Rock of Aged

Freaky Trigger, a music website, has been doing a running blog of reviewing UK #1 singles for some years now, and on the most recent entry (Discotheque by U2, which I hated then and still do), one commentator noted that 1997 was the year that rock died. For him, at least. 

In a way, I get where he was coming from. Emphasis on the individual, as I'm more than aware there's plenty of folk younger than me who got a whole lot out of bands like, for example, Muse. Personally, the first decade of this millennium - in which I was mostly in my 20s and should, in theory, have been most hip to what was going on - I think I only really engaged with British Sea Power and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (first two albums only) in terms of acts whose albums I deeply loved. There were people like Idlewild and Doves who I dipped in and out of, but very little I got obsessed about the way I did about the XTC, the Cure or the Psychedelic Furs, whose extensive back catalogues I was gobbling up around the same period.

It's part of getting older for a lot of people, the losing of interest in what's going on today in music. I've wondered if, for me, it's a resentment of seeing people coming up to be young enough to be my children (in theory) jumping around. 

Then again, I was avoiding the contemporary from a young age. As a stroppy teenager in my bedroom, I pretty much ignored grunge (too loud for me, at the time), Britpop (bunch of Southern ponces pretending to be working class, I thought) and anything like rave/house/techno (didn't take the drugs). From the three Danny Baker BBC4 music shows this week covering the 70s/80s/90s, it was the last that struggled to hold my attention. A passing mention to Chapterhouse aside, only the KLF brought a feeling of "yeah, that was pretty good".

In my own life, it was only a decade later, with access to the internet, that I was able to dig out the pearls from the age. Catherine Wheel, Slowdive, Giant Steps by the Boo Radleys, World Party... I remembered I owned Mansun's first album and a relisten prompted me to pick up a cheap copy of their follow up Six, leading to having my mind blown by one of the most adventurous "rock" albums to make the UK top 10 in the decade. 

As I said, last year I bought no "new" albums, which strikes me as a sad state of affairs for someone who claims to have an interest in music. Last summer, I watched footage of the UK festivals where the bright young things did their thing, and mainly thought "shite". They say we all turn into our parents eventually - but then even my then 45-year-old father found value in Rage Against the Machine back in the mid 90s. 

To signpost my decline into old age, the two best bits of music news I've had in recent weeks have been that Tears for Fears are planning to release new material this year, and that Slowdive have reformed. I'm really quite excited about both.