Post whatever-ism

I'm trying to get famous by calling our generation the Indoor Generation. Generation Y makes us sound genetically engineered. So what has the Indoor Generation inherited from Generation X? Sarcasm, apathy and irony. At least on a macro level, that sounds about right. All three have engulfed nearly every sphere of our culture -- entertainment, politics, humor, music, etc.\nSome would erroneously claim that Gen X was the last "make-a-change" generation. False, my flannel-clad friend. On a grand scale, their overwhelming cultural negativity in the '90s eclipses most of the positive contributions X-ers made in that brief decade.\nAs far as that generation is concerned, they have been quieted by three things: two skyscrapers and the sincere, thunderous blast of Andrew W.K. post-modernism, irony and civic apathy are beginning to leave us in ways both promising and perplexing; I mean, I wouldn't call buying Ann Coulter and Al Franken books by the truckloads a civic act, but hey, it's a start. So while irony may not be dead, as some have said, it's totally bedridden.\nAs per usual, the change is felt first in rock music. And while it is almost painful for me to dissect it -- as its primary use is simply for good times -- the difference between 21st century rock and the rock of a decade ago is night and day, and definitely worth talking about.\nA friend of mine once remarked that if Buddy Holly were alive today, he and W.K. would be lovers. I took it to mean that their remarkable enthusiasm is of such magnitude it would overcome either's brazen heterosexuality. Whereas Holly was a die-hard believer in the power of true love, W.K. is cuckoo about partying. Neither of these concepts have anything to do with disenfranchisement, coffee or Seattle.\nBoth artists also fill a niche in their eras. Just as songs of eternal teenage union were needed to give the endless suburbs of the '50s some drama, so is W.K.'s plea for an unsetting party needed to brighten a rock world mostly dimmed by the '90s (this was really the decade when hip-hop was given the elasticity and validity of rock).\nThis is why something as ridiculous as W.K. is having any kind of success at all right now. He is touching a nerve in every rock fan that has been avoided since G N' R went twelve years without releasing an album while Gravity Kills released three. For a solid eight to ten years, popular rock was either the can't-bear-it-anymore sounds of Nirvana or the prepare-for-global-annihilation-at-the-hands-of-Bill-Gates groove of Radiohead … I seem to remember ska, but that'll probably look like our day-glo obsession from the '80s in a few years.\nNow, granted, those other two bands are incredible and their ideas were as vital then as I feel the K's are these days; but their time is through. Yes, I know Radiohead is still making records and that transnational corporations are a threat to democracy, but now, everybody does. So don't worry, something will be done about it very soon.\nAlbum-wise, W.K. coheres almost as smoothly as he does into a dialogue on modern society. His first album, I Get Wet, was a clear invocation to party. Some complained that the whole album sounded the same. "Of course it does," I replied. "It's to make sure you keep partying." They were typically dumbfounded by their own ignorance. His second, The Wolf, is a little more complex: "Well guys, we did it. I wanted you to party, and you freaking did. Let's celebrate." It is the sound of a party to commemorate partying.\nThe scope of this music is polarized from grunge and (the unforgivably stupid) Nu Metal in almost every way. Unlike the faux-complexity of those genres, W.K. speaks with such eloquent simplicity that it's almost retarded. Yet, he can say more in three minutes with simple, direct statements than Jonathan Davis could in a lifetime of shrieking and vague pedophilic imagery. Whereas Korn taught us to wallow endlessly in self-pity, W.K. says, "Hey you. Let's party." It's the difference between Joan Rivers and Hemmingway.\nAndrew W.K. gives us the rock-oxygen we all need so desperately after a decade submerged in a swamp of self-reflexivity and movies about how doomed the suburbs are. WE KNOW ALREADY! CAN YOU ROCK? Andrew quietly, knowingly nods his head. Then he rips into a typically scrotum-shrinking version of "I Get Wet." Some churlish X-er says, "Dude, the horns in this are so fake." Our wise rocker pauses from rocking to reply, "Yeah? So's everything. Now ROCK!"\nWorlds collide. Lives are saved.