A classic case of the power of music
I live in a disco. It opens at 7 a.m. I rise to the primal flow of "Jungle Boogie," brush with "Mr. Big Stuff," stumble downstairs to "Super Freak." My daughter is the DJ. The music is coming from her bedroom. She's 12, begins every day blasting the "Pure Funk" compilation, and would rather eat a tomato than allow Avril Lavigne to infect her record collection.
There are more like her at my house. A 10-year-old who sleeps under a wall-size poster of the "Stairway to Heaven" lyrics. A 15-year-old whose massive collection of downloaded music is anchored by what appears to be every Grateful Dead bootleg ever made.
My kids listen almost exclusively to old music. This is an ironic, and somewhat baffling, situation for a rock critic. I listen to new music. It's my job. Forget grocery lists and news clippings; we've got Polaroids of Gwen Stefani and Mariah Carey on the fridge. We go to Christmas parties at recording studios -- this year my 10-year-old politely inquired of the owner whether the Turtles had ever made an album there. The car is perpetually littered with advance copies of the hottest releases, from Britney Spears to Radiohead. "Thank God for 'ZLX," says the 12-year-old, referring to the local classic rock station, while ejecting whatever's in the CD player.
I rarely turn them on to music. I've learned, by process of elimination, what to bring home from work: the newly remastered "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" with bonus tracks and DVD. The deluxe edition of the Who's "Tommy." Any vintage reggae or ska compilation. Surprisingly, the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Yes, there are a few quasi-current bands that have slipped through a crack in the wall. The whole brood loves Nirvana and genuflects at the altar of Sublime -- both led by dead guys. The 12-year-old argues that David Bowie is current. I remind her that her favorite Bowie song is 32 years old. "Well," she says, "he's still alive."
I'm proud of their evolved aesthetics and great ears. I'm in awe of their disregard for fashions and their hunger for musical integrity. And I wish I could take credit for it.
But there's been no calculated effort to steer them toward "good" or "real" or "substantial" music. This is no gingerly insinuated nostalgia trip. I've never put on a Jimi Hendrix album and I have no idea how my children discovered Pink Floyd. One could argue that this is the way a forward-looking rock critic's kids rebel -- by dismissing mom's newest favorite lo-fi indie-pop band and embracing the dinosaurs. The thing is, the kids try to include me. They shout for me to listen to a killer Jimmy Page solo, and proudly demonstrate the guitar intro to "Roundabout." They assume I share their passion, not fully understanding that I was too young for classic rock the first time around. By the time I was old enough to fall in love with music I was busy obsessing over Steely Dan chord changes and uninclined to bother with the past. The radio made me happy; they're looking for something else. And I'm beginning to understand.
It's not that good music isn't being made in 2003. It's just that a lot of it isn't being heard. Eric Boehlert, in a recent article for Salon.com, wrote about what he believes was the greatest week in rock history: Dec. 20, 1969, when the Top Ten spots on the Billboard album charts were filled by the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, Santana, the Temptations, Blood, Sweat & Tears, Creedence Clearwater Revival, the "Easy Rider" soundtrack, and Tom Jones.
These weren't just great artists (I won't use this space to debate Jones's worthiness, although in defense of his enduring appeal it should be noted that my 10-year-old knows most of the words to "What's New Pussycat?"). They were pop stars -- all over the radio, flying off the record store shelves, fixtures in the global consciousness. These days the stars, the ones who are spoon-fed to the youth masses via multimedia marketing campaigns, have by and large been anointed by committee, not by music lovers. The thrill of discovery -- which used to be a big part of both making and listening to music -- is vanishing.
What, then, are my kids hearing and feeling when they listen to Cream and the Doors that can't be heard and felt in the Foo Fighters or Ben Harper or Korn or Sheryl Crow? "It's more spontaneous," says the 15-year-old. "More original. Everybody now sounds the same. Like they're in it for the money."
The boy is cynical, an over-generalizer. But he's got a point. The bands he -- and a surprising number of his friends -- love represented a counterculture, an alternative to the status quo that has nothing to do with the commodified tag of "alt" and everything to do with individuality.
It can't really be quantified, this musical spirit the children are chasing. Honesty? Revolution? Passion? They would never use those words, but they know them when they hear them. It will be years before my wide-eyed, well-loved daughter relates to the emotional wreckage of Dylan's "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right." Still, she listens to it every night while she's falling asleep. I'm listening too.
Joan Anderman can be reached at anderman@globe.com
