80s Music

Okay, seriously. I don't get it. When I was young (you know, before the flood), I listened to contemporary pop music, and I loved it. I also loved classical music and jazz and other stuff, but I recognized the value (however unconsciously) of being a part of my world and listening to the music of...I dunno know how to say it. Music of the now, of right this minute. I knew 99% of what I was listening to would fade away into obscurity, and that was fine. It was new.

Take on me.
Take me on.
I'll be gone.
In a day or two!

(The lyrics themselves seemed to acknowledge that tomorrow's music would take care of itself.)

Frankly, if you liked something two years old by the time I was a senior in high school, you were WEIRD. You weren't allowed to like a song much past the time you managed to memorize the lyrics.

And so I made a sort of pact with myself that I would never become one of "those people," the kind who end up only listening to the music they grew up with -- leftover '60s people, or people still stuck on big band jazz and bemoaning "the devil's music" when they should be enjoying the new stuff that comes along. People who still think Elvis is corrupting the young with "Hound Dog."

So I listened to Eric Clapton, Yes, Duran Duran, Foreigner, Van Halen, Billy Joel, J. Geils Band, The Go-Go's, Culture Club, The Cure, Fleetwood Mac, Soft Cell, Cyndi Lauper, Adam Ant, David Bowie, The Thompson Twins, Dire Straights, The Police, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Wham!, Pat Benatar, and Men at Work, and I enjoyed the tunes, confident that they would be replaced by other tunes with different musical influences. Back then, I envisioned an ocean of music and a lifetime of musical pleasure.

And then rap came along. And I'm sorry. Ew. No melody? Just percussion? Bitch-hating lyrics? Impossible to dance to? (unless you're a noodle on crack) And then hip-hop, which to me sounds just like rap. And then...

OMG! I realized I had become one of "those people" after all, someone who thinks contemporary music is junk.

So, I retreated to the generation before mine, listening to a lot of classic rock. I was a denier of reality and proud of it. An old fart in support hose. A droopy fogey unable to deal with the hip new generation behind me. A stick in the mud. I cranked up the Eagles, America, The Guess Who, Three Dog Night, Norman Greenbaum, even disco, and David Bowie ('70s version), and I reveled in my totally-not-hipness.

And now here I am, 2011, in yet another bar/restaurant/whatever, and they're playing '80s music.

WTF?

Is it possible that contemporary popular music is, in fact, bad? I mean, there are people are in their teens, 20s, and 30s in this place with free wi-fi. The music is meant to attract them. Why aren't they listening to the music being made right now? You know, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Usher, Akron, Snoop Dog, and all those people?

Personally, the problem for me is that the contemporary pop music that I do like basically sounds like '80s music. Pink. Adele. Isn't that Duran Duran again? Could this aversion to the music of 2011 (whatever that's supposed to be) possibly be true of...other people?

I would really like to blame this on my being in some old folks' place, pathetically listening to the AM Radio and debating whether Clinton were a good President. But I hear '80s music, it seems, wherever I go. It's in the mall, on the street (you know, when they broadcast from the back of a truck to draw a crowd), in bars and restaurants, and on about half the radio stations. (Satellite radio is too niche-vertical to give me any clue.)

So, what the hell is going on?

Why isn't popular music popular?

Or is it somehow just me?