I'm trying.
In an attempt to get to know some of the today's tunes (as opposed to staying locked in a time warp of 30 or 40 years ago), I flipped around the music channels available through digital cable. Hey, if I'm paying for them, I might as well watch them.
It might take a few more visits before I start to get it, so to speak. But I don't want to lock myself into a "all new music stinks" kind of mentality. This isn't the '80s anymore, after all.
Speaking of the '80s, one of the channels is called Arena Rock, which by definition wouldn't exactly seem to suit my tastes. Sure enough, a venture there summoned up the bombast of Europe's "The Final Countdown," which has seen new life in recent years as the theme song for the supremely inept magician Gob Bluth as he makes a fool of himself on "Arrested Development." Having satisfied my suppositon, I declined to visit Arena Rock again.
The Rap channel had me befuddled, probably feeling like those old-timers who saw Elvis performing on "Ed Sullivan." They didn't get it, and neither do I. Rap lyrics qualify as some kind of urban art form, which is all well and good in that context. But if you're listening for musicianship, perhaps this isn't the best place to start. And the artists would have to admit that, themselves.
One of the Metal channels (there apparently are several subgenres) featured something that sounded moderately interesting: a band from California called Horse the Band, which employs keyboards amid the sea of thrashing guitars and strangled vocals. In this case, the keyboards sound just like what you'd hear while playing a Super Mario Bros. video game, that high-pitched melodic beeping. Sure enough, I looked up some information on Horse the Band, and they're at the forefront of a musical styling dubbed Nintendocore. That makes sense, as the band members look like they were born in the mid- to late '80s, and they probably have been playing video games since they could hold a controller.
One of my sons happens to have a video compilation that includes a contribution by Horse the Band. Terms like "strange" and "bizarre" just scratch the surface when it comes to describing "A Million Exploding Suns." The central plot seems to be a couple of guys combining a mannequin with raw meat to make something that comes to life, then wastes them. (Mary Shelley came up with that idea 200 years ago, but who's quibbling.) Then other stuff happens. The Nintendo sounds aren't as pronounced as on "The Black Hole," the song I heard on digital cable.
I'll give the tunes of today another try, though, and soon. I frequently joke that I don't know much about any music past, say, 1979. But the more I think about it, the joke's on me.
In an attempt to get to know some of the today's tunes (as opposed to staying locked in a time warp of 30 or 40 years ago), I flipped around the music channels available through digital cable. Hey, if I'm paying for them, I might as well watch them.
It might take a few more visits before I start to get it, so to speak. But I don't want to lock myself into a "all new music stinks" kind of mentality. This isn't the '80s anymore, after all.
Speaking of the '80s, one of the channels is called Arena Rock, which by definition wouldn't exactly seem to suit my tastes. Sure enough, a venture there summoned up the bombast of Europe's "The Final Countdown," which has seen new life in recent years as the theme song for the supremely inept magician Gob Bluth as he makes a fool of himself on "Arrested Development." Having satisfied my suppositon, I declined to visit Arena Rock again.
The Rap channel had me befuddled, probably feeling like those old-timers who saw Elvis performing on "Ed Sullivan." They didn't get it, and neither do I. Rap lyrics qualify as some kind of urban art form, which is all well and good in that context. But if you're listening for musicianship, perhaps this isn't the best place to start. And the artists would have to admit that, themselves.
One of the Metal channels (there apparently are several subgenres) featured something that sounded moderately interesting: a band from California called Horse the Band, which employs keyboards amid the sea of thrashing guitars and strangled vocals. In this case, the keyboards sound just like what you'd hear while playing a Super Mario Bros. video game, that high-pitched melodic beeping. Sure enough, I looked up some information on Horse the Band, and they're at the forefront of a musical styling dubbed Nintendocore. That makes sense, as the band members look like they were born in the mid- to late '80s, and they probably have been playing video games since they could hold a controller.
One of my sons happens to have a video compilation that includes a contribution by Horse the Band. Terms like "strange" and "bizarre" just scratch the surface when it comes to describing "A Million Exploding Suns." The central plot seems to be a couple of guys combining a mannequin with raw meat to make something that comes to life, then wastes them. (Mary Shelley came up with that idea 200 years ago, but who's quibbling.) Then other stuff happens. The Nintendo sounds aren't as pronounced as on "The Black Hole," the song I heard on digital cable.
I'll give the tunes of today another try, though, and soon. I frequently joke that I don't know much about any music past, say, 1979. But the more I think about it, the joke's on me.
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