I became a devoted fan of rock when Surf music hit the radio. Surf music is not very fashionable nowadays but at the time it seemed revolutionary to me. There was nothing else like it at the time. Everything I was hearing on the radio back then felt like it was aimed at advlts. It seemed as though everything was instrumental music by Percy Faith and Ferrante and Teicher or pop garbage by boy singers who all seemed to be named Frankie or Bobby or Fabian. The Beach Boys and Jan and Dean were the first artists on the radio, in my listening lifetime, whose music felt like it was meant for me.
Then the Beatles. And the Stones. It was interesting growing up during that period because the music matured at about the same pace as I matured. The early British Invasion bands sang about love at a time when I was discovering love. Later the themes of rock music grew more sophisticated just as my understanding of the world became more sophisticated. They began to sing about drugs at the same time I discovered drugs. For awhile rock music was like the soundtrack to what I was going through.
I became disenchanted with rock music in the seventies. I thought most of it was garbage. After the excitement and innovation of the sixties, artists like The Eagles, Linda Ronstadt and James Taylor sounded anemic, unambitious, uninspired, to my ear. I became briefly interested in rock again during the punk movement of the late seventies. But that didn't last very long. Once again I stopped listening until the early 90's and Grunge. Grunge and Riot Grrrl renewed my faith in rock for nearly a decade.
I haven't heard much that has interested me in the last sixteen years. But I wait and hope that one day another renaissance will emerge in rock that will inspire me to listen again.
» Wed Apr 13, 2016 8:03 pm 
