Is that...a crack? A crack in the shell?

[jasn]

By God! I think it is! There's hope yet! The Matrix is dead!

http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/n...ock-kids_x.htm

[Gresh]

Excellent link!
I think it's great young kids are showing an apprecation for the music of other decades. Whether it's Queen, the Who, Beatles, Doors, Stones... it's always good to have an understanding of the past. The argument of many of these kids seems to be, "hey these groups put out whole albums of great stuff, not just one great song like today's artist does not hold water with me. Great albums/disks do exist - you just have to go just a little bit past your comfort zone to find them. Heck, the last thread about Beulah speaks volumes - these guys put out quality work and their recognition among younger consumers is probably nil. The point being - there is amazing work out there just waiting to be discovered. Hats off to the kid who realizes Justin Timberlake/Avril Lavigne are mass marketed crap and are looking to the older R&R groups to get a fix - I just hope their next step is to seek out some vital new music being created today by people just as talented as their 60's/70's counterparts. It's great that kids are listening to their parent's music - as a starter, they need to find their own music that speaks to them however.

[Troy]

Great article, thanks for posting it.

[MindGoneHaywire]

Yeah, yeah, we've heard this before. There is truth there, but I think it's way overstated. 2 decades' worth or more of music somehow never gets mentioned in articles like this. If the kids dig Aerosmith, fine. But the suggestions that the music is all about image today & wasn't then are simply untrue. Every few years there's an article about kids discovering classic rock. Great...but so what? It's a lot easier to discover since that's a radio format that still exists. The kids who want to find the good stuff will look beyond Good Charlotte & Simple Plan & what they'll find they'll like just as much as kids who are now discovering the Who & Queen. And if the classic rock kids want to think that that stuff's better than anything else, that's their right. Not in MY house. Totally one-sided article.

[-Jar-]

Yeah, yeah, we've heard this before. There is truth there, but I think it's way overstated. 2 decades' worth or more of music somehow never gets mentioned in articles like this. If the kids dig Aerosmith, fine. But the suggestions that the music is all about image today & wasn't then are simply untrue. Every few years there's an article about kids discovering classic rock. Great...but so what? It's a lot easier to discover since that's a radio format that still exists. The kids who want to find the good stuff will look beyond Good Charlotte & Simple Plan & what they'll find they'll like just as much as kids who are now discovering the Who & Queen. And if the classic rock kids want to think that that stuff's better than anything else, that's their right. Not in MY house. Totally one-sided article.

yes.

Besides, if these kids were really listening to their parent's music, wouldn't they be listening to The Cure, A Flock of Seagulls and Poison?

-jar

[mad rhetorik]

Think about it. If kids have to listen to 30-year old bands and music in order to find anything creative or inspiring, that speaks volumes about the current music scene and where it's heading--straight to the dumpster. It's this sort of escapist thinking that leads to current musical stagnation (and this is coming from a person who loves The Who, Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, The 'Stones, etc. etc.). We all want "another" Led Zeppelin, or "another" Beatles, and this thought process fosters more dull, imitative bands that we don't want.

What we really need is something NEW, and original, and exciting, but mainstream enough to appeal to the masses. Any takers?

[jasn]

Younger audiences seeking out Queen, Aerosmith and LZ will play very nicely into Corporate fatcat wallets for sure, through re-releases and their grooming for the next wave of retro-rockers. Not being a fan of the current pallet of bands, I see more good in this potential trend than bad by it exposing younger music lovers to a more fundimental, blues rock style, even if that style itself was a second or third generation from the core. Besides, isn't it already happening?

I expect that the end product, like so many others in todays culture, will morph into something using threads of the past with the pace of the new.

[MindGoneHaywire]

>If kids have to listen to 30-year old bands and music in order to find anything creative or inspiring, that speaks volumes about the current music scene and where it's heading

I don't buy it. It's just the musical worldview of one reporter & one editor who are either mired in classic-rock suckage themselves or assign it far more importance than it actually warrants in this day & age. There will ALWAYS be someone looking for the next Led Zeppelin. Let them keep looking. If the kids want to listen to Queen instead of Queens Of The Stone Age, so what? Conversely, if Good Charlotte, Simple Plan, Mest, and the like satisfy kids who have never heard Green Day records, much less anything from the 70s or 80s, what are we going to do--stew like the characters in High Fidelity about it? Anyone who's satisfied with what they've got, these days, probably has exactly what they want. The choices we have today are staggering compared to just a decade ago, let alone 20 or 30 years ago, when obscure but great music really WAS hard to find. Teenagers today listening to DSOTM instead of the White Stripes won't keep the next good rock band from coming around. People will always keep buying the same stuff repackaged differently. Let 'em. If they'd rather listen to the Forrest Gump soundtrack than a Johnny Thunders album, they probably wouldn't like the Thunders record. So long as I don't have to listen to it, I could care less.

[jasn]

Walk before you run, right? How can you do Johnny Thunders without first going through the Gump soundtrack?

The timing on this article played very well for me actually, because just a couple of nights ago my 13-yr old, whom I have tried many times to dig some new band I'm into rather than listen to Good Charlotte (I don't tell him they bore me), came to me and asked if I had any Pink Floyd. So, I took my son over to my 800-CD collection and laid down the ground rules for letting him listen to anything on the rack. I'm cool with him borrowing stuff, and burning ones he really likes, as long as he took care of them, didn't get too piggy and NEVER let his freinds borrow any of it. I then proceeded to tag a few choice oldies and new things so he could try them at his own pace. It was a true father/son moment.

[-Jar-]

Walk before you run, right? How can you do Johnny Thunders without first going through the Gump soundtrack?

The timing on this article played very well for me actually, because just a couple of nights ago my 13-yr old, whom I have tried many times to dig some new band I'm into rather than listen to Good Charlotte (I don't tell him they bore me), came to me and asked if I had any Pink Floyd. So, I took my son over to my 800-CD collection and laid down the ground rules for letting him listen to anything on the rack. I'm cool with him borrowing stuff, and burning ones he really likes, as long as he took care of them, didn't get too piggy and NEVER let his freinds borrow any of it. I then proceeded to tag a few choice oldies and new things so he could try them at his own pace. It was a true father/son moment.

I can't wait to start brainw.. er, I mean, introducing my kids to music. The 4 yo can pick out most instruments out of a mix.. She recognized the flute in a Laika song the other day.. my 1 yo loves dancing to music.. she'll go over and bang on the entertainment center when she wants to hear some music (at least that's how we interpret it) She's so funny when she dances.. she dances like these Badgers, but not as fast..

http://www.badgerbadgerbadger.com

-jar

[jasn]

Dang JAR! I had to watch that thing about 6 times to convince myself it was a loop.

(Pretty driving beat though)