It was amazing, after two years in a new school, meeting my old friends freaked me out. People who’d been teeny-bopping to Britney, BSB et al. were now sophisticated–hippies.
Yes sophisticated-hippies, there is such a thing, here’s how you make one; throw a few CDs of Jeffersen Airplane, The Doors, Janis Joplin, CCR, Led Zep and Hendrix together, throw on a Khadi-Kurta, a pair of strategically ripped jeans, roll some weed in a Rizla and light up. Yeah they were sophisticated as hell, they were fucking high-society, prim and propah motherfuckers I half expected them to pronounce their ‘aitches’. They hit all the popular clubs spoke depreciatingly about GnR, Metellica and Maiden and debated spirituality. They were only hippies as far as their sweet –smokes and free-love, but they intimidated the shit out of me at the time. I was then in the throes of full-blown adolescent-non-conformism, listening to Papa Roach and Linkin Park and just anyone else crying about adolescent angst. I’d been too busy piercing various projections on my face to take notice of their retro-metamorphosis and now I couldn’t get over the transformation, I’d left them Friends-watchers and they were now the Khadi-Brigade
What ticked me off was that they were now preaching to me about the music I’d grown up on. Suddenly Sgt. Peppers’, A Hard Days Night and Help were no longer adequate, I needed to know a whole list of Lennons’ individual ventures in order to be considered a true fan and not the freak-bastard that I was. What pissed me off the most was that the Stones were not on their list of music considered cool enough. I think the Stones suffered in popularity with the KBs because they just weren’t intense enough, the acid didn’t show in their music, they were having too much fun doing what they did and there wasn’t enough depth to their songs. One alleged Mick Jagger imitator; Steven Tyler faced similar treatment from the Metal-Heads, Aerosmith fell short in the critical ‘hardness quotient,’ Slayer, Pantera and Metallica being the accepted standards. Aerosmith, the poor buggers were not hard enough for the Metal-Heads, not polished enough for the Teeny-Boppers, not gangsta enough for the Home-Boys and not nearly dead enough for the Khadi-Brigade and they suffered in popularity for their indecisiveness.
I have been cursed with (and for) an eclectic taste in music, I love Travis but am equally enamoured with Cradle of Filth, I like Metallica but think Pantera is a pain in the ass, hell, I loved Vivaldis’ Four Seasons. I snigger at people who call into request shows on radio and TV and say they like rock and then request Bryan Adams or Bon Jovi; I am very protective of my definitions of musical genres. In people like me this gives rise to another form of musical snobbery, for us the only good music is what we listen to, we lack unity because we seldom agree on what good music is, we are the discordant biblical inhabitants of a musical Babel.
Yes sophisticated-hippies, there is such a thing, here’s how you make one; throw a few CDs of Jeffersen Airplane, The Doors, Janis Joplin, CCR, Led Zep and Hendrix together, throw on a Khadi-Kurta, a pair of strategically ripped jeans, roll some weed in a Rizla and light up. Yeah they were sophisticated as hell, they were fucking high-society, prim and propah motherfuckers I half expected them to pronounce their ‘aitches’. They hit all the popular clubs spoke depreciatingly about GnR, Metellica and Maiden and debated spirituality. They were only hippies as far as their sweet –smokes and free-love, but they intimidated the shit out of me at the time. I was then in the throes of full-blown adolescent-non-conformism, listening to Papa Roach and Linkin Park and just anyone else crying about adolescent angst. I’d been too busy piercing various projections on my face to take notice of their retro-metamorphosis and now I couldn’t get over the transformation, I’d left them Friends-watchers and they were now the Khadi-Brigade
What ticked me off was that they were now preaching to me about the music I’d grown up on. Suddenly Sgt. Peppers’, A Hard Days Night and Help were no longer adequate, I needed to know a whole list of Lennons’ individual ventures in order to be considered a true fan and not the freak-bastard that I was. What pissed me off the most was that the Stones were not on their list of music considered cool enough. I think the Stones suffered in popularity with the KBs because they just weren’t intense enough, the acid didn’t show in their music, they were having too much fun doing what they did and there wasn’t enough depth to their songs. One alleged Mick Jagger imitator; Steven Tyler faced similar treatment from the Metal-Heads, Aerosmith fell short in the critical ‘hardness quotient,’ Slayer, Pantera and Metallica being the accepted standards. Aerosmith, the poor buggers were not hard enough for the Metal-Heads, not polished enough for the Teeny-Boppers, not gangsta enough for the Home-Boys and not nearly dead enough for the Khadi-Brigade and they suffered in popularity for their indecisiveness.
I have been cursed with (and for) an eclectic taste in music, I love Travis but am equally enamoured with Cradle of Filth, I like Metallica but think Pantera is a pain in the ass, hell, I loved Vivaldis’ Four Seasons. I snigger at people who call into request shows on radio and TV and say they like rock and then request Bryan Adams or Bon Jovi; I am very protective of my definitions of musical genres. In people like me this gives rise to another form of musical snobbery, for us the only good music is what we listen to, we lack unity because we seldom agree on what good music is, we are the discordant biblical inhabitants of a musical Babel.
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