The Gregory Theorem
June 9th, 2005 by Adam
I’ve got this theory about children. It’s something that I’ve been working on for a long time and not until recently did I get a chance to confirm it. I was picking up an 8th grader from his private school the other day and we chanced to talk about music. My MP3 player was on random, as per usual, throwing out the customary mix of Counting Crows, Public Enemy, Tom Petty, Troubled Hubble and William Shatner.
The first song ends and one of the greatest artists in history, Bob Dylan, the voice of a generation, comes on. Greg makes a face. Leaning forward to touch my stereo (an action that I seriously frown upon) he skips the song. “What are you doing?” I ask. “Changing it.” He replies moodily, “That one was gay.” He skips forward a few tracks and stops on Bright Eyes. “Gay” he comments offhand, skipping forward even further. The Elected: Gay. Robbie Williams: gay. Lemonheads: gay. I take over in an effort to find something he likes. Rancid: Gay. Talib Kweli: Gay. Wallflowers: Gay. I throw it back on random and Ben Folds begins the masterful opening riff to Philosophy and Greg reaches for the controls. “That’s Ben Folds!” I say incredulously. “Pfff, Gay Folds.” He mutters.
I couldn’t manage to physically strike him because this is something I’m not unfamiliar with. My first summer at ESS in charge of my very own class of soon-to-be second graders, I asked them who their favorite bands were. I got the typically infuriating “Britney Spears” “Christina Aguilera” “Eminem” “Backstreet Boys” and one little boy in the back who yelled out “The Kinks”. After the bricks finished falling Eddie explained how he listened to The Who, knew every word of several Jimmy Buffet songs, and saw The Eagles on their last tour through Southern California. Later, I pulled his parents aside and thanked them for what they had done. Seriously, any parent who is too lazy or stupid to sufficiently surround their children with good music is doing a serious disservice to their offspring.
The problem is that children don’t like what’s good; they like what saturates television and radio airwaves. They like what their MTV-inundated older siblings like, and all the while the brilliant minds and voices of previous generations are being drowned out by the newest wave of corporate-engineered shit-pop that streams, much like the aforementioned fecal matter, out your car speakers and into your ears. The Yin-Yang Twins are making you sterile. Christina Aguilera is making you bald. “Fiddy” is giving your six year old the idea that it’s cool to get shot. Good Charlotte claims to be ‘punk’, hosts shows on MTV, does Nintendo commercials and laughs all the way to the bank. Wake the fuck up, kids: wearing make-up and hating your father is not the litmus test for being ‘punk’. Sweet Arab Christ, parents, why do you let this ridiculous notion exist in your child’s head? For every kid who shoots up a school I’m not blaming violent video games—I’m blaming Alicia Keys, J Lo, or AFI. I’m blaming every vacuous media-whore fuck that passes for an ‘artist’ while the real artists starve and struggle to create stunning works of beauty and achievement on a shoestring budget and an empty stomach. I don’t attack the art form, I attack the sneering corporate circle-jerk that conceptualizes, creates, markets and profits off of your ignorance and apathy. I attack the mindless drones who toe-tap, hum and sing along to the insipid shit that passes for art. Do yourselves a favor: turn that fucking radio off– forever. Do as I did: remove the antenna from your car entirely. Don’t let another round of American Idol finalists slowly rob you of every genuine and passionate thought you’ve ever possessed. It’s happened to millions of Americans, as the Nielsen ratings will attest; that fate need not be yours.
But perhaps I should get back to my theory. Greg admitted to liking Slipknot and I was overjoyed, so I slyly skipped ahead to Eyeless, one of the more memorable songs off their 1999 self titled debut. He called it gay and skipped it, much as I suspected– what he meant was ‘I like that one Slipknot song I heard on the radio though I have no understanding of what Slipknot is and why Corey Taylor is brilliant.’ He did let one entire Fiona Apple song play, which I found interesting. But when Fall Out Boy came on and his eyes lit up and he began ‘rocking out’ in my passenger seat like an epileptic caught in a lightning storm, I’d had enough.
The theory is proven— children are fucking stupid. You could argue that they’re young and it’s not their fault, but come on– Fall Out Boy? Good Charlotte?
Give me a fucking break,
Adam
you’re completely right on the ability of today’s young music listener to take anything that is played on trl and immediately deem it the coolets song ever. If you look at the billboard top 200 albums currently, the first five: mariah carey, system of a down, audioslace, tobey keith, and gwen stefani, are trash, with the first notably exceptional album coming in at number 6 with Common - Be, which only gained that status because Common regained his sense and hired Kanye West as a producer. With slop like that at the top of the charts though, there’s no wonder why the music industry is feeling a decline.
While the music industry claims that file sharing is maiming their business that is only half the problem. The only thing that 95% of file sharers today are downloading are the “hit singles” off of various mediocre at best LPs. If instead, artists focused on making a trully great album from top to bottom, I think there would be a spike in cd sales, one catchy song is not enough to convince consumers to invest their hard earned money into buying an entire cd. BLAH over-commercialized music can die!