Andrew's Rants.

TODAY'S MUSIC

Every time I turn around my kid has his stupid I-Pod strapped to his fool head. I took a look at his music and listened to some of it. What was I listening to? Sure every generation has music that the previous generation hates. It’s a form of rebellion and I can understand and appreciate that. There was a time when listening Bo Diddley and Jerry lee Lewis was thought to send kids to hell. Heck if you go back far enough that crazy Mozart was the equivalent of Oozier in his day. But as I listened to my kid’s music I realize I couldn’t understand
any of the words and the music was a disjointed sound like a train wreck. I skipped around to several different artist and songs and it was an airplane crash with mutilated geese or a concrete truck impacting an orphanage. At least our music and that of preceding generations had a tune you could follow and words you could understand unless you were listening to Bob Dylan who no one could understand no matter how hard they tried. I tried to be open minded and asked Ethan what they are saying in this song. He honestly couldn’t tell me. We had a long discussion on why he liked it and it turns out it’s because it’s what is out there on the air and it’s what all his friends listen to, it didn’t matter if he liked it or not.


I had him listen to some ZZ Top from the Eliminator album and he informed me that this was old and sad music. I played several different things for him from Frank Sinatra to Buffett to Black Sabbath, and he sneered at all of it preferring to listen to the unintelligible linguistics of his own generation’s music. Perhaps I’m getting old but at least growing up our generation appeared to be open minded enough to listen to the music from other eras and evaluate it with an open mind. I remember the first time I heard Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings in C minor and thought it was the saddest and one of the most beautiful pieces I had ever heard. How about Mel Torme singing Fly Me To The Moon, Jimmy Buffet with One Particular Harbor, or Led Zeppelin with the classic Stairway to Heaven. I could ramble on and on like this, but needless to say we never came to an accord. I guess good music is only to be found on the oldies channel on the radio dial. The other stuff just plain scares me.