12/27/2022 0 Comments Gods of sand and rocks![]() ![]() We’ll turn up our eardrum transplants, adjust our Lasik eyeballs, and activate our bionic necks to nod in sympathetic solidarity with the younger generation. We’ll read about how music just hadn’t been the same since iTunes folded in 2035, to be replaced by digital music implants delivered to us by drones. Those of us around in 2050 should be prepared for a deluge of books (or holograms or whatever) reminiscing about the golden days of Kayne, Taylor Swift, and the like. Only a fool would romanticize overpriced parking, bad sight lines, piss-poor sound, and the emotionally disconnected performances that are endemic to the stadium-rock experience.” “I adore the mythology of stadium rock, but the reality of it kind of sucks. Hyden teeters on the edge of over-mythologizing arena rock but pulls back just in time when he acknowledges its many downsides. “When I listen to Rumours now, Lindsey seems like kind of a jerk.” Apparently, Mick Fleetwood has made the same journey. Loving him when the band’s album came out in 1977, Hyden has since changed his tune, as it were. Bonus points for Hyden: He agrees that Don Henley sucks.Īlong the way, Hyden takes us on an insightful tour of Prince’s Paisley Park home he’s fun when talking (without rancor) about interviews he’s done with bands he’s not crazy about (hey there, REO Speedwagon and Styx) and he’s downright Nostradamus-esque in anticipating Fleetwood Mac’s recent dumping of the prickly Lindsey Buckingham. Speaking personally, Hyden won me over by appreciating the qualities of the Rolling Stones’ lesser 1975 effort, Black and Blue, and the weirdness of McCartney II, Paul’s strange record that sounds like a genius monkeying around with a new synthesizer in his basement. There is no law of physics that says Mozart is better than Salieri. Like so many things, music is about subjective taste. Today, while there may well be some artists who remain in the closet, publicly stating one’s truth is no longer a guaranteed career-killer in rock ‘n’ roll. Decades ago, Queen’s Freddie Mercury and, for a time, Elton John felt pressure to hide their sexuality from fans. He also applauds rock music’s more open attitudes today toward homosexuality and gender fluidity. “Unlike those guys, Barnett is a twentysomething lesbian who writes hilarious songs about being stuck inside your own head even as the world goes crazy around you,” Hyden explains. He astutely points out she’s in some ways a throwback with her left-handed Jimi Hendrix-style guitar look and Keith Richards hair, but brings her own modern sensibilities to her work. ![]() He celebrates, for example, the excellence of Courtney Barnett, a fresh singer/songwriter from Australia. He misses the edgy radio that, for all its cheesy disc jockeys and long wafts of inane commercials, was a driving force that helped guide us to good new music in a way online music services like iTunes and Pandora just can’t.īut just as the book begins to feel like riding on an oppressive cruise ship with performances by the remaining members of Def Leppard, Hyden makes clear he’s no ostrich buried in 1980s sand. In Twilight of the Gods, he’s full of lament for the lost world of arena-rock concerts by the Who or Black Sabbath. ![]() We men of a certain age who natter on and on about why 1971 was the best year ever in music, how crappy it is today, and why we feel sorry for youngsters born on the wrong side of the century divide who aren’t enlightened about Led Zeppelin.Īdd Steven Hyden to that list. Millennials must be getting pretty tired of us by now. ![]()
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