Posted 9:21 PM by Andrew Faehnle
The Good, The Bad, and The Oldies

Several months ago, before Dan moved out, I was chillin out in his room, and we were having one of our (approximately) once-monthly explorations of art, design, culture, and music. As usual, this was accompanied by the music that Dan was listening to most lately. Interrupting our conversation was this song I had definitely heard before; my jaw dropped, and I was barely able to manage, "Hey... who... is this?"

[reconstructed conversation: dialogue may not be specific; meaning and intent is]

"E-L-O."

"Huh? I could swear I've heard this song before"

"E-L-O. Electric Light Orchestra. You've heard lots of their songs before, I'm sure. This is Evil Woman."

"Cool. I think my parents used to listen to this stuff."

"Probably."

"Hey, I remember Stephen Merritt [of Magnetic Fields] mentioned loving their orchestrations in the 69 Love Songs cd booklet."

"That would make sense."

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After buying ELO's Greatest Hits and porting it to my iPod towards the end of the school year last year, I was playing some ELO (Livin' Thing) in the classroom when I was working with one of the special education classes. Much, much, much, much to my astonishment, one of my students, Janet [not her real name], was singing along with the music, which was definitely out of genre for her. (Her favorites tend towards 50 Cent, Jadakiss, and R. Kelly.)

She said she kenw the song from home.

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Earlier this month, at our dinner party for Ariel's birthday, one of my friends was perusing a bunch of CD jewel cases I'd installed on a wall as a form of interior decoration. He made a very public comment about the impressive decision to buy (and display) the ELO CD. We ended up playing it as post-dinner music.

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My parents did listen to ELO. Horror of horros, then, that I find myself listening to my parents' crusty old music! I even had an all-Motown 4th of July party (see previous post for more details). Salvation came in the form of a discussion with Amanda. She, too, was commenting on the prospect of listening to old music of generations past. Not all of that oldies music was so bad, after all...

(To be sure, there's a bunch of junk on WMJI 105.7 that I won't listen to.)

Oldies aren't the songs that people necessarily liked best. They are, however, the songs that people remember the most. An example from my own day: Mexican Radio, by Wall of Voodo. That song really sucks. It's an absolute piece of crap, but who can forget it? But on the other hand, there are the oldies that actually embodies the spirit of the culture at the moment. (Like the movie or not, the Forrest Gump Soundtrack is a very good example of this type of music.) These are the songs that my parents listened to that I will listen to that probably my kids will be hearing on "oldies" stations. Because one does have to wonder, what will an oldies station play of my formative years? Nirvana? Probably. Hootie and the Blowfish. Probably (and unfortunately).

The most enduring music of a time is the music that captures and describes the cultural moment. So what will today's youth have to look forward to on the radio stations of their reminiscence? American Idol.

P.S.- It's good to be back.