Rock-tober 06, 2016

Raise your hand out there if you have an extensive collection of Simon and Garfunkel.

Yeah. I didn't think so. Don't get me wrong. This musical duo from Queens was a mainstay in the 60's beatnik, folk music scene. They released 5 albums whose songs garnered them 9 Grammys, immortalization as part of the soundtrack of The Graduate, and induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel are legit rock and rollers; they're just not my style. I've said before, though, that good music transcends time and genres, constantly reinventing itself. We've seen it on these pages most recently with the now classic Rock-tober 02 2015, and we're about to see it again.

"Sounds of Silence" was tortuously penned by Simon over an arduous 6 month period. When it was finally released in October, 1964, it was a commercial failure. Dismayed and disheartened, the duo went their separate ways. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to them, the song was remixed with more "folksy" instrumentation as backup. It was released again a year later in September, 1965, and this time it went to number 1 and brought Simon and Garfunkel back together.

In stark contrast to our crooning duo, Disturbed is a 5 man heavy metal band out of Chicago. Active since 1994, Disturbed has released 6 studio albums to date. Of particular interest to us is track 11 of Immortalized, their 6th album. Released over 50 years after the original, David Draiman's vocals takes this cover of "The Sounds of Silence" and starts it from the lilting, folksy, original campfire sound and crescendos to a series of bold, growling, imperative statements. Sung at a lower register, the transformation is startling.

This song has been very pervasive on social media. Yet it was brought to my attention not by one of my peers, but through Nic, the high school senior son of some friends. The fact that he gravitated towards a song that had its beginnings with the 2nd generation of rock and roll rather than Minaj or Bieber is very encouraging and gives me some hope for this millennial generation.