Pop music isn't supposed to be a line in the sand. We have likes and dislikes, and we can and should compare and debate them all at length and at leisure. Dig what you dig. No battle cry applies.
I like "Now And Then," the new single by the Beatles. Heh--"new single by the Beatles." Doesn't it feel good to use that phrase? In this mortal world we share, did you ever think you'd have another opportunity to use that phrase again? No, "Now And Then" isn't "Rain," or "A Day In The Life;" let's not get crazy. It is a new release by the freakin' Beatles. I'm grateful that we have it.
I like Taylor Swift. I don't qualify as a Swiftie, and I don't own much of her music. But she's earned a lot of respect, and I'm going to try to open my ears to some of her recordings. I just bought a copy of 1989 (Taylor's Version), and the track "Welcome To New York" seemed of a piece with the irresistible sounds we play on this little mutant radio show. So we played it, too.
There is something magic in immersion within an element of the greater pop culture. There is something equally magic in letting one's own freak flag fly high. Our lives can allow space for both, if it suits us.
I like the Ramones. A lot. Hearing the Ramones when I was a teenager in the '70s was fully as seismic an experience for me as Beatlemania was when I was a little kid in the '60s. A few months after I fell for the Ramones, I saw a local band, the Flashcubes, who completed my pop trinity. The Beatles, the Ramones, and the Flashcubes. That hasn't changed.
In college, where teen pop was widely viewed as garbage, I decorated my dorm room with a Bay City Rollers poster (alongside the Sex Pistols and Suzanne Somers). An act of defiance! I stand by that act to this day. By the age of 18, I'd learned: Dig what you dig.
I like indie pop. I like Motown. I like new stuff. I like oldies. Punk. Soul. Bubblegum. Power pop. I like my familiar favorites. I like discovering fresh faves, like Uni Boys, or the Jette Planes, or the Malaysian power pop of Couple. The Spoon podcast and Remember The Lightning magazine just introduced me to those three artists. On to the playlist they went.
I like some music made before I was born. I know I'm going to like a great deal of music that hasn't even been created yet. I like so, so much of the music of my life. Music is my life. I can't play or sing. But I can listen, and I can revel in the magic of what I dig.
Yeah, there are a lot of things I don't dig. But I tell ya, I don't waste much of my time whining about stuff that doesn't matter to me.
There's too much to dig instead.
The Beatles. Taylor Swift. The Ramones. The Flashcubes. The Bay City Rollers. Uni Boys, Couple, and the Jette Planes. The Four Tops. The Grip Weeds. Rolling Stones covers by Carla Olson and Thelma Houston. Johnny Johnson and the Bandwagon. Blondie. Juniper. The Kennedys, the Lunar Laugh, Shplang, and Diamond Hands. More. ALWAYS more.
The sovereign nation of This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio does not deign to acknowledge lines in the sand. It's time to dig what we dig. Now and then. Welcome to New York. Welcome to everywhere, man. Hey-ho, let's go.
Dig.
This is what rock 'n' roll radio sounded like on another Sunday night in Syracuse this week.
This show is available as a podcast.
This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, streaming at SPARK stream, and on the Radio Garden app as WESTCOTT RADIO. Recent shows are archived at Westcott Radio
You can read all about this show's long and weird history here: Boppin' The Whole Friggin' Planet (The History Of THIS IS ROCK 'N' ROLL RADIO).
TAX DEDUCTIBLE DONATIONS are always welcome.
No comments:
Post a Comment