The Music Rant

Ok people, over the years I have been noticing a trend. A very repulsive, angry, pathetic, trend toward putting everything that once was in music, in it's supposed "place". As if somehow the critics and the critic wannabee's and the fans that think they know something about my generation and the music that came out of it, are much cooler than us yokels and therefore would have never been fooled by the likes of Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen, or "Johnny Cougar" known to us as Mellancamp.

Here's the deal folks, I was there! This shit was fantastic. You spend an entire summer surfing the radio stations searching for anything to listen to other than Donna Summer and Barbara Streisand tell me over and over that "Enough is Enough". You know what ladies, enough was enough! Believe me the minute the godsend that is Petty hit the airwaves your hair would have stood up on the back of your neck and you too would discover what music could and should sound like.

History speaks for itself. The year Petty's "Refugee" actually charted he was out done in sales by what is easily one of the worst songs the great Paul McCartney ever wrote, "Coming Up". The actual title of worst is clearly saved for "The Girl is Mine", but that's another blog. And the co-author of that pathetic "cut me now" song, Mr. Michael Jackson? What was he doing on the charts in 1980? Well, "The Wall", while it was not a bad album was not his best, "Rock With Me" was a slick dance number that I definitely could roller skate with the cute boys to but "She's out of my Life"? Come on Mike, that's bad stuff even if we actually believed today that she was ever in your life. We're talking about an artist that was the minnie James Brown, warbling a sappy ballad like that one. These are the songs we were being forced to listen to if we simply let our radio run!

Believe it or not, Herb Alpert's "Rise" is among the highest ranking in 1980! Did we really care what song Laura got raped to. Most of us didn't actually see the rape, we tuned in to watch after Merv Griffin had that cute Aussie rocker Rick on and announced that we could catch him on GH every afternoon. How cool was that! He's gorgeous, he's got a great tune out, and we can watch him with the sound off and never be lost on the plot! Ok maybe the college campuses were filled with die hard GH fans but those people were horribly sleep deprived and on some serious drugs at the time. As a generation they've since gotten clean and we now understand how it all happened but it's time for them to fess up and set the record straight.
Seriously, if the Captain and Tennille did that to me, "…One more Time", I was gonna hurt someone. Of course Petty and Springsteen are considered hero's to our generation!

In the midst of Chrstopher Cross pining about "Sailing", Springsteen and Mr. Joey Ramone somehow crossed paths in the magical land of cool. As a result the great and powerful Bruce writes "Hungry Heart". It's far cooler to be penning about a "… river that don't know where it's goin" than a sail boat. Rivers are just cooler man. And this new generation sarcastically refers to Bruce as fluff because he made one album they even realize exists, and the long since forgiven mistake of dancing badly with Courtney Cox! Come now, there is so much more to the mighty mighty Bruce than this. And if you only know "Born in the USA" (which actually is a good album) then you are that proverbial fool that opens his mouth and erases all doubt.

In 1980 the tides were definitely turning in that river of rock. Teri De Sario and K.C (of the infamous Sunshine Band) keep declaring "Yes, I'm Ready", while poor little Johnny Cougar ain't even charted with "Ain't even done with the night" How can that be? But only one short year later Mr. Mellencamp does begin to creep up the charts. While we do continue to share space with the likes of "Elvira" and the Oakridge Boys the list is full of interesting sounds like Devo's "Whip it" and Blondies "Rapture", the first and only decent Rap song in my opinion. But then the present music industry would never give "street cred" to a white, blond, female, former Playboy Club Bunny as having ushered in the sound of Kanye and P. Diddy now would they?

In my very strong opinion, the facts are clear. If you didn't live it, check your history and it's facts. Petty really was an amazing and innovative sound, Springsteen really was singing to blue collar catholic kids all over the states and Mellencamp was just cool. And if you had been there, you would have loved them too.

And just for the record mullets were not mullets until 1992 when Billy Ray Cyrus went to Super Cuts and sat down in the chair of one Norma Jean Hairdresser who'd finally gotten a good job at the age of 19 once her baby went off to kindergarten. Up until that day a mullet was a shag and it was cool and styled and blow dried. And it blended yes, blended effortlessly into the longer back layers. It did not wing out from behind the ears of our rockers and drop straight down with leftover perm frizz hanging in the back. It was not our way of keeping our white collar jobs with a crew cut but "don't touch the pony tail in back honey cause my old lady likes it long." And yes, we used mousse and Aqua Net! But don't be a fool, check the ingredients on your bottles of expensive "hair product", they are essentially the same thing, alcohol.