MUSIC IN THE NEW MILLENIUM
Is it just me, or does the noise coming from the radio today scare you, too? I was driving aimlessly the other day with Thera, my fifteen (going on thirty) year old daughter. We had the radio on, but the volume was down. Thera was telling me how, out of Henry the VIII’s six wives she felt the most sorry for Anne Boleyn. “Nobody understood her, Mother”, Thera was saying, “Everybody either hated her or put her on a pedestal”. Suddenly she stopped. “Oh, I love this song”, she cooed, turning the volume up about as loud as it would go.
The next thing I knew, the very core of my being was assaulted with a noise that could only be described as taking the manhole cover off of hell and hopping in. The singer (?) seemed most distressed with the notion that people might be moved to cry at his funeral. As near as I could tell, he was attempting to elicit some assurance from whoever this song was aimed at that they would stop such a thing from happening. You would think a simple, “don’t let anyone cry at my funeral”, would be sufficient- but, no. This guy insists that his friend swear on their life that they wouldn’t permit any waterworks.
All my parents had to complain about was “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Or “One bad apple don’t spoil the whole bunch, girl. I don’t care what they say; I don’t care what you heard, now.” Or, songs about answering the door. “Someone do me a favor, open the door, and let them in”. Even the less wholesome “I wanna rock and roll all night, and party every day,” is Shakespeare compared to what assails my eardrums when I turn on the radio.
And what about these names? In the olden days you had names like The Osmond Brothers, The Hudson Brothers. These names made sense. These guys were actually brothers, so they put that with their last name. Oh, sure you had the Bee Gees- but that was just short for Brothers Gibb. They wanted to be different, so they flipped it around and used the initials. An eclectic take off would be something like The Flying Burrito Brothers. O.K., these guys weren’t brothers, and the name suggests an aerial act, but it was clever, and they were good, so we can forgive that. Even KISS isn’t so bad. It is simple, easy to remember.
But, well- tell you what. I’ll give you a little quiz. Out of the four choices I give you, you tell me the name of a real band. A) Danger! Curves Ahead! B) October’s Brother-in-Law C) Red Jumpsuit Apparatus or D) Caution, Wet Floor.
The correct answer is C) Red Jump Suit Apparatus. What is that supposed to mean? Who thought it up? And what about names like Panic At The Disco? It sounds like a public catastrophe! Or, Fall Out Boy. I picture a poor little waif, glowing green. Not nice.
So what this all boils down to is, am I obsolete, like Burgess Meredith in that episode of the Twilight Zone? Am I hopelessly out of it? Am I just too dog-gone old to live? Nah, it couldn’t be that.
