I Dig the Kids’ Music

Ending the generational curse of believing my era sounded better

Photo by Pitt Rom on Pexels

How many times has your dad said to you while you’re relaxing to some tunes after a hard shift flipping burgers: “Music is crap nowadays!”

If you’re my dad, then you’ve said that line many times. Or some variation, like, “Now THIS is music” (while listening to a cheesy song from 1956) or “They just don’t write songs like they used to.”

—and yes, I briefly worked at a fast-food joint.

My dad, of course, is referring to songs like Runaway by Del Shannon, released in 1961:

She ran away

And I wonder where she will stay

My little runaway

I run-run-run-run runaway

It just occurred to me that Shannon might be singing about his much-younger girlfriend, who finally escaped his “basement studio.” (shudder)

But truth be told, I love the song. It’s catchy, with just the right touch of melancholy. It’s no wonder it shot to #1 in the Billboard charts when it was released. The kids back then couldn’t get enough of it, oblivious to the song’s possible meaning.

I guess in a way, I’m an anomaly. Not every kid likes his dad’s music. But there are quite a few bangers from the 1950’s and 1960’s that I enjoy.

There are also some atrociously bad tunes, like Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini from Brian Hyland in 1960. I guess it passed as scandalous, rebellious music at the time, making it instantly hated by older people.

The point is, I like a lot of my dad’s era music, while he only likes a small fraction of mine. Unless it’s Blues. He loves the Blues. As a teenager I listened to a lot of Led Zeppelin, even though they ripped off their blues-y sound from earlier musicians (like mainstream country music stars did too.)

My pop’s not the only one who thinks this way—”modern” music (from about 1980 onwards) is a common complaint among Boomer men. And I’m sure a lot of Gen X dads are shaking their heads at what their Gen Alpha kids are grooving to.

But not this dad.

As a modern, hip father, I’ve decided to break the chain of hating on the younger generations’ music. Actually, it wasn’t a conscious choice—a lot of their music just slaps.

I love Billie Eilish, for example. I also like Dua Lipa, Doechii, Chappell Roan, BoyWithUke, and OneRepublic. We actually had tickets to see the latter band in Detroit, but bailed last-minute as we were afraid of being denied entry or locked up for our Trump memes.

I tried to give the tickets away to my friends—for free—but no one had really heard of the band, who had a #1 hit with Counting Stars. Where’s the love?

I also like that many of today’s artists are writing their own hits (but not always.) I remember feeling disappointed the day I learned that many 1950’s/60’s classics are written for certain artists, not by them. Even Taylor Swift made it clear she writes her own material, after a famous Gen X’er said otherwise.

Breaking the sound loop

But why do people hate on music from newer generations? It’s not because all of the music is bad. I don’t care what you musical tastes are, there’s at least one newer song on the radio that you secretly dance to at work.

I’ve thought about it, and it’s obviously about nostalgia. When someone says their musical era is better, it’s because they think everything was better when they were younger.

It’s a “in my day, chocolate bars were bigger and only 10 cents” equivalent. It comes from the same guarded place. Everyone wants to believe they lived in the best time period, when obviously that was the 1990’s when I came of age.

It’s also a deep love for the songs they first had sex to, or first got stoned to. Regardless of whether the songs are crap, they will always sound good to some people.

Staying open to new music has opened my mind. I don’t listen to any “oldies” stations like the parents of the 90’s—instead I listen to whatever’s on, which is often current hits.

I won’t downplay the quality of a song just because it uses a lot of electronic tuning. Heck, if that were the case, I wouldn’t admire trail-blazing synth-legends like Kraftwerk, formed in the early 1970’s. I also wouldn’t have liked 1997’s Around the World from Daft Punk, which repeats the title words from almost start to finish.

I recognize that although the tune was popular at the time, I can now admit Around the World is junk written for people high on Ecstasy at a rave. They only had to remember three words while gyrating.

What I’m really saying is that a lot of “my” music faced unfair judgement from the dads of the day. But instead of criticizing my son’s music as a continuation of the tradition, I will either stay silent or bust a dance move in his doorway. He just looks at me blankly, because I am uncool.

But it doesn’t take a cool person to recognize cool music, does it? So, this is a shout-out to today’s new artists—you sound great, even if no one is paying you anymore like in the good ol’ days.