What does it mean to be relevant?

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What does it mean to be relevant?

This question occurred to me last night, as I saw Megadeth play Rust in Peace in its entirety to a sold-out crowd ranging from little kids to old men. The response was rapturous. One wouldn’t have guessed that the music was 20 years old.

Megadeth certainly felt relevant last night. But what does that mean? In concert, no one really wants to hear Megadeth songs from after 1992, when Countdown to Extinction came out. Sure, they’ve had good songs since then. But no one would complain if they left the setlist. Fans would definitely complain if “Peace Sells” did.

I have this new-agey belief that humans are but vessels for music. Megadeth is a good example. The band is essentially Dave Mustaine and a bunch of guys who can (a) play his music, and (b) put up with him. It doesn’t matter who is playing the music, so long as it’s played well. I would have loved to have seen Marty Friedman up there. But Chris Broderick did such a great job impersonating Friedman that I didn’t care. The music came through.

Thus, music can have a life outside that of its creator. (Jazz has this idea in the form of “standards” that have lasted almost a century.) That’s where the relevance lies. As long as Megadeth plays songs that still have meaning to fans, the band is relevant.

The Internet potentially makes bands relevant forever. Pre-Internet, if a band’s albums disappeared from record stores — because of a label dispute, for example — it lost relevance. People literally had no way to hear the band. But now everything is available everywhere at basically no cost except for search time. That, I think, explains all the pre-teens I’ve seen at Kreator and Megadeth shows. Even if a band and its original fans die out, its music, if good enough, can generate new fans.

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This is all well and good, but it doesn’t explain my unease at my excitement about the new Danzig album. It’s titled Deth Red Sabaoth, which no one will spell right, and its cover art is just as bad. It comes out on June 22, Danzig turns 55 the next day, and he hasn’t made a good album since 1994’s 4p. In other words, it should suck.

Yet I’m excited about it, and not in a morbid way. I must harbor at least some hope that Danzig will recapture his former glory. This is not completely irrational. The record’s press release mentions analog gear, which was a big part of the appeal of Danzig’s first four records; he lost his way once he started flirting with electronics. But if I’m realistic, most likely I’ll listen to it, like a few songs, and then go back to listening to the first four records. (This reminds me of another prominent “first four records” metal band.)

Why? Am I nostalgic for them? I hope not. I am not the type to wax nostalgic about things. Am I getting older and thus more likely to fall back on known quantities? Probably more than I’d like to admit. Or are they just that great and timeless? That’s the best answer, because it has nothing to do with me. Danzig had “it” on the first four records, and they’ll live on, past his life and mine. That’s what I tell myself, anyway, as I eagerly anticipate an album that will likely disappoint me. Danzig is still relevant — and relevance can cloud one’s judgment, it seems.