| I didn't say that to you, but Christ, I wish I had because it is pretty much true. And you know I say that from a spot of genuine love, brother... |
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| If it makes you feel any better, I'm not getting old and I'm fairly unimpressed with YHF. |
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| I think that's a bit of a cop-out, but I look forward to your feature on the pop heights of Rosemary Clooney and Judy Garland. |
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| I bought the new Todd Rundgren and John Cale albums, too, but there came a time when I realized that I was goin' nowhere listening to primarily decades-old artists. In the last five years I've watched Neil Young, Tom Petty, Lou Reed, Elvis Costello, and Prince (and I am sure there are many more) join the leagues of old men with far less to say than the likes of British Sea Power, The Arcade Fire, and the other eight billion impressive new bands I discovered this year alone. I'll always love the old standbys, even if their new material takes a backseat to the whippersnappers. I, too, look a bit like a stodgy uncle at times - half the albums I buy, even indie ones, are a shortlist of "old men" on their 12th or 15th release. I had to force myself to investigate new music in an educated fashion, and I haven't regretted it. Doing so has helped me locate many albums that I now hold dearest. |
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| . . . My comment above deserves a coda: things aren't good just because they're new. For every deserving Arcade Fire fervor, there's a flash-in-the-pan mass hysteria like The Fiery Furnaces. And let's put things in some sort of scope: Franz Ferdinand, no matter how enjoyable, is a fashion and unless they change their shtick I will be astonished if in a few years they're taken any more seriously than Duran Duran, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, or Re-Flex. |
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| As a rapidly aging music fan I really enjoyed this piece. I often struggle with whether I have any thing relevant to say about a band that I know a heap of 22 year olds love. Perhaps there comes a day when it's best to just let some of it go. But when an aces album pops up it still makes me feel the way I felt when I heard the Specials when I was 16. That sounds corny as fuck. The more I write about music the more I'm astonished by how much there is out there I know nothing about. That keeps things interesting. But I'm a codger at heart and hold no qualms about my disdain for much of what is labeled the big thing of the month. |
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