9/21/2010

The Kids Are Alright

Crusty old farts that we are, we’ll routinely bitch about how music was better way back when. Generally speaking, we’re right most of the time. (heh heh) But we’ve been thinking about one area where we might not be: tween/teen/teenybopper tunes. (Yes, the alliteration was on purpose.) We're not gonna get deep into it at this point—that’s what discussions are for—but we will readily choose any of the current crop: The Jonas Brothers, Taylor Swift, Teddy Geiger, Drake Bell, etc. over the biggest names of the '80s: New Kids on the Block, Menudo, Debbie Gibson, Tiffany etc. without reservation and, in fact, with extreme prejudice. Seriously.

As a matter of fact, even while not liking a particular newbie's music, we've found redeeming aspects to their music and firmly believe they are, for the most part, artists catering to a particular age group whereas the latter were simply pop product put out there to simply bilk teenage girls and not much more. Not that the new jacks aren't viewed as human cash registers, as well; we just feel there's a little more going on. After all, in their respective catalogs, none of these current kids has anything as ludicrously awful as NKOTB's "Funky, Funky Xmas".

We rest our case. What say you?