Teenage unemployment is at at earthquaking 29% this summer.
Why am I telling you this?
Because where teens go pop music goes: pop, rock, all this stuff we love, is THE SOUND OF YOUNG AMERICA. It belongs to them, we’re just a spy in the house of music. Just watching the wheels turn and reporting on em, but it belongs to the Mary Magpies of the world.
And when they have no spare cash it sinks like a stone.
Oh all the whingeing about the bottom falling out of the musical tour, an important reason is ignored: TEENS HAVE NO MONEY IF THEY HAVE NO JOB. They can’t afford it anymore -it is that simple.
When this happened in the UK in the 1970s the result was a musical revolution. Kids wanna groove and if they have to make it themselves, they’ll make it themselves.
So if the effect of this dire recession on teenagers is a Do It Yourself ethic, where everybody picks up a pc and programs their own drumbeats, well, that’s fine with me.
But if the soul sucking boredom of teens having nothing leads to adults having nothing, then that’s a problem. A big fucking problem.