Is That Legal?

I am offended.

Not only do I like it now, I liked it then (admittedly I was a freak and a loser). What's more, my wife has always loved Boston (thank god we found each other).

I well remember the weekend I came home with two new LPs; the fist Boston Album and Aerosmith, Toys in the Attic; that was a great day in the history of rock n roll.

Who could forget drummer, John "Sib" Hashian: his righteous afro, his furry wooly-mammoth vest...

yeesh. is that what i have to look forward to? buying the hair bands of the early 80s that i never liked?

actually, i think i may be headed there. when i hear the anthems of my adolescence -- by the cure, smiths, depeche mode, indochine, new order, sisters of mercy, siouxsie (are we seeing a pattern here?) -- i still enjoy them, but more with an amusement-tinged nostalgia than the overwhelming IMMEDIACY of twenty years ago. for pure rock-out fun, i've found myself singing along with the likes of bon jovi and warrant. and i didn't even realize i knew the words...

hmm. that admission is actually embarassing enough that i'm contemplating deleting it. i guess i won't -- my love of blondie and the ramones means i'm still cool, right?

Whenever I get in the car in the morning and the radio is cranked up for no apparent reason, it means I was tuned in to a Boston song or something of similar vintage and singing at the top of my lungs on the way home the night before.

Mr. Wonderful believes that nothing worth listening to was written after 1975, so I'm treated to "oldies," everytime we're in the car. He forced the children to learn the bands, names, and songs. I say it's child abuse. He says he's educating them.

The trouble with "oldies" is nostalgia. Listen up! It's not like wine that improves with age. Just because you have fond memories of the time, it doesn't mean the music is better. If it was crap then, it's crap now!

JW, it really depends on what the oldies are, and I define you to spell out a "holds up well" test for me. Some bands clearly do stand the test of time. For example, the Clash, oddly, seem to have aged very well. Talking Heads - not so much. Styx/Foreigner/Journey - yuck. ZZ Top, Sex Pistols, Phil Collins - mmm, better anyhow.

Some sounds are just really dated when I hear them now. The anthemic rock of Boston and Kansas have a strongly late 70's/early 80's vibe, and I can't see them occurring before then, or later. Kansas - which everybody thought profound when I was a teenager - now reads to my like so much dorm sophomore stoner bullshit. "Man... that's profound... it blows my mind, man..."

On the other hand, Jethro Tull seems to hold up. Yes, not so much. Pink Floyd does okay, but it sounds a bit goofy today. The Allman brothers have held up very well, so has Lynyrd Skynyrd - there's a freshness and crackle to their Southern Fried sound. But I heard some 38 Special recently, which was every bit a match for Skynyrd in its day, and it just sounded old - it put me in mind of an outdoor concert at a local dirt track speedway, where they'd race all afternoon, then have a rock show (like 38 Special) on the infield at night.

I really don't understand why some music, thought pretty much equal to other music at the time, ages better. I wonder if it's where we were when we heard it, or if there is some difference on the merits of the music. Skynyrd and the Allman brothers had great guitarists, Floyd and Tull were very strong musically. Some bands that are basically good bar bands, like ZZ Top, George Thorogood and Barenaked Ladies (a bar band where I came from) are just great bar bands that would probably sound good anywhere and anytime. But there was some good musicianship in Kansas' and Boston's music; and surely the stadium trio of Styx/Journey/Foreigner had some merit... so why do they sound so badly dated now?

As a teenager, I liked modern jazz, classic Delta and Chicago blues, and blues rock, so I was a complete outcast, musically speaking, and I wonder if this affects my judgment now.