Another point is that, and this is especially true of the seventies and sixties, musicians had causes… I mean REAL CAUSES. Equal rights for Women and Blacks, Love not War, Stop the Red Threat. That is what they based their music on and because it struck a nerve that everyone could relate to, people flocked to things like the Monterey Jazz Festival, Woodstock, etc… to see artists. They did do stupid things, but a lot of the time they did not try to hide from it, and made it public themselves. Many of them flat out admitted to using dope, no qualms at all, in fact I want to say John Lennon lit up right on stage before the shooting of the Michael Douglas show.

Today there is not much that people see as motivation for music, or a movement. Songs about high gas prices would be rather boring. Songs condemning the war in Iraq would cause too much friction against the soldiers, and we all know that we do not was to treat these men and women like we treated those returning from Vietnam. Songs about the current administration… well… we already had one Lawrence Welk, why have another? There is just really nothing to move them. About the only genre that does not have that much “baggage” is country and western.