What about you folks? What is your opinion of the music that came after your so called 'moment in the sun'?
Last night I was watching an SNL 2000s retrospective, and I came to a startling realization. During the show they tossed in clips from the various musical performers during the decade and I recognized only two of them: Black Eyed Peas and Gwen Stefani (disclosure: I only saw the last 90 minutes, so there may have been someone I knew in the first part).
It actually made me feel quite old. I even work in the media, yet most of these names, faces, and songs were completely alien to me. And I didn't really like any of what I heard. None of it appealed to me. I couldn't hum any of their tunes or recite any lyrics, never mind the titles.
Not that I don't have "current" favorites. I like Regina Spektor and Nellie McKay and Sharleen Spiteri and She & Him (that last being actress Zooey Deschenel's group). And I don't mind the White Stripes either. But none of them are "current-current", really. Spiteri I've known since the 1980s when she fronted Texas, and the Stripes have been around for about a decade now, too.
I used to be a lot more current in my musical tastes. In the 1980s and 90s I was huge into things like Texas and Talking Heads and Tori Amos the like. Never the top-10 artists like Madonna, but certainly groups that were considered "new music". The Residents were another group I liked. Also people like Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush and Laurie Anderson, and even Enya. Lydia Lunch too. (This in addition to my lifelong interest in 1950s rock and roll, which we'll set aside for this discussion.)
Around the time I started working full time and had left the "college scene" I started moving away from being able to keep up with the newer groups. Part of that is the decreased presence of music videos. I used to watch MuchMusic (Canada's MTV) religiously back in the 80s and 90s and I was exposed to a lot of good music and new favorites emerged. But even in the mid-late 90s MuchMusic was moving away from playing the type of music video that I enjoyed. It got to the point where everytime I tuned into MM (when it occurred to me) it was usually to see some rapper complaining about the police or "shake your azz". I even called MM the "Ass Video Channel" at one point because it seemed everytime I tuned in some thong-clad girl was shaking her rear end into the camera in a rap video.
I also fell out of touch because many of my favorites of years gone by were themselves getting older and recording less frequently. Kate Bush took 12 years between her last 2 albums. Not counting a live record she released soon after 9/11, Laurie Anderson hasn't released anything in a decade and is now in her early 60s. Talking Heads broke up ages ago. Kirsty MacColl got killed in an accident a decade go. I've no idea what Peter Gabriel is up to these days except that he's been looking really old lately. Pretty much the only artist of the "old era" who seems to be still regularly active (or at least on my radar, which is more to the point) is Enya, and even she sometimes takes 5 years or more between records, and it could be argued she's caught in a bit of a time warp.
It wasn't just that SNL show. There's this kid Justin Bieber who is apparently the #1 artist in the world right now. I honestly - no exaggeration - had never heard of him before last week when I saw a skit with him on SNL. His sudden rise to stardom certainly reminds me of the teen idols who shot skyward in the 60s and 70s, so nothing really new there. But the fact I've never seen his name before yet apparently everyone else has just added to my feeling of disenfranchisement.
And don't even get me started on the production line that's American Idol.
I have nothing against the "new music" coming out now, or the artists. I do wonder if any of them will be remembered in 20-30 years after they stop releasing physical media and all the MP3s are either erased or rendered unplayable by new tech... but that's another debate!
Alex
