If I switch on VH1, and it has one of it’s “I Love the …” series on, or a countdown of any kind, I’m hooked. Totally. And I know I’m not alone. Tonight it was 100 Greatest Songs of the 90s. Now, while the 90′s may not have been my era for music (as I didn’t start becoming the music geek I am today until 1999 and discovering the Beatles for myself), I do remember most of the radio hits. At least during the later part of the decade, I was into wearing my Walkman and looking cool.*
So it’s interesting to watch this countdown show, and have people profess their love for certain songs, and even say that a certain song was the theme for a particular group of people, or a movement. You know, like Beck’s “Loser” was a melting pot of musical genres, and a call for the nerdy kids with stringy hair who usually stood alone. How “Losing My Religion” by R.E.M. was the really the first indie song to go mainstream in that era. How INCREDIBLY HUGE the boy band thing was. I remember grunge and boy bands making an impression, but being a Gen Y-er, grunge didn’t speak to me, and I always publicly disliked boy bands (I admit, now I have a few of the hits on my iPod). But I wondered, what big musical movements have I gotten behind?
As rock music has evolved in the last sixty decades or so, there are many, many genres to choose from, and saying you like “rock music” these days is like saying you like to eat food. So maybe it’s getting harder to identify trends like that? I don’t know. There was the whole garage band thing in the early 00′s, and I am still a BIG White Stripes fan. (I worship the ground Jack White walks on.) I mostly stuck with a handful of garage bands (the Strokes, the Hives, the Vines, the Libertines…) and oldies until college, when I got into the all-encompassing “college rock” – and even that is too broad now. That evolved into “indie rock,” which led to “cabaret rock,” which led to “baroque rock,” which led to listening strictly to local acts from Athens and Charleston that define genre, though some “Irish rock” is thrown in there somewhere. And now… huh. (Maybe “wizard rock,” but I’m not as involved in that scene.)
People ask me what my favorite band is, and I have a very hard time answering that. It really depends on what I’m listening to that week, if anything grabbed me. (This week it’s ALL CAPS. Rock for nerds.) I could say, “The Beatles,” but that makes me sound like a tool. I could say, “A band from South Carolina you’ve never heard of,” and I’d still sound like a tool. For years people have called me a hipster, and for most people that’s descriptive enough so they know what kind of music I listen to. But I was talking with a co-worker the other day about musical tastes, and it occurred to me that I might be moving on to another genre of music, not necessarily associated with being a hipster. I don’t know what, yet, but I do know that a lot of “hipster bands” annoy me. Many don’t sound good to me. Most of them are emo anyway, and I’m totally not emo. In addition, I own Katy Perry and Lady Gaga records – not something some people in my position would admit to. Either that, or I’m getting old. My mom saw Rush in concert this year, and plans on seeing Metallica in the next few months, and she’s previously stuck with showtunes and oldies, so it could be genetic.
Well, there’s no denying that the VH1 countdown shows will one day touch on “Bieber Fever.” Ah, Justin Bieber, you 12-year-old-looking pop sensation. Did you know that if you slow him down, he sounds like a super-intense new age artist? (And no, I’m not into the Bieber. Just thought it was funny.)
Food for thought.
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*It dawned on my yesterday that my image of “cool” back then was a mash-up between Natalie Imbruglia in her “Torn” video, that bald chick from Empire Records, and Lola of Run Lola Run fame. And they’re all basically wearing the same thing…
