I was about to write a more well-reasoned post about this entry into the "you kids get off my lawn" genre (via Spencer), but I think there's a better way to illustrate the point. You know who dislikes Guitar Hero and Rock Band with a white-hot burning passion?
These guys:
Therefore, Guitar Hero and Rock Band must be good. Q.E.D.
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To use your logic: you know who loves Nickelback with a burning, white-hot passion?
This guy: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rslwn/3133661694/
Q.E.D.
You know the essay is going off the rails when he equates rock music of the 60s with rock music of the 70s, and you doubt that he means The Ramones. The droning, generic Classic Rock of the 70s that dominated FM radio and still dominates classic rock stations (for similar reasons---and seriously, most classic rock stations play like one 60s song for every 10 70s songs) simply doesn't compare. Woodstock is famous for a lot of reasons, but mainly because it was when shit really started to go downhill.
the article is silly. but i don't think he either goes off the rails or makes a false equation of 60s and 70s. He says: the games "reiterate the dubious truism that rock was so magnificent in the 1960s and 1970s that it demanded attention in a way that no music that followed it could." that seems to me neither off the rails nor conservative. where he goes off the rails is that it doesn't follow from his insight about the games privileging music of a particular genre and era that the games are something other than fun.
what wonderfully ironic line-drawing, amanda. i saw you recently giving someone hell on your site for saying classical pieces were superior to recent pop. since it cannot be that being stuck in the past of 18th century music is elitist and tendentious and close-minded, while being stuck in the music of the seventh decade of the 20th century is tasteful and progressive and open-minded, i know you are kidding about that woodstock stuff. but not everyone will.
still, there is a point there. the too-clever-by-half studio tricks of sergeant pepper, the pretentious portentiousness of cream, and even the wizardry, a bit indulgent, of hendrix did give us the seventies of king crimson, rush, and robin trower. that was not a good thing. thankfully, the seventies also gave us the best work of sly and zeppelin, the games and shape-shifting of bowie, and, eventually, horses, born to run, and london calling. good and bad run through all times, i think, sometimes not very far apart
Get over yourself. I wasn't saying 60s rock was better by virtue of being older. I was simply pointing out that the 60s hit a peak in terms of straightforward rock, and then it went to shit....and had to be revived by art rock and punk rock, which is even newer and I like it even better. A template was created of constant renewal and reinvention that's helped keep rock fresh.
In fact, I actually pointed this out by naming a band I suspect he wasn't thinking of. But let's ignore that and assume I said something else! If we take what I actually said, then you don't have an argument, after all.
I seriously can't believe you pretended I put Sly into the same category as Grand Funk Railroad.
Oh, and I never said being a fan of classical music in itself made you an asshole. I said parading around a list of 10 classical songs we've all heard a million times in order to shame someone for liking LCD Soundsystem is a stupid, silly thing to do, made even sillier by virtue of the pseudo-intellectualism that undergirds it. It's always amusing watching someone so something stupid while thinking they're clever. Think of watching Jonah Goldberg write a book.
goodness, you're defensive amanda. perhaps i missed tht becuase you didn't say it the first time.
i'd invite anyone to view your responses to that guy (comments 13 and 15 in that thread) and reach their own conclusion about whether you were doing anything other than engaging in hyperbole and jumping down his throat. as in your initial comment here, you didn't actually say what you later claim you said.
your blog is yours and you are free to engage in as much overstatement and attack as you wish, but when you come elsewhere, people might point out those things.
also amanda, please point out the words grand funk railroad in my comment. and could you find where i said you said the guy was an asshole for liking classical music? i don't actually see those words in there either. whatever happened to our side being the reality-based community?
i'm done. it's not worth being worked up about.
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