No More Eagles, Please!

I wouldn’t go so far as to say that rock and roll is dead but I wouldn’t mind if someone set the snooze alarm and allowed it to sleep quietly for the rest of my life. I was sitting in a bar last night listening to the rock and roll on the house stereo and I couldn’t help thinking how much I don’t like it at all these days. If I never heard another rock song in my life I wouldn’t miss the genre one bit. Whether it’s 80’s pop, heavy metal, or whatever the hell they call whatever kind of music the kids are listening to today I can say that it just isn’t my cup of tea. I never listen to rock at home. En casa I stick to either some form of Spanish or Latin American music or classical.  I like jazz but I could live without it now. My musical tastes have been seriously narrowed in the past few years.

Popular music—mostly rock and roll—has had way too big of an influence on modern culture for the past 40 years. Most of it has been pretty mediocre.  Don’t even get me started on rap. I have always told people that they need to start developing musical tastes outside of rock while they are younger because it seems pretty ridiculous to be rocking out when you are in your 50’s and 60’s. To each his own, I suppose, but does anyone really need to listen to Stairway to Heaven ever again? Or Hotel California? Fuck, I’d pay a lot of money not to hear most songs in the rock pantheon.  It’s not like rock is any worse than any other form of popular music it’s just that I’ve been around it my entire life and I’m sick to fucking death of it. I have been for perhaps two decades, maybe more. Probably since The Smiths split up.

I listen to Spanish popular music simply because I want to be better versed in the culture of Spain and Latin America. It’s all part of learning the language. It’s important to understand cultural references people make as well as the language they speak. I make a point of watching as many Spanish movies as I can for the same reason.  The culture of rock and roll I know too well already. Old dogs like me need to learn new tricks.