Music These Days

I seem to recall some decades ago my dad complaining about the modern music scene. I mean, all parents do that, right? It’s laser-etched into their DNA. They wouldn’t be card-carrying parents if they actually liked the same music as their children.

“It all sounds the same! There’s no variety! There’s no real musical value in it.” In short, “It’s nowhere near as good as the music I listened to when I was growing up.” If you think I’m quoting my dad, you’d be wrong. Those lines were found on a 4,000 year old copper scroll dug up in the Alps about forty years ago. (Ironically, though, my dad said something quite similar.)

That’s because we’re genetically programmed to believe that whatever happened to us between the ages of twelve and nineteen are the greatest things that ever happened. Nothing before and nothing since will compare to what hit us in those formative years. I understand that and so I truly believe that my music was better than my dad’s, and his was better than my grandfather’s, and so on back to the bronze age.

Except for today’s music of course! Have you listened to it? It all sounds the same! There’s no variety! I swear, kids these days don’t know what good music sounds like. They wouldn’t know a good tune if it came up and bit them on their iPods.

Okay, I’m kidding. Sort of. I’m unlike my dad because I actually do like some of today’s pop music. I will readily admit that during my daily commute, from the privacy of my car with its tightly rolled-up windows, I’ve let my fellow drivers know in no uncertain terms that I ain’t no Hollaback Girl. They also know that they can look (but they can’t touch) My Humps. I even believe I’ve invited them to Crank dat Soulja Boy — even if I have no idea what that is.

But I’m also like him in that I wonder: where’s the good music? And by that I mean the truly and musically good music. Sure, there was a lot of crap during the 70s, 80s, and 90s. (And that’s essentially the stuff he was complaining about.) But I also know of songs that never made it within ten megahertz of Casey Kasem’s charts. While we endured Donna Summer, at least Sweet was there with the eight-minute version of Love is Like Oxygen. I can understand not finding much merit in Funkytown but what about Funeral for a Friend / Love Lies Bleeding? Where is today’s Stairway to Heaven, or Bohemian Rhapsody, or Yes’ fifteen-minute epic masterpiece Awaken?

I’m not saying there aren’t catchy tunes out there, but where are the songs we’ll be listening to in thirty years, still pouring out over the airwaves as we step out of our Deloreans into the clocktower square? They’re either not out there or they are, but just not reaching these aging ears of mine.

I will say one thing, though, about today’s charts. Check out Madonna. She’s fifty and she’s still got it. I’m pretty sure there weren’t any edgy, pop, female singers on Casey’s show in 1978 who were born in 1928. Love her or hate her, you have to admit, she’s doing something right.

Now, where’s my copy of Going for the One? I’m going to mail it to Ryan Seacrest and make sure he understands what a good album is supposed to sound like. Oh, there it is. I left it right next to my hearing aids.