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| From | "Josh Chasin" <jchasin@nyc.rr.com> |
| Subject | Re: Another Bealtes? |
| Date | Tue, 3 Aug 2004 22:45:48 -0400 |
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Stewart Mason" <flamingo@theworld.com>
> It's nothing but pure, unadulterated Boomer Nostalgia that makes people
> long for "another Beatles." It's the same kind of moldy-fig conservatism
> that made fans of the original New Orleans jazz bands hate big-band swing,
> and swing fans hate bop, and bop fans hate free jazz. It's telling The
> Youth Of Today that the stuff they like will never hold a candle to what
> you liked when you were The Youth Of Today, and it smacks hard of sour
> grapes about not being The Youth Of Today anymore.
Stewart, all due respect, but I totally disagree.
The Beatles were in fact far MORE than a totally kickass rock band. They
were a cultural touchstone. If you walked down the street and you heard
Revolver or Sergeant Pepper coming out of a window, you could walk in and
instantly know about each other that you were "one of us." There was never
a rock band before the Beatles (though there were some contemporary with
them); They did it all first, from the getting huge to the ego clashes to
the break-up to the solo careers. They created the template, and I think
their intrinsic resonance contributed to that even becoming the template.
You could argue that Nirvana meant the same thing for a different
generation. But you'd be wrong. Because the Beatles were the first, and no
one can ever be the first again. Its like asking if you'll ever lose your
virginity a second time, if there'll ever be another first kiss. The
Beatles don't go with the Stones and the Kinks; they go with JFK and landing
on the moon and the Mets winning the World Series. The Who, it turns out,
were not the first band to vomit in the bar; that would have happened in
Hamburg.
That's why I believe that as regards the "Youth of Today," if they have
anything like the Beatles, you have to look entirely outside the construct
of the rock band. I reiterate that the closest collective experience to the
Beatles (and ultimately that's what the Beatles were, a collective defining
generational experience that has not been matched by a pop group since, and
won't be) for the Youth of Today is the Internet. And there will never be
another Internet.
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