I have this theory that no one ever gets past their high school years, musically speaking. Like you are stuck forever wanting to relive the Top 40 of those hallowed days. Of course, all the evidence I have of this is purely anecdotal.
For example, I have a friend who is a few years older than I, and she is obsessed with 80's music. Now there is some 80's music I like, probably the more popular stuff, likewhat they play on PLJ on Saturday nights. Duran Duran and Journey and and I like some hair metal, too. But after maybe 3 songs I get fed up and start mocking the synthesizers. I mean I was learning long division when these songs came out. They can be fun but they just don't really do it for me.
Then there are the people of a certain generation (and here I mean my parents) who think that quality music died with John Lennon and listen to classic rock exclusively, or even better, Oldies. I would imagine it must be awesome to listen to Oldies, like The Supremes or whoever, when you're baked. Like everything would just seem so cheerful and happy, with the worse problems involving sock hops and the like. Never done it, though. And I like some classic rock, for what it's worth, but again, I get sick after a couple of songs. Led Zeppelin just starts to sound whiny to my early 90's ears.
But then when I get to the music of my youth, the songs that were popular when I was walking around school with my Walkman (remember those?) permanently glued into my ears, and it's like an obsession. Like I will sit around and discuss with friends of the same age how New York really needs a 90's rock station. I'm sure people slightly older or younger would be like "Whatever for?" But we really miss Live and Smashing Pumpkins and, hey remember Hootie & the Blowfish? I even kinda miss all that crappy dance music like the Real McCoy and Ace of Base. See what I mean? Insanity.
When I think about this objectively I get very depressed. Like I am either doomed to become my dad, mourning the loss of bands like Oasis and pontificating on why there is no good music out there today, or I will be like this mom I know. An acquaintance's mom who thinks she is "with it" and listens to Z100 and pretends to think Justin Timberlake is hot, when she really just thinks he is a man-whore (oh wait, that's me).
I don't want to fake being cool when I'm old. I want to really be cool. But, I mean, that's basically impossible nowadays, when all the hit music is by people who spell Soldier "Soulja". Oh crap. See? It's started already.
4 comments:
As I'm reading this post I'm listening to music on my computer. The two songs that came on were: Smells Like Teen Spirit (Nirvana) and This is a Call (Foo Fighters)
I will always love 90's alternative, but I do give new bands a shot, and I do find some good new music every once in a while (like Dashboard Confessional, or The Orion Experience).
I think that the biggest reason that we will be perpetually stuck in the 90's is that the "cool" genre of music changed. Now everything is hip hop and R & B. We love rock, and rock is dead:(
Whoa, over shabbas I was thinking about nearly this exact same thing. I was thinking to myself that after sfira I'm going to download a bunch of Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, old Green Day, and whatever else I listened to in high school. I felt like in high school I had so many favorite songs that I could listen to over and over and never get sick of. But now, as much as I love music, there just doesn't seem to be as much music that I can listen to for more than a week.
I was a teenager when all the radio played was Limp Bizkit, Korn and Linkin Park. I always felt I should have been born 10 years earlier because all the music I liked was 90's and 80's underground. Now I feel old though. I was listening to a classic rock station and they played "All The Small Things". That was probably the first punk sound I became aware of and remember when it first came out. Now it's being played on classic rock stations.
http://www.cooljewishtshirts.com
Post a Comment