smoe.org mailing lists
ivan@stellysee.de
| From | "Sager, Greg" <greg.sager@bankofamerica.com> |
| Subject | Re: It's kinda like watching a train wreck ... |
| Date | Tue, 19 Apr 2005 14:08:17 -0500 |
[Part 1 text/plain (3.9 kilobytes)]
(View Text in a separate window)
Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2005 13:35:56 -0400
From: "Miguel Motta" <motta_m@firn.edu>
To: <audities@smoe.org>
Subject: Re: Its kinda like watching a train wreck...
Message-ID: <002501c5443d$14b5f4d0$6fa5c90a@2901145>
...And you know what is REALLY scary?... the fact that I've been talking
with young kids and when they ask me which is my favorite band and I reply
"The Beatles" they usually say... That old group?... They're boring!...
Kinda spooks me a bit... But then again everything is going down the pike...
That's not scary, Miguel. That's natural. Every generation needs its own
music, so let the young have theirs.
The Beatles ceased to exist 35 years ago. That means that there are
teenagers whose *parents* were toddlers when the band broke up. Nobody of
college age was even born yet when John Lennon was killed. It makes no sense
to scold kids for dismissing a band whose albums are artifacts that seem as
ancient to them as the Magna Carta or the Declaration of Independence.
The paradox of youth is that young people begin to psychologically separate
themselves from their parents and find their own identities at the same time
that they are highly susceptible to conformity and peer pressure. And their
experiences with, and exposure to, music (just like everything else) is
limited. As a result of these two things, kids will often choose as "their"
music the sort of stuff that they won't necessarily be listening to in five,
ten, twenty years. I daresay that very few Auditeers, if any, emerged from
adolescence with fully-formed tastes that have never evolved since.
Give kids time and a sufficient amount of space. There's nothing wrong with
being a parent who plays Cotton Mather, Badfinger, or Wondermints on the car
stereo while the young'uns are strapped into their car seats, in the hope
that it'll rub off on them. Auditeers are always talking about what their
kids are listening to, and taking pride in whatever triumph of like-minded
taste they manage to extract from them. But you still have to eventually let
kids find their own way musically.
The Beatles will stand the test of time; the music of the Fab Four isn't
going anywhere. It will always be there. It's as much a part of the cultural
fabric now as the national anthem, "Amazing Grace", or Beethoven's Fifth. I
have no doubt that many of today's kids that dismiss the Beatles as boring
will eventually find their way to liking them.
I don't like a lot of what kids listen to nowadays. I have a particularly
hard time finding much to appreciate about hip-hop, for instance. But I take
comfort in the fact that that's not a generational thing; I don't like a lot
of what my peers listen to, either (don't get me started on how much I
despise the music of Dave Matthews, for instance). I try to avoid what I
call "Cretinous Goon Aversion Syndrome". Frank Sinatra, who was *the*
heartthrob of the bobby-soxers in the early forties, was entering middle age
when rock'n'roll emerged in the mid-fifties. He saw no redeeming features in
the new music of American youth, and referred to rock'n'roll as "brutal,
ugly, desperate, vicious" music that was "written, sung, and played for the
most part by cretinous goons and sideburned delinquents." One generation's
hot youth idol, in other words, became the next generation's elder-statesman
scold.
Whenever I think about uttering a disparaging word towards contemporary
youth music as a whole (as opposed to individual artists), I stop myself and
think about Ol' Blue Eyes exposing himself as an out-of-touch old crank with
his "cretinous goons" statement about rock'n'roll. That sort of generational
snobbery is just one step away from hitching up your polyester pants past
your navel, eating dinner in restaurants that have 4 pm early-bird senior
specials, and yelling at the neighborhood kids to get off your lawn.
Let 'em have their own music, Miguel. The kids are alright.
Gregory Sager
For assistance, please contact
the smoe.org administrators.