Sunday, June 29, 2003

Great, now that I've turned 35, I am greeted by this line in an article in the New York times about the Next Big Thing- screamo music (aka, bands in which the singer screams all about the pain and alienation in his life due to being born a middle-class white boy in the 'burbs instead of singing about the pain and alienation in his life due to being born a middle-class white boy in the 'burbs).

"More important than any history of screaming, says Tom Beaujour, editor of the hardcore magazine Revolver, is the fact that rock music has always been about the raising of the sonic threshold. ''Little Richard's inflections,'' he says, ''were at least as appalling to grown-up consumers of music in the 50's as the screaming is to a 35-year-old rock fan today. So the history of screaming is really just the history of rock getting louder and more outrageous. It's almost like an arms race. What can I do that is the next level of sonic rebellion?''"

Ouch.

And yes, bands that scream all the time like those bands make me think more of fingernails across a chalk-board than actual music.

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