This may sound ludicrous coming from an 18-year-old freshman, but music just isn’t the same anymore.
And no, this isn’t just me getting older; rock ‘n’ roll truly is a dying genre. After flipping through the pages of a trendy music magazine and seeing every emo, pop, punk, hardcore, post-core band crammed onto the pages, I felt nauseated.
Every band lacked originality: they all jumped on the catchy melody, quirky band name bandwagon. Why is it that the older I get, the more I question why I ever listened to these bands in the first place?
I wasn’t the only one with questions. As I proceed to look through the magazine I discovered plenty of confused letters to the editor. Someone wanted to know how the heck the new All Time Low album, their least creative album yet, could get Album of the Year — the first of many despairing complaints. However, all these legitimate concerns were followed with letters from 15-year-old girls who loved Alex Garsther’s dreamy eyes … I mean music.
When I was 16, I used to look forward to being my parents’ age and popping in a rock CD from my era and being able to brag about the music from my good old days — kind of like what my parents did every time they put on a Beatles or Motown record.
Instead though, I now find myself flipping pages of music magazines questioning the taste of my generation and the up and coming one. Then wondering how I ever listened to such uncreative tunes.
I feel times are bad in rock when the musicians themselves, like Gwen Stefani, say in interviews “there’s not much great stuff out right now,” and that this generation doesn’t have a Beatles. Or when bands like MGMT, which was nominated for two Grammy Awards, admit that they didn’t even think their album was good.
So, like a cat dropped off in the desert with no food and water, rock music is dying — not dead but dying. So, there is still hope for the genre and I’m sending out an S.O.S, and maybe, just maybe, there is hope for a miracle.
Raven Crane is a philosophy
freshman. She can be reached at
