Stuck On Repeat?

Recently, the BBC ran a feature, posing the question "Can You Shape your Children's Taste in Music?" It is certainly a goal that many parents aspire to achieve, even for the selfish reasons that they can continue to listen to their own favourite albums from yester year, and can have some ‘decent music’ in that traditional five hour car journey to see the family for the holidays.

Every time I return home from university, my parents comment (without fail) on how nice and quiet the house has been without me within approximately two minutes of walking through the door. Hell, I haven’t even had a cup of tea yet. Great welcome, guys.

But mainly, this is due to the instant welcome I get from my siblings, with whom there is an instant need to trade the latest gossip, jokes and musical trends.

Loading up my phone to browse YouTube, the groans of ‘Remember when we were in charge of the music in this house?’ hang heavy in the air.

Perhaps for a good reason. This summer, a Spanish headed report published its findings on modern pop music, only to conclude that, basically, everything sounds the same. Yes, punk and prog-rock happened. That was the 70s. Now, each assault on the chart is bound up in some squiffy basslines and a vapid string of lyrical spew, probably formulated by some questionable tin of value alphabet soup.

No wonder parents try to influence their children’s taste in music. The prolific back catalogue of British music has somehow become an untapped mine of musical sincerity and ingenuity in an age of increased music video circulation thanks to the internet.

You may think that the world wide web would have broadened our horizons, but simply clicking onto YouTube brings up the trending and popular videos that we all just have to watch. Few tracks from the 70s or 80s, hell even the 90s, feature in that promotion list. And thank god for the John Lewis adverts eh? If it weren’t for their constant covers, maybe half the population would never discover the old classics.

I’m not expecting teenagers to suddenly blare out Queen or Duran Duran with the same arbritrary excitement as Gangham Style (admit it, you’re dancing in your head now, aren’t you?!), but it is somewhat surprising in light of the Spanish (music) inquisition that people remain interested and invested in the charts, right?

Well, I find that these articles simplify the plethora of styles afforded by modern pop music. There has certainly been as much diversification as there has been industry monotony over the past decade. R’n’B, hip-hop, rap, dubstep have all come into the mainstream in the past ten years or so alone.

While these appear staple sounds to the modern day chart, their relative time spent being blasted from radio stations is still quite short. How long did the flavour of The Beatles last? Queen’s rock? The Clash’s punk? All these genres have proliferated the charts for short periods, around 10 years at best. Then the next musical innovation is adorned as quick as in the previous era.

Okay, I’ll admit. There’s a lot to be said in favour of the diversity of past musicians. Lyrics are so often more intuitive and reflective of society; instruments are used to convey meaning, not just drive a beat. Finding a classic Red Hot Chili Peppers album, or an Oasis gem is sometimes much more exciting than any new material on the charts.

But then, it’s popular music for a reason. It takes all the popular elements and twists them into a conformist notion of what we all like to listen to. Again and again.

Many of the iconic bands are heralded as true musicians because they allowed their audience a sense of rebellion against the mainstream, and, perhaps more importantly, against their parents.

Well, perhaps there is room for more apathy in a Western civilisation that has undergone a massive change in political and social rights since the mid-60s. But a 21^st century life culture, plagued with social media, increased peer pressure, recession, consumerism and wars is certainly the type of place for musical revolutions to continue. The assault of pop music is not something ‘throwaway’ and repetitive: it is something that in this slightly more apathetic era, the masses can utilise to forget the extent of their problems, before being galvanised into action by the next prog-rock wave.

Besides, my grandparents have expressed their like for Maroon 5, No Doubt, Calvin Harris and even Riri before now. There’s no reason that children shaping their parents taste in music is something that shouldn’t be encouraged.