This is how to fix modern music

This is John. Not John Legend. Just John.
Source: AP

JOHN Legend is a daft name. I much prefer his real moniker, John Stephens.

Or if he had to do that attention-seeking, headline-abbreviating, single syllable thing (Lorde, Prince, Pink) I’d have gone with John. John’s a sound name.
To be honest, I’m not even won over by his hit single All Of Me – it’s certainly not up there with Percy Sledge’s soul-squeezing When A Man Loves A Woman or Eric Clapton’s enduringly romantic Wonderful Tonight.
But something about John’s song (sorry, can’t write Legend with any seriousness) has plucked at my heart. Both the video – a monochromatic, deeply intimate portrayal of his relationship with his wife – plus his performance at the Grammy Awards, where he stole glances at her — “you’re my end and my beginning” — feel like an unashamed, old-school, handwritten letter to love.
Because I can’t remember the last time a man stood at a microphone or sat behind a piano and belted out a ballad to a woman he adored. When a straight, contemporary male artist had the confidence to stand up and sing “I love you so much.”
Sure, accuse me of retro sentimentality, of failing to get down with ghetto-speak (indeed you must, if only on the grounds of my dubious fascination with Rod Stewart). But I don’t want those power ballads for me — I have a whole back catalogue seared in my soul: Otis Redding, U2, Robbie Williams, Bryan Adams, Hunters and Collectors — I will kiss you in four places.

Robbie Williams is kind of unforgettable.
Source: Getty Images

No, I want them for Gen Z and beyond because what the 80s and 90s lacked in fashion they made up for with songs that took you from picnics to bars to bed to Sunday mornings. Even books – Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity and David Nicholls’ One Day – reinforced the idea that it was OK for a song to seize your heart.
Now it’s all about grabbing you in the groin – shocking, crude, ugly songs that seduce with a catchy melody but taunt with an offensive message. “Are you up for this?” Robin Thicke is goading in Blurred Lines when he sings about trying to domesticate a woman but her being an animal.
Now Enrique Iglesias, the Artist Formerly Known As Heart-Melter, has come out with a vile piece of porn pop called I’m A Freak. The video clip reinvents the Hefneresque pool party, complete with obligatory twerking, near-naked women spanking each other, simulated sex, shot slamming and cream licking. This from a man who 13 years ago brought us the exquisite, tear-inducing Hero.
I want to slap Iglesias — clearly not in the way he likes — but on behalf of my daughters, who deserve better than this. The soundtrack of their youth increasingly comes from big, fierce power ballad chicks — Pink, Adele, Alicia Keys, Beyonce, Rihanna — and a clutch of insipid men who clearly lack the balls to match them at it.

This isn’t a joke Enrique.
Source: News Limited

As one music industry insider said to me this week: “Where’s the Sinatras, the Tom Joneses? Strong men who are so passionate they want to grab the woman they love, lead her on to the dance floor and sweep her off her feet?
“Men need to step back up and reclaim the love song. It’s been hijacked by all the grungy, bearded, ukulele-strumming hipsters who forget that the toughest thing about them is their tattoo. We need male artists to emote, to scream ‘I f***ing love you’.”
Gay fans are well catered for. Macklemore’s Same Love was the anthem of 2013 and Mary Lambert’s She Keeps Me Warm was pure poetry in both lyrics and clip. Fine if you like James Blunt (I recently attempted to reacquaint, fearing it was a case of Celine Dion syndrome but no, he’s a whiny little git). And sure, there is plenty of room for alternative-cute — Paramore’s Still Into You is a sweetheart of a song.
But as Valentine’s Day lurches around with heart-strewn stationery and flaccid flowers, we need some testosterone-fuelled love ballads, some hit-you-in-the-heart songs favoured by truckies and tradies and blokes who wear Blundstones, not Birkenstocks.

Rapper Macklemore had the anthem of 2013, and he also has a nice hat.
Source: AP

Ballads are songs of the road, of heart not head, of loving one woman, not the multiples favoured by Thicke and Iglesias and hip hop’s cretinous Lil’ Wayne. The ballad is the Rugby union of rock, it’s about honour and tenderness and respect. It’s lovemaking, not sex.
As Sara Leonardi McGrath says — she phoned as I was writing — it’s about “emotional safety”. She and husband Glenn played Islands In The Stream at their wedding. “It’s not about putting a ring on it or being needy,” she says. “It’s about allowing yourself to be a woman and putting your heart in someone’s hands.”
The feminist Camille Paglia reckons we’re neutering boys of their maleness, that “there’s no room for anything manly now”. I disagree, but in the age of gender-neutralism we still need men singing majestic songs. Inspiration is plentiful. But if you’re keen and under 30, please, I beg you, give a wide berth to anything from Chris de Burgh.

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