According to my iPod, I'm old and I've never been cool
When I bought my iPod a couple of years ago (I am the converse of an early adopter) I dutifully loaded all of my music onto it from my iTunes, where I had just as dutifully stored every CD I ever bought. This is a modest library of music that began forming at around the time CD's were a new and poorly mixed technology that only barely sounded better than a record player. You remember: back when you couldn't walk heavily around the player without causing the CD to skip. Those days.
The inadvertent consequence of loading every CD and creating a massive playlist from it-- I listen to about 1350 songs on shuffle all day, every day, at the office-- is that I am now re-hearing songs I either, A: forgot about entirely, or B: didn't forget about but also didn't really want to hear ever again.
For example: I have the entire Genesis opus from post Peter Gabriel to whenever they stopped putting out records in the Eighties. (Why don't I have any Gabriel-Genesis? I don't know, but I do know that at my current age of forty I wish I did.) I will defend to the death the artistic quality of a number of these albums-- Duke in particular is a hair shy of brilliant-- but a lot of the songs have me turning down the volume so nobody in the next cubicle can hear it. Like, every song from their Eighties albums. And especially the song Who Dunnit? which I believe was written after someone bet Phil Collins he couldn't record the worst pop song ever made.
And the library is full of these little revelations. What made me think post- Zeppelin Robert Plant was so fantastic? I don't know... but I have two of his albums. And oh, how I loved every single line of every single Pink Floyd song back in the day. Now? Have you listened to The Final Cut lately? If you want a primer on bad lyric writing and don't have any Eighties Genesis on hand (try Domino if you do) listen to the lyrics of Two Suns At Sunset. I'm fairly discerning when it comes to song lyrics; I have no idea how this slipped past me.
And Terence Trent D'Arby. I have Terence Trent D'Arby in my collection. What the hell?
So I'm doing what I can to combat this long ago lack of cool by listening to as much Radiohead, Wilco, and White Stripes as I can now to try and compensate retroactively.
And asking my teenage kids what they're listening to. They seem to know what's going on.
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Joan Walsh
Kerry Lauerman
mishima666
Skeptic Turtle
Monsieur Chariot
SassyKat
Salon.com
Comments
http://open.salon.com/content.php?cid=5177
Progressive metal is almost never heard on American commercial radio, and many of the bands are from outside the U.S.
If you become a prog metal fan your coolness factor will increase ten-fold, and your teenagers will start asking YOU what you're listening to. And well they should, since there's a lot of fantastic prog metal music that relatively few in the U.S. have ever heard.
So check out the post, and if you like what you hear, send me a message and I'll recommend some albums you might like.
I've been inspired to reveal my own iPod selections.
I think you're right; it's all about the volume. All of the music my entire family has ever been able to scrape together in digital format constitutes perhaps 3000 songs, not including anything my kids have been downloading illegally.
Skeptic Turtle--
Awesome.
When I started with iTunes, I bought music for my wife and niece. Now my inbox is filled with "helpful" suggestions stating that since I previously purchased 50cent/Good Charlotte/Carly Simon/Barry Manilow you may be interested in ...
The only consolation is that there is always going to be some kid that raves about this great new song that just happens to be a mediocre remake of something we listened to when we were their age. I like to think of this as a kind of "retro coolness" to compensate for our age.
Good Luck
I've heard Good Charlotte, and they're ugh... terrible. Fortunately my daughter agrees with me. I'm proud of some of my recent interests-- the Raconteurs, White Stripes, Wilco-- and a few of the singles I've picked up on iTunes (even when I first heard the song in a Nike commercial) but I am ashamed to admit to a deep, brief love affair with My Chemical Romance.
As for new music, I have been devouring The Hold Steady lately. It's nostalgia rock for us aging gen x-ers.
Throw some Marvin, 1970's Stevie and some Curtis into the mix and your kids will be crowning you the new king of cool.
The hip kids love that retro stuff, as long as it ain't the garbage on the oldies radio channel.
Audiophile gave me the confidence to subscribe to a music service that only offers music from independent labels. (I won't name it because I don't want to sound as though I'm promoting it, but if you want more info, just ask.)
I only download free music when it is completely legal to do so. iTunes offers several free singles every week. There is always one in English and one in Spanish and sometimes there is a Discovery Download as well. The genres are all over the place so there will be some that you like no matter what your taste.
Two good sources of free legal music are 3hive.com and the blog free albums galore (freealbums.blogsome.com).
I have heard great things about the KCRW radio show Morning Becomes Eclectic. It can be streamed online or (I think) downloaded as a podcast.
Don't stay stuck in the past! There is lots of good new music out there.
My husband bought me my 40 gig iPod a couple years ago... inscribed: Now you can tune me out all the time.
Never, Honey, never!
I'd rather be in Hell with you baby
Than in cool Heaven
Wow.