Loud Love: cycling and re-cycling aging music

by Drew Wilson on Oct 20^th, 2011

Last time we discussed the power of music and real, true examples of how music can actually change the world.

One example we gave was Nirvana’s Nevermind album, which came out 20 years (and now a couple weeks) ago. It was an anniversary that occasioned a great deal of talk in the music world, not only because it was so successful and meant so much as a turning point in American musical and cultural tastes, but because it ended up defining a generation. Their generation was disillusioned and unsure about it’s place in history and no one was as disillusioned or unsure as Kurt Cobain. Despite the tragic way his story ended, he still stands tall as a symbol to so many of today’s current 20-to-30-somethings; a symbol of their own period in life where growing up and trying to find your way had a soundtrack in those songs, and style in “grunge.” During a period of life where you don’t know who you are or what you want to become, someone else who appeared just as unsure but managed to change everyone resonated. It also helped that the style and cultural shift Nirvana exemplified was one that used lack of effort as a point of pride. Dressing to the nines, wearing a suit and polished shoes, these were thing no one wanted to do while growing up. But wearing ripped jeans and throwing a flannel shirt over yourself, not worrying about haircuts or whether the hair hung down into your face was something everyone could do. You didn’t need to try, didn’t need to look to what your parents wore, didn’t need to know who you wanted to be or where you were going. Just throw it on and head on out.

Now this same generation that grew up so unsure, without a catchy tagline (Generation Y? Even half-assed attempts to categorize leaned towards the lack of direction and unwillingness to exert effort), that generation has to realize that Nevermind came out over 20 years ago. Two decades is a long time. Albums that were 20 years old when Nevermind came out, seemed like dinosaurs then, and seem like fossils now.

Does that mean that Nirvana is now “Classic Rock”? We might say “Who cares?” but we do. As we mentioned last week, iTunes alone has 246 sub-genres to classify music. Nirvana can’t be Classic Rock though. Nirvana was the nineties, that was recent! Well, that was over 20 years ago now. Those unsure kids are now adults, many with families and careers, wearing suits and polishing their shoes, and many are still unsure of their place and future in life.

Nirvana can’t be Classic Rock because Nirvana killed Classic Rock. They can’t co-exist so that means we would have to bump that down another notch, just when the slightly older generation was still trying to get used to Motley Crue and AC/DC being Classic Rock. They couldn’t be Classic Rock either! That’s the music they listened to as kids and infuriated their own parents with. Even if we’re comfortable with that being Classic Rock, what about the music that came before it? Does that become Oldies? Where’s the cutoff for that? It seems awfully convenient to just keep dropping a genre down every time it gets older, along with the generation of kids who listened to it. Nirvana’s music is 20 years old, it’s Classic Rock. The Eagles’ music is 40 years old, it’s Oldies. Tennessee Ernie Ford’s music is 60 years old, who can be expected to remember that?

I remember my father laughing about not being able to find his music on the radio, it had become too old for even the Oldies station. Now my own music is Classic. Not quite Oldies, but getting up there. The catch however, is we have so much easier and so much broader access to music now, that it is insane to bump music down by age along with the generation that grew up to it. It doesn’t matter so much now if your music is too old for the Oldies station on the radio, because you can still get it in so many other ways, it’s falling off the Oldies station doesn’t mean it fell off the map. Most cars now will come with a plug for an ipod, and you can download anything and everything onto one of those if you look hard enough. Satellite radio has channels for damn near every decade, and even without those, everyone can put in a CD, and even make their own CDs in minutes of whatever music they so desire. So don’t worry about that music falling off the car radio, you now have the option to put it back on the same car stereo yourself.

Vinyl is back and so is a healthy appreciation for artists that came before. Compilations and tribute albums are constantly reissued, and the catalogs of the most influential bands are all being reissued in a fancy packages with fancy remastered sound and so on. Young bands have problem shouting out classic artists as influences, and artists of days past like Wanda Jackson and Jerry Lee Lewis are re-entering the spotlight to big receptions. Just because an artist or an album gets older does it mean it disappears anymore. Everything is cataloged and readily available online.

The only thing still to decide is how we catalog it, and more importantly, how we deal with the music of our youth now being the music of a time long past.

Screw it, introspection is for suckers, lets go party and watch as the kids get rowdy to Iggy Pop on the (digital) jukebox.

D.Rew
Loud Love