Now That's What This Old Man Calls Crappy Music, Vol. 1
Published Nov. 7, 2000, in The Monitor
Essay by Matthew Webber
An old man lectures. The kids ignore him.
He whines: “When I was a kid, rock ‘n’ roll meant something. It was rebellion. It was
anti-authority. It was giving the finger to corporate America. It was a search for higher
meaning. It was truth. It made sense. It forced you to dance on your tiptoes and scream at
the top of your lungs. It wasn’t just music; it was a movement. It was more than a movement;
it was our whole culture. It was more than our whole culture; it was our whole life. We lived
for rock ‘n’ roll. All the while, we breathed/slept/ate/drank/fornicated for it.
That was music. ‘Dead Rock Star’ and ‘Rock Band who Still Releases Records but Hasn’t Had a Hit in Ten Years’ and ‘Some Band the Kids Never Have Heard of’ and ‘Current Rock Star’s Father’ were Gods. Their musicianship was flawless. Their lyrics were poetic. I remember when I saw ‘Rock Band from the Lower Paleolithic Era’ in concert…”
The kids hear: “I’m ancient. I’ve fallen behind the times. I used to be cool, kids, you have to believe me. I used to be a rocker. I used to be hip. But now I’m a square, or worse than that, a rectangle. Your music hurts my ears. I need to take a nap. But I used to be cool. I wish I were still cool. If you listen to my music and you like it, I’ll be cool. So please listen to my music. Pretty please, kids, save me. Make me cool again. Make me relevant…”
The old man continues to rant and rave. He shakes his fists. He screams. He whispers. He sweats. He spits. He reddens. He purples. His veins dance in his forehead. His head dances on his neck. He doesn’t understand why he’s so angry. And he’s angry because he doesn’t understand this.
The kids continue to not listen to him, just like they always have and always will. The kids continue to listen to their favorite bands, just like they always have and always will. They crank up their volumes and annoy the old man. They hide in their headphones. They don’t understand why the old man’s so angry. And they don’t care that he doesn’t understand.
They play:
I did it all for the nookie
Come on, the nookie
Come on, so you can take your cookie
And stick it up your… yeah!
Stick it up your… yeah!
Stick it up your… yeah!
For some bizarre reason, they love it.
I’m so old I don’t understand.
*
I’m 21 years old, but I still think I’m a kid. I go to school. I’m dependent on my parents.
I don’t have a beer gut, love handles, gray hairs, wrinkles, a bald spot, dentures, Alzheimer’s,
or any kids of my own. Really, I still am a kid.
But sometimes I think I’m an old man. I’m legally an adult. I’ll begin a career in a few
years. I have two credit cards. I live in a house away from my parents. I pay taxes. I pay
bills. I’m older than Rick Ankiel, the St. Louis Cardinals’ pitcher who started game two of
the 2000 National League Championship Series, a player who years ago could have been my idol.
(If I had been a better athlete, I could’ve thrown 2 wild pitches in that game!) I’m older
than girls who pose naked in magazines, girls who years ago represented everything older,
unknown, sexy, and unattainable. (If Playboy ever did a “Girls of the Liberal Arts and
Sciences” spread, I theoretically could know and even date a Playmate!)
And I hated every music video I saw on MTV in a one-hour period last week.
I didn’t understand any of it. The lyrics. The noise. The disconnected music video images.
The screaming fans. Do the kids actually enjoy listening to this stuff? Do they actually
tell themselves they like these artists? Would musicologists find it blasphemous of me to
even call these people “artists”? Aren’t there any real artists who actually make
worthwhile music videos anymore? Aren’t there any imagined artists who actually
make halfway decent music videos anymore?
What is that guy saying? Why is he saying what I think he’s saying? Why doesn’t he write more creative
lyrics than “Rock the party, rock the party”? How do the record label executives, producers,
managers, and tour bus drivers of “Derivative Bling-Blinging Rap Star A” sleep peacefully at
night when they know they’re partly responsible for bringing this kind of fecal matter into
the world? Doesn’t “Interchangeable Alternative Rock Band M” realize how naked that vocal
sounds without a harmony? Why doesn’t “Bandwagon-Jumping Rap/Rock Hybrid Band Z” realize that
their song sounds exactly the same as that of “Bandwagon-Jumping Rap/Rock Hybrid Band D”?
