See kids, this is how you scare the old folks. …at least it worked for awhile.

Kids these days are so Goddamn normal. Their music doesn’t even bother me.

Back in my day we used to walk six miles, barefoot through rain sleet, or snow, just to piss our parents off. Granted, long hair was getting a little old by the time I met my inner rebellion, but we had Satan in our games and all over our music. Apparently, the horned one couldn’t fiddle, but he sure helped Dio lay down some Heavy Metal word salad worthy of an eternity in the always-lit-coal mine. So what the Hell was a Holy Diver anyway? I didn’t know, my Mom didn’t know, and frankly, I doubt Dio knew. If you played it backwards, the guy probably just toweled off or something.

…but in a bad way.

So, what do you kids do to piss my generation off?

Bieber.

Bieberositide is not even worth being mad at. Oh sure, the boy causes trouble, and Miley Cyrus almost did something racy once or thrice. Some folks enjoyed being mad at her for awhile. I recall Britney spears kissed Madonna once, and a few people may even have humored them by pretending to be offended, but seriously? That’s all ya got? It’s a tired script boys and girls, and it has about as much kick as well-watered American beer. Plus, these antics have fuck-all to do with music, or performance, or really anything but marketing strategies.

I for one am neither shocked, nor offended by much in contemporary music, and I haven’t been for sometime. I’m old, I’m cranky, and I’m white. I’m exactly the sort of person pop music is supposed to piss off, and I can’t think of anything recent that’s worth a bug-eyed angry moment.

Damned kids!

We bought a better brand of rebellion than you can find in the stores now. It almost seemed authentic at times, or at least it had pedigree. Hell, even Ozzy loved the Beatles, and they were into love and revolution or something. One could even find the traces of war protest songs in the nooks and crannies of the world of hard rock. Eighties-era politics might have lacked the earnestness of folk music protest or the urgency of The Vietnam Era tunes, but hints and allusions could be found. That may not be much, but it’s better than the brats can manage today, that’s for damned sure.

And then of course there was the actual music! Would you believe some musicians actually discussed music during interviews? It’s almost as if the music itself was an important part of being a musician!

The professionally cool today only seem to talk about their lust lives, or maybe that’s all some people ask them about. It’s all so very underwhelming.

As a young kid, I used to wonder what future generations would do to carry the musical torch into the faces of older generations. between Punk Rock and Heavy Metal, I didn’t see how volume and raunch could go much further without putting people in the hospital. Rap was a curve ball in my world, and I never have quite wrapped my lily-white mind around it, but even that’s calmed down lately, so it seems. So, what are the youth doing to piss off old people now?

Listening to pop radio these days, I think I finally have my answer. Today’s youth are going to bore us to death.

Fricking kids. Your music is boring.

Also, get off my lawn!

(I don’t have a lawn, but get off it anyway. Damned kids!)