stop irony right there.

Just look at the top image. The only reason I chose 30 bands is because anymore, it might be hard to recognise the artists. These bands, again of which there are many more, are currently putting out some of the best music.

Actually, I just sold that whole scene incredibly short. My apologies to them. They are putting out some of the best rock and roll ever. Period. Comeback and debate with me when you have listened to all of the albums pictured above. Maybe then you will stop pining for a Led Zeppelin reunion. If Robert Plant has moved on, maybe we should as well.

Maybe this allt shocking or improbable to many of you, that todays rock music is as good as 50 years ago. But, logically it makes sense, if we cycle back to where this generation sits in reference to the much earlier ones. The underground musicians of stoner rock, already having a deep reverence for all styles of music of that period, would be deeply curious to scope rocks encyclopaedia, and create/synthesise a new sound by seamlessly interlacing all the varied styles of that period. A new sound for this generation. This is not imitation. This is musical innovation. Rock and roll is about constantly finding its edges and creating art with every inspiration/idea possible. A quote below from one of its masters sums it up all too well.

You have to learn to be strong and be glad to be alive. You have to take every colour available in the palette and make the best painting you can, while you can.

There are more colours available now than 50 years ago. And many of those colours were still wetie. The birth of Sabbath, Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, David Bowie, etc.

No other genre in the history of music has had a larger palette to work withand, actually dab/smear all of them into their music. And, my generation of Boomers and older Gen Xers, by failing to understand the depth of Nancy Wilsons wordsthe timeless clarion call of rock and rollhave done a disservice by transmitting grossly misinformed ideas about the death of rock music. An important point, this is only directed at those who are interested in rock and roll. If you are unaware of what is happening but are curious, then you are not the target of this article. Those who make it their occupation of giving the death rattle for classic rock sounds/70s musicianship in 2022 most definitely are.

Instead of looking for where Beatles musicianship, Iggy Pop attitude, Pink Floyd meticulousness, Sabbath doom, and Bowie experimentation ended upall in the expansive genre of stoner rock/doom/psychedeliathe so-called greatest generation made an arrogant and false decree that symbolises how they lost their way in their calcified ideas about music.In the end, they ended like most people. Romanticising music of their teenage years to a point of creating and living with the lie that rock and rollespecially in its most combustible, salty, and emotionally haunting formsis dead. Like their youth.

Ive never felt younger and more alive. Thats because of the music of today. Here, we are all forever youngand free. Its not too late to be seduced by the best bands of today and recapture your feral nature. Its not too late to be ageless through the magic of the sonically and spiritually heaviest music on the planet. The best rock and roll as adhered to this Anne Rice quote, part of a foreword she wrote for a book about some short stories from Kafka.

Dont bend; dont water it down; dont try to make it logical; dont edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.

Reaching back to the greatest period of rock music, one song, with three words, actually gave everyone the lifetime compass to never stop listening to the primalyet always evolvingsounds of rock and roll. The band is Hawkwind. The song is Born To Go. Play todays music loud. Play todays music often. Play itmercilessly. Now.

Sunil Singh: Author. Speaker. Math Storyteller. Porous Educator. Advisor at Amplify. Board of Directors, Human Restoration Project. Music freak and geek. Everything on 11.

Sunil is on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Mathgarden

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Talkin' About My Generation: How Boomers Became Deaf, Dumb, and Blind To The Inspiration and Innovation of Rock and Roll - MetalTalk