Why do both lead singers choose to rap when they obviously don’t know how? Why does
“Interchangeable Silicone-Enhanced Teenybopper Pop Star Q” rely so much on studio
wizardry when she sings? What does she really sound like? And damn, how did she
squeeze her curves into that jumpsuit?
The only thing I understood is that said Pop Star got a recording contract for her pouty face and curvy body more than for her poor singing ability. Her barely legal cleavage was the unquestionable star of the song.
I didn’t understand anything else.
I’m 21 years old, and I’m an old man.
*
It isn’t just MTV that perplexes me. Radio stations, the covers of music publications, overheard conversations, the CD collections of my little brothers’ friends (my little brothers have good taste though, thank God), and the Top Forty charts boggle my mind.
I still love a lot of contemporary music. I could list some talented artists here, but
it really would be a lengthy list. (Radiohead, Tool, and The Roots would definitely be near
the top.) The problem is, MTV and the radio never play any of their songs for more than
two weeks. Rolling Stone doesn’t put them on the cover. People who are contemplating
purchasing a Now… That’s What I Call Music pop compilation album as I walk past them in Wal-Mart (the crap consumption capital of middle America) don’t talk about them. Little boys and girls don’t listen to them; they’ve probably never heard of them.
The bands I love typically don’t sell 2.4 millions albums in one week like those five
charming sexual predators from N’Sync did. Or was it the Backstreet Boys who did that?
The Backstreet Boys are the group containing the heartthrob, the rebel, the boy next door,
the older brother figure, and the slightly-dorky-looking-but-cute-in-his-own-way guy, right?
And Mandy Moore is the cute little teenager who wants to act and model as well as sing?
And I always forget, is it P.O.D. or Papa Roach whose lead singer raps on top of loud
guitars? I mean, all these “artists” are so different from each other it’s impossible
to lump them all together into one big used-CD bargain bin. It’s like, you could watch
MTV all night and not see the same thing for… the duration of a commercial break.
I don’t understand how rock ‘n’ roll has disintegrated so much in such a short time span.
Hell, one year ago I enjoyed at least some music videos. That was back in the days when Kid Rock, Korn, Limp Bizkit, and Rage Against The Machine were the only rap/metal bands in heavy rotation on MTV (I say “only” because, while four bands are already large enough to be labeled as some kind of movement, there are currently too many rap/metal bands to count, let alone remember), before the emergence of the Cash Money crew (as if we needed another New Orleans crew who raps about riches) and their many bling-blinging cohorts, and when the boy bands were in between albums.
I’m not speaking hyperbolically when I say I didn’t like any music videos in the one-hour
period of MTV I watched. Everything looked and sounded identical. Not only did one pop song
sound like another pop song, the rap songs even sounded like the pop songs. If rock ‘n’ roll used to be about revolution, today’s batch is about who can get nookie, cash money, and corporate sponsorships. It certainly isn’t about personal or musical integrity. It isn’t even about fun. It’s about appealing to the lowest common denominator and jacking up those record sales. It’s about all those things the late 1960s protest rockers (of my parents) and the early 1990s grunge rockers (of my own youth) were against. Fame. Egos. Bentleys. Hype. And good old American capitalist greed.
Why doesn’t anyone else understand?
*
I used to be able to enjoy popular music, but now it’s becoming more difficult.
When I watch MTV, I want to shoot my television. I seldom listen to the radio anymore,
not even in the car. (That’s what a tape deck is for.) I still read Rolling Stone, but I take it with a shaker of salt. When I overhear someone say how talented or charismatic Sisqo is, or when I walk into a room and see a CD collection or an MP3 playlist full of Ricky Martin and Puff Daddy material, or when I open up a newspaper and see a list of the top ten best-selling albums of the week, I’m tempted to shoot either them or myself. Either way, I’d end my misery.
