Today’s Music Sucks

CONCEITS OF THE FOGY SET

Recounting a fun conversation I had with a peer. By “peer”, I mean someone who was in and around my age. Like me he grew up with AC/DC, Springsteen, Bon Jovi, Van Halen, Clapton resurrected, and Stevie Ray Vaughan but we also weren’t so far removed from Led Zeppelin, Hendrix, and the Stones. We grew up with some great music all around us. Our preferences were influenced by the Sixties Gods, but also newer innovations in heavy metal, punk, and rock.

It so happens that the person I was having a conversation with was white, so we didn’t share many experiences with Rap or Hip Hop. That wasn’t our scene. I did, however, have the good fortune of sharing a dorm room with a very talented Hip Hop DJ, so I got to experience that cultural expression up close and personal as well. I didn’t realize it, but for a few years I was immersed in what turned out to be the Golden Age of Hip Hop. Eh! I was still into my rock and blues inspirations, but via DJ Sandman I did learn to respect Hip Hop as an art form.

Consequently, among the first political debates I ever got involved in was the free speech movement that emerged from the Tipper Gore PMRC Hearings in 1985 and later debates on 2 Live Crew and Ice-T.

Music was central to our lives.

And, as with most people my age, music is a magical source of nostalgia. We can lay back, put some of that old music on, turn up the speakers and, as Billy Joel said, “keep the faith.”

So, it was no surprise that we ended up in a discussion about…yep…you guessed it…”music these days.”

“What I really can’t stand,” my fellow fogy stated, grinding his fist into his palm, “is just how much today’s music sucks! I mean, how can they (young people) listen to that crap?” He then went on to list his grievances with musicthesedays.

I have to admit, there was a visceral part of me that wanted to agree, that wanted to lose myself in the warm comfort of fogyism.

But I have a teenager daughter…

…who’s a talented and passionate musician.

I have the good fortune of being subject to lots of musicthesedays when my daughter is in the car. And…well…I have to admit. Musicthesedays isn’t so bad. It’s just not…

…hmmm…

…it’s just not MY music.

When it comes right down to it, the real problem we older folks have with musicthesedays is that it’s not made for us.

This is a real problem because in our formative years the music was, quite literally, made for us. Record producers since at least the 40’s learned to target their production to the youth. This strategy meant focusing on the most innovative sounds of the time. Jazz. Blues. Rock ‘n’ Roll. Punk. Metal. Hip Hop. Grunge. and…yes…musicthesedays.

My generation aligned musical expression with visual imagery. We spent untold hours watching the VJs on MTV roll out the latest Def Leppard. We then biked and later drove our clunkers to the record store to buy the album, in my case the cassettes.¹ We then snapped them into our boom boxes and blasted the neighborhood with our favorite songs.²

That was our time. That was our music. It was made for us.

Later, our music faded to newer music. We were a little older for Nirvana or Pearl Jam, but we still liked it. We were hip. At least we tried to be…for a while. ish…

Eventually, much to soon it seems, it was impossible to even pretend. Musicthesedays dominated the radio and we were relegated to the Classic Rock station, Classic Vinyl or the Classic Rewind stations on Sirius.

Metallica is Classic Rock? Really? When did that happen?

This was quite the shock to us. Up to this time we really really believed that it was the culture’s job to make music for us…to make OUR music. But they weren’t doing it any more. They were making something else for someone else and we didn’t like it. We were entitled to our music, dammit! Where was it?

Here’s the cold hard reality that my friend and I and the rest of the Fogy Set simply have to accept. We had our time. That’s gone. It went the way of parachute pants and skinny ties.

But we still have our music! Plenty of it. We have an oeuvre of great music spanning from the Stones and the rise of Led Zep to the death of Kurt Cobain–maybe even a smattering of songs before and after that. It’s a great collection. Some of it my daughter even likes!

Some of us still have and treasure our vinyl. Our cassettes have long since demagnetized, but our CDs are still good.

Unfortunately, in most cases, the record stores are gone. That’s a source of loss and disappointment for us. But all is not lost. The kids with their musicthesedays have apps for that. For just a small investment we can have access to pretty much every song ever made and we can put together our Fogy Playlist, close our eyes and lose ourselves in memories of Members Only Jackets, jumping our Huffy’s, and the soundtracks that went with chasing the ice-cream man.

And if you are a member of the Fogy Set, maybe…just maybe…you can open your mind a bit and tune in to some Hozier or even some Arctic Monkeys. Music these days isn’t so bad. It’s just not made for us…

…and that’s okay.

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Notes

1. The guy I was conversing with was actually a bit older than me, so he had a larger vinyl collection than I did. His was the declining age of great album cover art!
2. Boom boxes were soon replaced with Walkmans. I’m sure the Fogys of my time were thrilled. The Walkman meant I was blowing out my own eardrums, not every eardrum in the neighborhood.