age and beauty

so i've been looking through some old "classic" albums lately.

all of these guys were fucking young! [links open last.fm] the beatles'
"rubber soul", bob dylan's "freewheelin' bob dylan", neil young's "sugar mountain", van morrision's "astral weeks", nickel creek's entire discology, avril's "let go". all younger than i am now!

so why is it that the older generation always talks shit about "these kids"? classical guys talked shit about coltrane. jazz guys talked shit about the beatles. classic rock guys talk shit about hipster stuff.

so i realized.

these guys are jealous. they've had more years. they've worked hard. so why is it that these "young kids" can make something beautiful in ways that i can't?

March 26, 2009 @ 8:08pm . 51 views . 1 comments

comments:

Well, I think a lot of that criticism may simply be based in a genuine disagreement about the quality of the music, regardless of the age of its composers. Sure, jazz guys talked shit about the Beatles, but the Beatles weren't playing jazz. It's pretty reasonable that classic rock enthusiasts just don't like the hipster stuff, regardless of the age of the guys laying down the smooth emo tracks.

For example, about halfway through reading this, I was thinking about how it totally applies to the Jonas Brothers. Most Peterdot readers have probably just recoiled from their screens. "The Jonas Brothers?" they say. "How could they possibly have anything to do with Peter's thoughts about awesome music?" This is precisely my point. They take a lot of crap for their music from people who just aren't willing to accept that bubblegum rock can be inventive and meaningful and musically relevant. A huge amount of criticism does center on their age, but that's mostly just random insults, not actual analysis of the music.

Maybe it's motivated by jealousy... but I kind of doubt that all the haters actually want thousands of screaming pre-pubescent girls at _their_ concerts. Plus, it's difficult to justify being actively jealous of a genuine musical prodigy like Nick Jonas. I mean, it's alright to envy one casually, but at some point you just start to look like a dick. I think the real problem is that they refuse to admit that (to paraphrase another fan) just because girls become hysterical when they see the JoBros and they're routinely on the cover of Non-Threatening Boys Magazine, it doesn't necessarily mean they suck musically.

Poppy | March 27 @ 2:01am