Nails in the Coffin

Still, let's keep something in mind: Blues is done. The Chess Records reissues are best appreciated in a historical sense. Whatever people who cling dearly to the form might claim, this genre of popular music has been thoroughly depleted. Explored, expanded upon and, ultimately, exhausted. That's life -- forms come and go. We need new cliches. Fame is fleeting. Blues may still play well as a tourist attraction, but as a wellspring, it's hacking up dust. Listening to the songs on this Chess series is the musical equivalent of marveling at a beautiful tombstone -- proof only that something was once alive.