A Revisionist History Of Suck

A few weeks ago, I reconnected with an old high-school friend who stopped by the AP Skyscraper on his way to Chicago. He was impressed by the basic decor, the amount of crap cresting over the back of my couch ("It's just like your bedroom back then: A fukkin' mess!") and the huge wall of mags you see when you enter the place. He complimented me (and AP) for 24 years of riding the tides of popular culture for so long. He also got some zingers in, asking me when was the last time I saw my shoes, who's been launching golf balls off the top of my head and where I found soda in bottles so I could wear such thick glasses. (This sounds like last weeks' blog entry, doesn't it? Think of it as, what Daryl Palumbo's idol might consider "conceptual continuity.")

What my buddy wasn't down with was AP's focus of the past few years. "All these crimes against music in the name of 'punk,'" he bristled. "Are the kids that dumb? This is all stupid pop music." Fortunately, the auxiliary speakers on my computer still worked, and I was able to cut him off at the pass with a selection of contemporary hardcore on the Bridge 9 and Deathwish Inc. labels, twisted crazy stuff Paste magazine wouldn't touch, as well as some inspired pop songs (Two Tongues and that recent (International) Noise Conspiracy disc). He started to squirm at "No, Seriously" by From Jupiter, but confessed it "wasn't that bad." He's a big fan of textural guitar rock, so while Mr. Explosions In The Sky was trying to play the superiority card, I had to school his bitch ass about MONO. "Okay, you win. But how do you keep track of this stuff? Music was never as bad as it is now."

REALLY? While he doesn't need a glimpse of Tim Karan's iTunes library for a refresher course in the history of Suck (show me someone who likes the new Chris Cornell album and I'll show you someone who needs to enter a support group), he does need to have his brain cells rattled. Every generation will inevitably swan dive into a deep puddle of mung because they think it's valid. How many awful "college rock" acts sprouted up in the '80s simply because REM and U2 were the first ones to take it to the bank? Everybody from sociologists to music fans to rock critics cites Nirvana's Nevermind as a touchstone for cultural change, but there were still millions of dopes who ate up uninspired stuff in its wake. (And let's not forget the blatant cabaret acts, as well.) I also reminded my bro about the time I almost got my ass beaten by a gang of drunken hardcore music snobs from Britain 15 years ago for proclaiming my appreciation of the Boomtown Rats. My bud and I laughed at the memory of remembering how morally superior we felt in high school (compared to the dimbulbs rockin' the Eagles and Journey), only to realize how lame we would've been if we lived in the U.K., simply because the Rats had chart hits there--the very thing we railed against here.

So relax, Generation Warped. Your scene does not suck, despite what rock critics, most people over 30 and the dullard incontinent pygmies who post on message boards have to say. (Expect a blog entry on that little group in the near future.) Be advised: Seven years from now, I promise you will cringe at some of the stuff currently nestling in your hard drive. (You and I both know you'll have wiped that stuff off 17 times over or replaced your 'puter five times by then, anyway.) Or maybe you'll actually hang onto some of it. Who knows? Perhaps five years from now, you and I will sit down over some salted caramel hot chocolates and discuss who has more merit: Cute Is What We Aim For or.... Jane Child.