Those words were spoken as a joke by Carl in an episode of "The Simpsons", but like a lot of comedy, there is some truth to be uncovered if we dig a little bit deeper. We have talked many times over the years here about cultural stagnation, and how the last twenty-five years have basically been one long decade when it comes to music, movies, and television. That has not only left us feeling bored with everything that is offered to us, but it paints the varied decades of the last century in more vivid colors than can ever fade in our memories.
At the turn of the millennium, I noted the local radio station changing their slogan from "the 70s, 80s, and today" to "the 80s, 90s, and today". Twenty-six years later, they are using the same slogan, and playing all of the same songs from the 80s as they did back then. Rather than keep up with the times the way they were happy to do when it meant ditching the 70s, they instead have lumped everything that has come after Y2K into one bucket, which they just so happen to spend less time with than the older models.
Why does this happen? That's an interesting question, and I'm not sure if the answer is the same one, but we have seen the same thing happen in politics. There was a generation who refused to pass the torch and let the next generation lead, even as the world has moved so far beyond them they haven't the foggiest clue what life is like for people these days. It should have become evident twenty years ago when a Senator called the internet "a series of tubes", but we have seen the people in charge grow more and more out of touch with each passing year, to he point where now we have literal dementia patients telling us what the rules are supposed to be.
Music sometimes feels the same way.
I'm old enough now that I understand how hard it can be to let go of what was, and instead try to get on board with what could be. Leaving behind the forces that made you the person you are is terrifying, but it's an inevitable part of life. Those people who refuse to let any new pop star get played more often than Madonna miss the fact that she never would have been who she was if the disco queens of the 70s hadn't been tossed aside like three-day old roadkill. The people who insist on putting as much Led Zeppelin on playlists as the entirety of rock in this century are the same people who aren't self-aware enough to realize that 'rock and roll' was originally Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard, and that entire genre had to die for classic rock to rise up.
When I have occasion to hear the local 'modern rock' station, I'm struck by the fact that at least half of the music they play comes from the 90s. I love much of that music too, but there is nothing modern about that music, and refusing to move on from it tells all the new artists they have to fit that mold if they want to get any airplay at all. The previous century's shifts from decade to decade enabled, if not encouraged, artists to try new things and find new sounds, while our adherence to the past today encourages everyone to play it safe. When nothing has changed, it makes it harder for anything to change. Inertia, eh?
But here's the depressing part of all of this; the music I grew up listening to is now as old as what the 'oldies' stations were playing back then. It doesn't feel like I'm old enough for that to be true, but it is. When I write essays about how all the albums that were formative to me are turning twenty-five or thirty years old, what I'm not saying is that an entire generation has now passed since they were released. It isn't normal or natural for those records to still get more airplay than anything being released today. They weren't written for the people and mood of this current climate, and they don't fit the zeitgeist properly. They were records for my day and time, and I want to think I'm cognizant enough to realize this, and not demand a reversion to the historical record.
Psychology tells us most people lose their interest in new music at or in their thirties. I have made it past that point, but the effect is very much felt these days. The ways music has evolved are not largely compatible with what I want from music, which leaves the easiest option as living in the past. I have embraced all my old favorite albums as much as anyone, but I do still keep my ear to the ground for what it out there now, because I don't want to become fossilized. While I might spend the rest of my life primarily listening to the music I already know and love, I can't become one of those people telling the world to stop spinning just because I feel sick.
Do I wish there were more new songs and albums that sound like the new 'oldies' I built my life upon? Of course I do, but I also think to myself how disingenuous it would be if that was the case. When I hear the new bands coming up that sound like they're ripped out of the 80s, it makes me sad, both because I know they weren't even alive when that was the inspirational sound, but also because I know much of that is a direct result of people older than me drilling it into the heads of the younger generations that the future will never be as good as the past.
I once wrote a satirical bit saying that if we truly believed high school was 'the best days of our lives', caps and gowns would also come with a self-harm kit. What we're doing culturally isn't that much different, but we refuse to take the advice. If we don't hold out hope that the future can deliver us something great, why are we bothering to live into that future?
That's too deep for a conclusion drawn from a shallow groove in a slab of vinyl, huh?
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