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Comment by zactato | Hacker News Reader

What's with people (boomers?) obsession with "Rock'n'Roll"?

It seems like there's been a constant conversation over the last 30? years about what is and isn't rock'n'roll. I simply don't understand why people are so focused on some ultra-specific definition of what music is.

Can you just choose to listen to the music you want and choose to go or not go to specific shows?

I don't know if OP is intentionally trying to ragebait readers here or not, but it certainly feels that way.

I get it, you're an old man who is angry that the world isn't the same as when you were 18 and happy.

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I read an interview with some aging rock star a few years ago, and the interviewer asked him if he thought that Rock and Roll was dead, and he said yes, because it no longer pisses off your parents when you listen to it.

His response framed rock and roll not as a form of music but as a cultural phenomenon.

(I wish I could remember what youth culture thing kids do to piss off their parents these days but I can’t remember.)

I remember (maybe) Penn Gillette saying something similar: that something has gone wrong if we aren't horrified by the music our children like.

How much edgier can you get than Korn, Limp biscuit, Linkin Park, Metallica, etc... we took heavy and hard to the top of the arc - we left our children with just choosing which music styles of the past they like the best because their parents bested them on edgy music, hehe... in a way its kinda sad. I mean there really isn't anything that can offend xennial parents (millennial/x-gen), we're oblivious to just about everything at this point.

We've grew up watching shows like Growing Pains, Saved By The Bell, and grew to watch things like Shameless, Spartacus, Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad. We love shock factor so much, when something should shock us, we're often oblivious to it.

I wonder if parents always hated the music of their kids, even before modern eras. 1920s? 1800s? 1700s?

The other factor is that a lot of the hate for music was religion based and many now aren't religious anymore, so that's a non-factor. Take the case of Twisted Sister vs Tipper Gore for example lol.

> I wonder if parents always hated the music of their kids, even before modern eras. 1920s? 1800s? 1700s?

Verily, the Galant Style only sufficeth for Macaronis and Poppinjays. Ho! What a Pain it wreaketh upon mine Ears! Tis like a Pandemonium!

It's not that you can't possibly get any more edgy than that, there's just no demand for it anymore due the rise of safe space / political correctness movements. Though you could still anger your parents by listening to LGBT themed music if they're on the conservative side.

I read the same article and connected with it, not anti tech, but pro human! Rock and Roll was a revolution, a break from the conservative norms, a rebellion of sexual expressive energy that came with a musical style! Let’s not loose that spirit for digital drab which I feel is what the author was addressing.

trying to ragebait readers

No reason to take the bait and rage. I mean, unless it's against the machine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnyCJDYONSU

I'm not sure that we boomers are crazier than anyone else, but there are enough of us that our voices carry. Musical snobbery has a long history, I think. As for rock-and-roll, it was a force, but it was far from the only thing going in popular music during the boomers' adolescence. This may have created anxieties for those who knew they were supposed to like the Stones (and did), but who also knew they were not supposed to like the Carpenters (but did). And there were the journalists who seemed to want to rule anything but rock out of the popular music world, so helping to feed the anxiety.

In 60 years senior citizens will be reminiscing about the good ole TikTok days and arguing that YouTube Shorts is derivative.

Rock and Roll defines the high point of the boomer generation so they're going to have strong opinions about it.

I'm not sure how old Matt Ruby is. He's either an old Gen X or a young Boomer. Boomer-on-Boomer rock criticism seems like it should be valid.

What’s with people casting aspersions on an entire generation (boomers) based on something some person said?

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