response 12 of 23:

Feb 22 22:31 UTC 2003

I meant to paste in this NY Times link earlier; it'll go into the 
pay archive tonight.  :/  Maybe somebody stuck it on Usenet or somewhere
else where Google might find it.
 
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/16/arts/16ROSE.html?pagewanted=print&positio
n=top
"Singing to the Grown-Ups, and Selling"   by Jody Rosen
 
The essay argues, in effect, that we boomers have become our parents,
with our attitudes towards hip-hop recapitulating our parents'
attitudes towards rock. 

The article charges that the aging boomers, who are rallying around
an idea of "authenticity," are mostly listening to pretty boring
music.  Norah Jones is the artist most criticized in the piece.
The author doesn't say it in these words, but the argument is 
essentially that we have recreated our version of the old boring
Easy Listening/Adult Contemporary music which our parents 
listened to in their mature years, while all the artistic action
is happening in hip hop.

response 14 of 23:

Feb 23 18:48 UTC 2003

interesting idea.  i tend to like the hiphop stuff that folks
have played for me with the more radical political leanings
(dead prez)  most of the rest of it seems to be women hating/
self hating trash.

response 16 of 23:

Feb 25 07:13 UTC 2003

resp:11 - Twila, I would have guessed those Survivor lyrics depicted 
the singer telling the girl both about herself and another girl.  But I 
am not hip to these things.

resp:12 - I am curmudgeonly enough to claim that the parents were 
right, on both occasions.  Most of the rock that parents widely 
denounced, back in the days when parents denounced rock, was eminently 
denouncable.  It is recorded that many parents actually liked the 
Beatles, yes, even in 1964.  This might have something to do with the 
fact that the Beatles were actually good ...

response 18 of 23:

Feb 27 02:48 UTC 2003

If you mean Cream, the band, they're at the bottom of my list.  When a 
Cream song turned up on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" a few years ago, and 
the only clue to its identity was that it was a late 60s rock song, I 
guessed it was Cream because it was so totally lacking in any appeal.

response 20 of 23:

Feb 28 09:06 UTC 2003

Why should I -want- your copy of a Cream album?

response 22 of 23:

Mar 5 01:58 UTC 2003

I finally got a copy of the NY Times article from krj =)

Again, I think the gist of the article is that a lot of commercial 
music (since the 1950s anyway) is aimed at specific age groups.  I 
laugh when Grexers complain about Britney and NSync-- I don't doubt 
that they might be lacking in a little talent, but they are examples 
of formulas that are not going to go away.  The music is generally 
about the adolescent stuff-- mating and dating, bump and grind, etc., 
etc.  The lovestruck girl, sex kitten, hunk, angry young man (and 
variants of such) are common stereotypes.

Adult Contemporary/Easy Listening or whatever you want to call it 
seems very driven by nostalgia.  What was cutting edge once, became 
popular and mainstream, is now mellowed and tamed with hindsight.  No 
more scattered hormones.  People have settled down, and are less 
interested in stirring things up.

No matter how young boomers think they are, they cannot escape it.  
There have been a number of notable exceptions-- musicians that cut 
across the generation gap, but by and large it seems to me that a lot 
of the tunes seem to be about romantic love.

Just a theory.