Hello, and welcome back. Today I take a look at music. Is the quality of music degenerating? Is it a worse influence today than it was twenty or thirty years ago? I shall compare selections that my parents listen to, to that of my generation.
My mother stopped listening to rock some time ago -- she claims the last rock band she listened to was the WHO. She does still enjoy the Beatles and Beach Boys however. The Beatles, of course, sang Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds among other songs upon entering their psychedelic stage of songs influenced by or about drugs. The Beach Boys sang about womanizing and recklessly violating traffic laws among other things (that, and they ended up as alcoholics). the WHO, like both of these other bands, sang about substance abuse - referring to a "magic bus" in one song - and being wasted.
She no longer listens to rock, but to jazz and blues (I'll just say jazz from now). Now this is a good influence, right? How wrong this is. Jazz, with its bad grammar and depressing lyrics can be the downfall of even the most exemplary English majors - such as my mother herself. With titles such as "Is You Is, Or Is You Ain't (My Baby)" causing anybody who tries to parse them into correct English to suffer a fatal heart attack, which has the only redeeming factor of not subjecting them to the sad and depressing lyrics such as "My baby done left me, she done left me real bad. She ain't coming back never, so I might as well use a meat cleaver to chop of my heade." Can't you just envision listening to those mellow grooves during your rush hour commute?
Now how about my father. We've already mentioned the WHO, who I may add have the same sense with punctuation as e.e. cummins, but he also listens to such exemplars of moral fortitude as Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel.
Some groups today, such as Rage Against the Machine, have drawn criticism for their racist and/or violent lyrics - 'unlike Bruce Springsteen' says one radio station. Perhaps they forgot about Springsteen's explicit remark about "kill[ing] the yellow man"? And what's more, Springsteen encourages people to run from their problems, leaving them behind, instead of confronting them. This is why people are afraid of today's music. Groups like Rage Against the Machine take a stand, and pontificate. They tell the world what's going on, and encourage today's youth to do something about it - not to run like a bunch of dogs.
The old guys? What do they want? They want to smoke their pot in the parking lot, or sit at home and masturbate. Either way, everybody must get stoned in their eyes. Today's music? It collects people together. It unites a generation that has been shattered.
~matt
Last Updated 2000.12.26 (v1.00)
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