My generation

If you’ve ever been in a room with someone when a Justin Bieber song plays, you’ve heard one of two responses: the ear-popping squeal of a fan girl or a complaint about how music is quickly circling the drain.

Everywhere you turn, there’s always someone complaining about how kids these days just don’t understand what good music is.

That, somewhere along the line, the youth of this country lost its way and somehow found itself listening to Miley Cyrus and Soulja Boi.

Most of the people who make this criticism tend to come from the older age groups, generations bred to listen to musical greats such as the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix.

They’ll point to the counter-culture of the 1960s and 1970s and how music during this time actually meant something.

It seems like a pretty legitimate argument on the surface. I mean, John Lennon urged us to “Give peace a chance,” while Lil Wayne occupies most of his songs with “Making it rain on them hoes.”

But one of the main problems with this whole perspective is that you’re cherry-picking from the best of the best. 

Sure, it’s easy to think that the ’60s were the best time for music when all you listen to are the musical geniuses of the era.

It’s a little harder to make that claim when you listen to “Yummy Yummy Yummy” by Ohio Express. If you haven’t heard it and still think my argument is faulty, listen to it and try to explain to me how the lyrics are any better than Bieber’s “Baby, baby baby oh / Like, baby baby baby no!”

Don’t get me wrong, I love me some Pink Floyd and Hendrix. But we can’t just draw a line in the sand and say, “Okay, here’s where good music died.” It’s really elitist, for one, but it also completely ignores the point of music: the definition of “good.”

Music exists primarily to entertain. It can and should, promote messages that otherwise would have been ignored, but its first job is to be enjoyed by the listener.

And because it relies so heavily on the entertainment of the listener, there will always be different interpretations of what a “good” or “entertaining” song will sound like.

It’s all based on opinion.

Terrible opinions, just like terrible songs, always have and always will exist. And some of them will be very, very popular.

So while railing against the popular music of today might feel good, perhaps the better thing to do is to find music you do enjoy and not worry too much about how bad modern music is.

Chances are, it’ll be out of style pretty quick.

I’m sure I don’t have to remind everyone that, at one point in time, disco was a thing.  

­— kevsjack@indiana.edu