Nostalgia is for suckers.
I guess people have different lives but only a day or so here and there do I miss. A girl here, a night there. But I’ve lived through the 60s through to now and I am here to tell you everything sucks in equal proportion. Which is why you have to be happy when you can (the great trick in life) because it won’t last long and even if it does, it’ll be ruined by future memories.
That might sound a little negative.
So what?
It is better than waking up one day to discover you are Merle Haggard writing about how they don’t make em like Elvis Presley any more. A sorta mendaciously meaningless piece of wank. Which presley? Fat Elvis with him white jumpsuit and non stop sweating… that one?
In the 1920s classical musical lovers sneered at jazz as “race music” and folk as “hillbilly” music. For the classicist, unable to open their ears, there was no debate. By the 50s it was the jazz purists sneering at rock and by the 60s EVERYBODY sneering at the Beatles.
Folks like Bob Dylan go out of their way to say they have no interest in modern popular music. That’s alright with me. That’s valid. But it is not valid as OPINION ABOUT MODERN MUSIC. It doesn’t prove Dylan, or Haggard’s, opinions about music, even though they are greats in their own rights, has any validity whatsoever.
You can’t have an opinion upon what you have never heard.
The best music in 2010 is as good as the best music in 1963 -or any other year. It just is. I see no drop off in quality from, say Led Zep II to Titus Andronicus, and intellectually I see a huge improvement. I can see no reason not to believe Screaming Females are as great as Bikini Kill are or Alan Jackson is the equal of Randy Travis.
Production values change, science changes, but Lady Gaga remains the equal of early Madonna.
Those who suffer from nostalgia, those, and that would be most people once they hit a certain age, who don’t want to listen to modern music because it isn’t as good do themselves a disservice.
This is the golden age and it is happenning now and it is worth listening to… so listen to it!!!