Last month, after attending the USTA Sectional Championships in Syracuse, I found myself hitching a ride with one of my doubles partners -- this older guy who was familiar with bands from the 70's to the early 80's (Styx, Eagles, etc.). By "familiar", I mean "downright nostalgic". Deep inside, I was chuckling to myself saying, "Haha, he's old..."
But then he made the same remark that I've been saying to myself lately... To paraphrase:
"They don't write songs like that anymore. Everything on the radio's just rap and hip-hop, right?"
He seemed a little sad when he made the remark. And I totally agreed.
So then, I started feeling old myself.
But if feeling old means wanting songs with a decent melody, a memorable guitar riff, etc. then I guess, I feel good about feeling old.
It's not just the melody and instrumentation, either. The poetry of lyric writing seems to be a dying art. Everything seems to be about being cool. Songs -- if you can refer to them as such -- seem to be too derivative of past work with little hint of apology or credit. Everything's just too pretentious and egotistical. Where is the earnestness, the honesty, the cheese (and I don't mean over-melodramatic R&B cheese, mind you)? Where is the love?
"Bla bla bla," whined the old man.
Maybe I'm biased and I just never liked hip-hop that much. But I never liked hip-hop even when I was younger. I enjoyed some hip-hop up to that time it overlapped with electronica and Boy Band material, but that was before hip-hop culture became so relevant that it's just taken for granted.
Yes, I liked some electronica as much as some other genres (although maybe not in the way Ralph Lumo probably secretly enjoyed Boy Bands). I'm not even hard-core into techno (remember those ravers?), but I was annoyed when Kanye West used Daft Punk's "Harder Better Faster Stronger". All I could hear in Kanye's piece was "What what what what doesn't kill me/Can only make me stronger." The rest of the song was just Daft Punk (I hope Kanye paid them a lot for that). Again, contemporary hip-hop to me seems to be mostly attitude and ego. It used to be more fun.
[Incidentally, the title of the song where Kanye mixed in Daft Punk material is simply called "Stronger". This is probably because the emotional quotient of most of his fans probably won't facilitate saying "Harder Better Faster Stronger" in one breath -- or at least not in the correct order of words every time.]
I remember a couple of my favorite radio stations during my Silicon Valley days:
"Music from the 80's, 90's and today!"
"Music for the rest of us!"
"For those of us whose pants are securely fastened around our waist."
But then he made the same remark that I've been saying to myself lately... To paraphrase:
"They don't write songs like that anymore. Everything on the radio's just rap and hip-hop, right?"
He seemed a little sad when he made the remark. And I totally agreed.
So then, I started feeling old myself.
But if feeling old means wanting songs with a decent melody, a memorable guitar riff, etc. then I guess, I feel good about feeling old.
It's not just the melody and instrumentation, either. The poetry of lyric writing seems to be a dying art. Everything seems to be about being cool. Songs -- if you can refer to them as such -- seem to be too derivative of past work with little hint of apology or credit. Everything's just too pretentious and egotistical. Where is the earnestness, the honesty, the cheese (and I don't mean over-melodramatic R&B cheese, mind you)? Where is the love?
"Bla bla bla," whined the old man.
Maybe I'm biased and I just never liked hip-hop that much. But I never liked hip-hop even when I was younger. I enjoyed some hip-hop up to that time it overlapped with electronica and Boy Band material, but that was before hip-hop culture became so relevant that it's just taken for granted.
Yes, I liked some electronica as much as some other genres (although maybe not in the way Ralph Lumo probably secretly enjoyed Boy Bands). I'm not even hard-core into techno (remember those ravers?), but I was annoyed when Kanye West used Daft Punk's "Harder Better Faster Stronger". All I could hear in Kanye's piece was "What what what what doesn't kill me/Can only make me stronger." The rest of the song was just Daft Punk (I hope Kanye paid them a lot for that). Again, contemporary hip-hop to me seems to be mostly attitude and ego. It used to be more fun.
[Incidentally, the title of the song where Kanye mixed in Daft Punk material is simply called "Stronger". This is probably because the emotional quotient of most of his fans probably won't facilitate saying "Harder Better Faster Stronger" in one breath -- or at least not in the correct order of words every time.]
I remember a couple of my favorite radio stations during my Silicon Valley days:
"Music from the 80's, 90's and today!"
"Music for the rest of us!"
"For those of us whose pants are securely fastened around our waist."
[P. S. Right now, I just rediscovered OPM when I heard Kitchie Nadal's song "Wag na Wag Mong Sasabihin". Apparently, it's a very old song, and I discovered that I already had it in my Itunes library. I must have imported it from someone else's CD a while back.]
