Re: The Who Digest Vol 3 Num 74

[mleaman@sccoast.net (Mark Leaman)]

>I'm an English teacher, and when I try to explain
>ironic distance to my students I ask them the following question: "If,
>through some as-yet undeveloped technology, you were able to travel back
>in time and encounter some younger version of yourself--say, yourself at
>seven years old--how would you feel about that person?  If you asked that
>kid--who is you, remember--what s/he wants to be when s/he grows up, what
>will the kid say? (That is, what would you have said at seven?)"  To the
>second question the students will respond, "Fireman, astronaut, actress,"
>whatever, flushed in embarrassment all the while.  Their embarrassment is
>the product of "ironic distance." 

Too bad I didn't have any English teachers like you. Grammar is so dry.
I know what I would do with my younger self...give "him" a copy of all the
Who boots that I have since acquired (up to that point...wouldn't want to
change history now would I?). The only problem being how to transfer them to
8-Track...

>I particularly liked what you said about "Quad" defining Rock.  I would
>add that it is the last really great "Rock" album.  After "Quad," Rock
>just becomes an FM radio format, complete with a whole roster of bands who
>have done little more than mastered the sound without doing anything with
>the form (Journey, Styx, Foreigner, etc.).  The same thing is happening
>with so-called Alternative Rock right now.  These little sub-genre
>movements have a shelf life of about 8 to 10 years, it seems to me.  After
>that, they get coopted by opportunists who only want a niche in the
>market. Record executives like the latter part of these movemements, of
>course, for once the movement has become simply a "sound," they can better
>control the distribution of product.  Rock runs from about the 1965-era
>Who to the 1976 release of the first Boston album.  Alt Rock runs from
>R.E.M.'s "Murmur" in 1983 all the way to the first Stone Temple Pilots
>album.  What next?  Unfortunately, I'm a little too old to care. 

I am in total agreement with you here. Bands like Journey etc. were
corporate Rock...too slick and no real meaning or emotion.
I don't know about the time limit you have, though. It seems to me that a
genre of music never disappears...just goes underground. Disco is still
alive, right? There you go. And Rock runs in cycles, from the raw to the
slick (`53-`62, `63-`75, `76-`82...), and at the moment we're in transition
toward the slick.
"Too old to care..." I hope not. Music must change, after all...

>Marshall
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