In case you haven't realized it yet, we are amidst another wave of teeny-bopper (now dubbed so cutely as tweens) music mutilation. Hannah Montana is the anti-christ at the epicenter of this epidemic and the Jonas Brothers are currently whipping the four horsemen of the apocalypse as this tsunami of shit barrels its way across the world. We were lucky enough to have controversial figures like Eminem (I refuse to call that motherfucker an artists. Yeah, he's got skill with words but his music is just phlacid. You wanna know how to combine a biting tongue with sick beats then check out Saul Williams' Amethyist Rock)skate us into the new millenium while Spears, Aguilera, and Moore were drowned out by kids who wanted something dangerous.
And this is the appeal of vacant pop music marketed towards the Disney set for parents. It's safe. It takes no risks and offers nothing but filler until the kid gets into high school and their musical tastes are permanently fucked. They will go on to consume whatever the turd du jour is happily while ignoring classic, innovative artists who dared to push the boundaries into the level of brilliance. To put it simply, those cats will never understand "Sister Ray" or think of checking out the Stooges or become awash in the feedback glory that is the Jesus and Mary Chain. What the tween scene does is set up an entire generation of fans for ruined ears.
And now it seems like it is an unstoppable cycle. The New Kids on the Block are getting back together because a generation of mother's JUST HAS to share the clit throbbing anthemn "Please Don't Go Girl" with their daughters and, fuck I can't believe I read this, let alone will be re-typing it, the Funky Bunch (of Marky Mark fame) are re-uniting sans Mr. Walhberg, of course.
This threat has progressed to an inter-generational level disaster. What started with Raffi and the Wiggles has crept its way further up the chain and you can see the end results of this sort of bile with uninspired and utterly generic bands like Fall Out Boy. Or, even worse, it leads to the kids seeking out faux-serious "emotionally tumulutuous" crap like 30 Seconds to Mars or whoever the fuck Victory Records is pushing these days.
But, there is a benefit. There are small portion of kids who see through the bullshit and try something daring and are brave enough to fail. They discover new things on their own and keep the underground going. They become inextricably attatched to genres like punk and hardcore, drown themselves in the ideologies and practices and learn to truly deconstruct music and find out just what makes a song a great one no matter the genre or classification. Some stay in their respective scenes and keep 'em going strong and others absorb the knowledge and ethics until they decide to move on to pastures that look more green from their viewpoint.
No matter how many Elvis Costello's or Joe Strummer's or Brian Wilson's or Lou Reed's or Joey Ramone's (all whom transformed the universal axiom of adolescent rage into beauty and transcended norms to become rock 'n' roll icons), we are given nothing will stop the surge of safety coveted by soccer moms.
Once again, we must weather the storm and wait for the geniuses to emerge. Sadly, it doesn't seem like we'll be getting to many from this lot. Time will tell.
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