I know there are people out there who are similarly disgusted with rock ‘n’ roll. There
are many people who do, in fact, understand. The fact that the new Radiohead album, Kid A,
majestically debuted at number one on the SoundScan albums’ chart -- somehow selling more copies than perennial top ten artists like Britney Spears, N’ Sync, Nelly, and Creed -- proves that there are over 200,000 Americans who are starving for some music with meaning right now. I’ve talked to enough people who realize the difference between a freestyle rap and the dumb recitation of written lyrics to give me hope that good rock ‘n’ roll (or rap or even pop, I’ve been using the term all-encompassingly) really isn’t dead, like so many pundits say it is, but instead is just hibernating, waiting for the next hot band to rouse it from its slumber.
I also realize I’ve been criticizing kids for being kids. If I criticize them too harshly for enjoying The Baha Men (the Lou Bega of September-October, 2000), or Lil’ Bow Wow (the Kris Kross of late 2000), I must overlook the fact that I enjoyed Paula Abdul (the Britney Spears of 1988) when I was a pre-pubescent. (Not only did I know all the words to her singles, I wanted to marry her.) If kids enjoy pre-fabricated pop music, it’s because this pre-fabricated pop music is pre-fabricated for their enjoyment. It makes perfect sense that they’ll like it now. After all, they’re supposed to. Hopefully, they’ll grow older and learn to understand like I did. They’ll grow tired of their Blink 182 albums like I grew tired of my Green Day albums. They’ll realize there’s more to life than a three-minute punk/pop song.
So I’ve been too harsh on the kids, but I need to be harsher on the people who should know
better: the CEOs of major record labels (who only know about money), Rolling Stone
(who knows a scantily clad actress on the cover will sell more copies than a fully clothed
songwriter), and MTV (who definitely knows how much influence they have over impressionable
youths). The Who sang, “The kids are alright,” and they are. It’s the corporate rock ‘n’
rollers who are anything but. If they don’t begin supporting talented, original artists,
they could very well kill rock ‘n’ roll as we know it. Bling-blingness (bling-blingity?)
could kill the radio and video stars and leave us with MMTV (Mandy Moore TV).
I used to be a kid but now I’m not. I’m no longer relevant. I’m a Lower Paleolithic Rocker. I’m a parallelogram. Because I’m so uncool, it’s entirely too easy for me to criticize and judge anyone younger and supposedly more naïve than myself. It’s what all old men do when their time as pop music’s target audience has passed. We all grow older, more skeptical, and nostalgic. We lecture. I’m biased towards my own bands and cynical towards anyone else’s. Interestingly enough (I just figured this out now), it’s the same reason I don’t understand the bands from certain older generations. Those bands were never targeted towards me. They are not mine. They stir up no nostalgia. I question their quality. I dislike them. I don’t understand them. I’m sure certain older generations’ feelings are reciprocal.
But still I rant and rave. It’s a part of my old man nature. I shake my fists. I sweat. I purple. I blacken. I long for the days when rock ‘n’ roll meant something. I teach my brothers about The Beatles and Public Enemy. (For the most part, they’ve learned well and I’m proud of them.) I want to teach every little 12-year-old rap/rocker about angry, aggressive metal bands who know something about music theory, like early Metallica and Black Sabbath. I want to play them some old Patsy Cline songs, even though I know they’ll resist at first. They might protest that she didn’t write her songs either (just like Christina Aguilera), but although this is true, she knew damn well how to interpret those words. They might protest further because she’s a country singer, but if I can convince them to listen, they just might learn it’s okay to listen non-rock music once in awhile. Once I have their ears, I’ll lecture on -- and play them -- some Beethoven, Mozart…
The kids will probably ignore me just like the kids always have and always will, and that’s okay. Most of the kids will learn to look back at Jessica Simpson like my generation looks back at Tiffany. They’ll become old men and women like myself, and they won’t understand whatever crap follows this. They’ll learn to understand what good music is. They’ll learn to hate MTV.
I wish I could hurry their process. I wish they’d listen to me. I’m terrified they’ll never understand, though. And if they never do, then the Now Age will continue.
It’s scary to think how uncool I’ll appear to them then.
The Who sang, “I hope I die before I get old.” Since I’m already old, I just hope I die before I get cantankerous.
