There Is Hope For American Songwriting

Readers know that the OTR has great respect for William Katz, blogging at Urgent Agenda. Katz writes occasional pieces for Powerline. There's a new one up today entitled, "Four Deaths And A Rule Change," about the deaths of Ed McMahon, Farah Fawcett, Karl Malden and Michael Jackson and a rule change by the Academy Awards. You can read it here.

OTR is very pleased to see the rule change regarding Best Song. It's also fitting that this change takes place in 2009, the centennial of the birth of the great American lyricist - my favorite - Johnny Mercer, a co-founder of the Songwriters Hall of Fame.As many of you know, I think American songwriting died around 1970. Don't misunderstand though, I do enjoy much of the music coming out of the last forty years, but I also know we paid dearly when beat and back beat began to dominate lyric. Today, mediocrity and worse dominates the popular music scene. Bad far outweighs good because we have developed a mindset that anyone can write a song. That attitude needs to change. I hope the rule changes at the Academy represent the first of many steps on the road to recovery for American songwriting.