Well, there I admit it, I am a kid of the 80's. That was back then when the music really sucked.
I mentally survived this decade of acustic failure by listening to more "exotic" stuff like Ska, Synth or New Wave (That was before they called it Indie). Bands like The Cure, Depeche Mode or The Police helped me keeping my sanity. And there was this Krautrock called
Neue Deutsche Welle (The New German Wave), Kraftwerk anyone?
Nowadays I listen to music that is so far away from mainstream that it usually doesn't make MTV (does this actually still exist???) and is only randomly found on YouTube. Exception is probably the occasional Emo song, which we called Dark Wave back in the days, but I degress.
Anyway, for reasons unbeknownst to me (I don't have kids that I need to impress or to protect from bad lyrics) I occasionally keep up with the contemporary music scene, so I happen to know about Our Madonna of the new Millenium a.k.a. Lady Gaga.
So, there was a recent dialogue between yours truly and some little monster (a.k.a. prepubescent kid) that went like this:
(Seven year old girl jumping about listening to her iPod, her pigtails in sync with the base drums, singing)
I want your ugly, I want your disease
I want your everything as long as it's free
I want your love
Love, love, love, I want your love.
ME: HEY! (I had to shout...) Excuse me? (In normal tone).
(Kid removing one earplug, music now blaring out of the plug for sharing.)
KID: HUH? (not yet adjusted to her indoor voice).
ME: Pretty cool music (Thinking, is saying 'cool' still cool? I am not used to having conversations with kids.). But it's a little loud. Would you mind turning down your Lady Gaga song a little?
KID: (Big eyes, her mind trying to compute that middle aged woman identified contemporary pop culture). It's my favourite. It's got to be loud.
ME (nodding): I understand. How about you finish your song on your
terms (Thinking: and don't start from the beginning, and I'll strangle you if you dare looping
it.), and turn it down after. What's the next song on your playlist?
KID: Kesha! Die Young!
ME
(almost ready to throw up, forcing myself to smile): You know what this
song's about?
(With iPhone at the ready I google up the lyrics and come across
these poetic lines:
It's pretty obvious that you've got a crush (you know) That magic in your pants, it's making me blush (for sure)
KID: Noooo, don't care. (KID re-plugging her ear and
dancing away)
ME (shouting after her):
Better don't get caught singing the lyrics. Otherwise Mom's got some 'splaining to do...
Point of the story: The Lady of Gaga is known to work product placement as props into her spacy videos (something's got to pay for the otherworldly outfits), and in one of them she was doing ot on a VESPA, I mean the singing and the dancing of course.
Suddenly methinks, the 80's weren't so bad after all.
Sonja: Gotta agree with you about modern pop culture but that's just me having turned into someone I despised when I was a teen :-)
ReplyDeleteLady Gaga is undoubtedly demonstration the latest ATGATT too. Are you going to follow suit?? ;-)
It's is obviously a sign of getting old when one starts despising contemporary music... sigh.
DeleteIf I were to have those legs, I would make this outfit work for me, too ;-)
Too funny....hate to be the one to tell you....but you getting old honey!
ReplyDeleteNothing wrong with that ;-) Planning on getting much older...
DeleteI was one of those 80's children too Sonja, and I still love that really sad music and play it as loud as I can .. specially when hubby's kids are around to bug the hell out of.
ReplyDeleteI used to wonder why hubby was such a Lady Gaga fan, I think I just worked it out .. tis the scooter he's oggling isnt it?
My hubby would certainly only oggle the scooter. Doesn't it look fancy?
DeleteIt's all alien to me, I'm stuck in a time rut on the Dark Side of the Moon!
ReplyDeleteThe Dark Side of the Moon is a good place to be methinks.
Deleteand comfortably numb too...
DeleteYears ago I was friends with a guy named Scott. Scott was the manager of a record store and often told me "I don't have it Rob but I will next week." I still take credit to introducing my old home town to bands like Uncle Tupelo and Material.
ReplyDeleteEven back in the late 80's I hated commercial radio crap. Still do.
A record store? I doubt that kids of today know what that is.
DeleteI haven't listened to a radio station in a very long time.
I was wandering around with the girlfriends daughter (who was about 16 at the time) at a "classic vinyl" store one night. I convinced her to take an album and ask the clerk with a straight face "This is like a big CD right?"
Delete=P
Sonja:
ReplyDeleteI don't understand modern music, I don't understand how they can get away with those lyrics, I don't understand "boom box cars" and all those vibrations, all the swearing. I love the 50's and early 60's. All the groups you mentioned are not familiar to me . . . I guess I am too old to understand.
at one time music made sense, they told a story and you could humm to the tune
bob
Riding the Wet Coast
Not sure if the lyrics were so much better in the eighties. I guess they lacked deep symbolism back then as well. I am with you on despising the base boom. My parents were huge Rolling Stones fans, they still make music that spans several generations.
DeleteThey say that the music you listened to when you were a teenager is kind of what you get stuck on for the rest of your life. It felt weird when the "oldies" station on the radio started playing my type of music...
