As much as the piss ant tabloid press like to brainwash their thicko readership into thinking that all kids are knife wielding, gobbing, granny mugging morons, the truth seems to me to be quite the opposite. In fact there seems to be very little in the way of rebellion these days. Most of the young people I meet are like 40 year olds in trendier clothes.
And I blame Simon Cowell. I do, really. When I was a lad (yes I am old) we had to make our own music, the music we made was made with computers and turn tables in our bedrooms. Most of it was repetitive and shit, but we didn't care because we were off our faces on purple ohms and love doves.
The generation before us made their own music in the garage with a band, some safety pins, someone shouting and a bag of glue. Their music was shit too, but they didn't care as they were off their faces on glue.
But from all this shit music emerged real talent. Would we have had the Sex pistols without all the shit garage bands? No. Would we have had Orbital without hundreds of kids pissing about in their bedrooms? I doubt it. (You could argue that we would have avoided Moby too. I would struggle to counter your argument).
We were all trying to revolt, trying to find our own identity and succeeding. Each generation, from the 60’s has had its defining music and styles, it’s drugs and music and something for revolting kids to cling to as they exploded (literally) into maturity. There needed to be an excuse to go out and get fucked, fucked on drink, fucked on drugs, fucked on music and fucked doggy style with your hair on fire. My generation had that. We had the summer of love, Ibiza and pills. The ones before us had the New Romantics, then the New Wave and Ska/mod revival, Skin heads, Punks, Mods and Rockers, Teddy boys .. it goes back to the beginning of Rock and Roll and for the very large majority of us, it was a good thing.
But now what have they got? It feels to me as though the kids are being told what to listen to by the record companies. Rather than the other way round. We used to define the music, now the record companies do. Programs like X Factor define the music and define what will be number 1. No wonder kids don’t buy music anymore, they have no input into it. They download it (steal it) and throw it away. It’s all too transient, there is no pride of ownership in a record or CD. And why would there be, even if you go and buy a CD made by musicians, it is for the most part derivative, lame nonsense. Keane. Keane. FUCKING KEANE (I fucking hate Keane) for example. Rock and Roll? Yeah right, them and Starsailor, Kings of Leon, White Lies, Rhianna, Mumford and Sons, Foo Fighters.. Some of these bands I like. But I am nearly 40. I should hate this shit, it should offend me, it should be so edgy that no self-respecting teen would be seen dead listening to one of their Dad’s albums. Then you have the N-Subz / Tinchy Striderites, these are people that think being thick is a virtue. They are not pushing any boundaries, revolution has to have a purpose, no matter how misguided. Even punk had a purpose. Most new music these days is about as edgy as a Blue peter presenter stroking a kitten.
The Libertines had a go, Some rap artists etc. but it's all old. And the record companies wouldn’t promote them in any case. They drop similarly rebellious acts as they didn’t fit the clean image required by the fucking piss ant press (who now rule the world by defining what all thick people think). The record companies are full of Simon Cowells pandering to the lowest common denominator. And in doing so they are ripping the heart out of what made music great; The fact that a generation could be defined by it’s music! That’s what made great music. And now music is bland, we have bland youth culture, bland is bad. Life is too short for bland.
Music has been commercialised so much that it has disappeared up its own fundament. Perhaps there are underground movements out there. Maybe i am too out of touch, there are Emo’s and Goths still around, but they are just miserable little turds, I want to be shocked. As I approach 40, I want to be able to tut and say “Tcoh the kids of today”. But I can’t. Most of them bear more resemblance to a Christian outreach meeting than to the gobbing knife wielding little shits the papers tell us about.
It’s time for a musical revolution, something for the next generation to fuck to. Fuck Simon Cowell and his puke making manfactopop. And fuck Rihanna and her fucking Umbrella. No Mat Cardle. NO! I want music to scare me. If the sterilisation of music continues my kids will have to grow up without sleeping in a gutter, never waking up in bed with a stranger, they will not experience Sunday lunch with mum and dad while still off their faces, they will have no stories to tell, no memorable nights to forget. They will be bland. I may as well start taking them to church if this is what music has become, they can learn to play the organ and sit and pray. Fuck that, as the late great Bill Hicks said, "I want music to ROCK, and I want my kids to ROCK". Life is short and is there to be lived, sod staying in. Sod saving up, Sod “being careful”, fuck off, buy a motorbike, get a life. You are only here once for fucks sake. All these whiney little maggots prancing around in 1 direction, JLSing themselves to a BORING choreographed DULL SHIT GRAVE. Christ some of these kids need to start taking liberties with their bodies otherwise they’ll live to be 120, sitting in a nursing home stinking of piss and TCP, with no vague memories to keep them happy. You regret what you didn’t do. I know that as I regret very little. Apart from being fucked doggy style with my hair on fire. That hurt.
