Musica

I was watching television recently and caught a bit of a Simon and Garfunkel performance. This is more recent footage, with Paul Simon looking like Austin Pendleton after a binge and Art’s fro looking less ridiculous because you don’t want to pick on the old guy. They played The Sound of Silence and a couple of their other main hits. It got me thinking about the music that is passing us by. It’s the end of that generation, and with it that style of music. I don’t mean the singer/songwriter generation, or the sixties per se. Just when music wasn’t predominantly noise.

So I’m watching these old guys, and they are beginning to look old. I’m not trying to knock them either, they are old but at least they still matter. Do you think we’ll look at much of my generation’s musical contributions this way? Music just doesn’t age as well as it used to, or maybe I’m just getting too cynical to see the long-term view. I can’t imagine Sir-Mix-A-Lot performing Baby got Back when he’s approaching his seventies. Maybe his anaconda is big enough that’s he’ll still have the balls to do it. But I’m pretty sure people will find him ridiculous. I didn’t think Paul and Art were ridiculous, I just thought that time passes by to fast.

I don’t know that it matters, but it seems that music is no longer transcending a time period. For the most part it’s focused on something specific. Pop charts, success, money, pissing of someone’s parents, becoming a strip club anthem, etc. I wonder if my kids will give a shit about the music I listened to in my youth. I’m kinda hopeful they don’t.