ReplyDeleteOh well, time marches on.
I agree, but see all those kids nowerdays get stuck on songs made by Apple loops with auto-tuned voices... and now I begin to sound like my parents...
DeleteInteresting post Sonja. I hear some of the newer music on the radio and I find it interesting when the kids are all singing the songs but don't understand the meaning of the lyrics.
ReplyDeleteThere is one song on the radio now called 'the A Team' by Ed Sheeran. It is pretty folksy and I heard an interview with him where he said he was amazed at people thinking is was a slow romantic song, but it is about drug use and prostitution. Here is a link to the video. I do like the song, but the lyrics are dark.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAWcs5H-qgQ
We have music stations on our cable service and my favorite is probably the 70's station.
Never heard of this one. Text is an ode to a meth addict, so so it seems. Actually quite interesting, it has some meaning but I doubt that lyrics play a big role anymore as long as the song is danceable and the video performance crazy enough.
DeleteOur 70's station usually plays so called classic rock which sounds all alike. No radio for me, and I hate the interuptions by incompetent DJ's.
I rarely talk to kids, would you have listened to someone your age at their age? It's teenage angst, the same thing we went through wearing the latest fashion and blasting the latest shock rock, testing our boundaries. We grew out of it and so will they.
ReplyDeleteI listened to Iron Maiden Metallica, Dio just to piss off my parents, then the big hair bands like Poison, Cinderella, Ratt and Motley Crue before mellowing out with AC/DC, Aerosmith and Tom Petty. Now it's still Tom Petty and the likes of Jack Johnson, Joe Purdy, Matt Costa, Brett Dennon and John Mayer.
Never a big fan of Madonna, nor am I a fan of Lady KaKa.
My exposure to kids is also very limited to the off-spring of family and co-workers, and I like it that way. Our friends don't have kids or theirs are long grown up.
DeleteI am not even sure that my parents knew what I was listening to, but I never went through that whole "pissing parents off" movement. This I left that up to my siblings ;-)
Like I keep telling the kids..."That drum machine ain't got no soul."
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtOlU_R8TFo
Nice catch, that video, and so true. Reminds me much of the song 'Video killed the radio star'
DeleteGeesh, I remember when cars didn't come automatically with a radio--a AM radio, or a heater for that matter. I grew up without radios in the car. I still don't play the radio much in the car and when I do its to listen to the baseball game.
ReplyDeleteI suppose this seems odd since I "make music" regularly with some folks. But, for me that's much more about team work and finding a groove. Perhaps it's not so odd after all.
I really like going to places where you can't hear the "corporate demanded" music track and I can listen to the music of the room, how the tone and volume rises and falls as number of people increases or decreases or the intensity of the conversations change. I guess I like my music live.
Nice scooter.
~Keith
My hubby used to jam with his friends, he played the bass guitar, goods times.
DeleteI remember my best live music experience was in a jazz bar in Chicago, nobody famous, just people having fun in a great atmosphere.
I have a very eclectic taste in music. Spent my teens in the 70s. Does disco qualify as music?
ReplyDeleteDisco? Uhm... let me think. Nope. Not really. But as a wee one I was a big fan of Abba, that was disco, too.
DeleteMy tastes are ecclectic as well, running from jazz to blues, to Stones, to Hendricks, and back. Pop rarely holds my interest. I can't tell GaGa from Katy Perry.
ReplyDeleteI am also a converted jazz fan, not free jazz though but I love the Montreal Music Festival (might get there this year...)
DeleteI rather impressed that you know Katy Perry ;-)
I wasn't feeling old(er)...but now I am. New, Pop music is never on my radio and it hadn't really dawned on me until reading this Post. The library of music that I do enjoy is huge, at least in my humble opinion and is varied enough that I don't feel the least bit guilty. I stumble on things that are new to me, but seldom seek them out apparently. I love to listen and listen hard, rarely using music as background.
ReplyDeleteLocal broadcast radio has changed to the extent that I don't even know what current formats are on once known stations. Listening to local, regional stations while traveling is something I've always relished but AM, non-canned programming is rare these days and I miss it. 20 stations up and down the dial of ESPN has sent me away from broadcast static and noise.
This morning I heard for the first time a Classic Country channel on Sat/Web radio, it was an experiment, recognized only 2 voices in an hour and enjoyed it far more than I should admit.
At this point?? .....feeling quite old and crotchety, smiling and not the least bit ashamed of it. You kids can have your modern music :)
Sorry, that clearly wasn't my intention to make you feel old, but sometimes I feel I am getting to a certain age where the tolerance level for certain noise is getting lower.
DeleteI browse the media every once in a while to find some new stuff to listen to, and usually it is not very popular mainstream stuff. There I find jazz, indie but also prog rock. Usually no stuff you would find on mainstream radio either.
Smiling back at you, thinking each to his own (taste in music). As long as the base beat is at a bearable level.
It wasn't you Sonja, it just happens at random times :)
DeleteFor the record, I'm in the shop today putting the Ascot back together and right now am listening to Songs From the Neighborhood; the music of Mr. Rogers.....how about that??