If pop music were siblings...

...then I'd peg the 60s & 70s as the eldest kids - characteristically overbearing, perfectionist & high-achieving brats.

Classic rock, soul & motown of the 60s;
disco, glam rock, punk rock during the 70s.
the older kids dressed up and singers actually (gasp!) wrote songs. towards the 70s, though, they started wearing a big F--- off sign on their forehead against le établissement and everything it stood for (later emulated by younger siblings in the 90s).

the 80s where the middle children - typically driven to gain and attract attention achieved either

through musicality...

The Police

U2

Tracy Chapman

plain gimmickry...

Milli Vanilli

or a combination of both.

(obviously, that was a sarcastic remark.)

the time was marked (along with hairsprays and shoulder pads)

with the beginnings of commercial tie-ups with everything from movies to softdrinks to fund raising activities for ailing third world countries.


They weren't just in your face.

They were in your lunch boxes, your socks, your notebooks, even your underwear.

(yes, underwear.)

the youngest were born in the 90s and they were triplets:

the first was the angry kid with his "i-don't-give-a-rat's-ass" Doc Martens and flannel shirt the likes of Nirvana, Pearl Jam & Soundgarden


the second was the "so-blinged-out-you-could-get-glaucoma" hip-hop variety of Run DMC, Flava Flav and (groan) MC Hammer


and the third was the kid who seemed to prefer NOT sleeping on the same bed twice with numbers on procreation and debauchery without the lyrical allegory & allusions.

Songs like I Wanna Sex You Up by Color Me Badd, I'm Too Sexy by Right Said Fred, Let's Talk About Sex by Salt-N-Pepa.

And let's not forget Baby Got Back by Sir Mix-a-Lot that goes,

"I like big butts and I can not lie,
You other brothers can't deny
That when a girl walks in with an itty bitty waist
And a round thing in your face
You get sprung, wanna pull out your tough..."

Poetic.


Which brings me to present day.



I'd say today's pop music is much like the "accident" mom and dad had thinking daddy's little boys had already gone into retirement.

There was no real intention to make it, but since it's there, they might as well put it out.


Okay, it's relatively young, so it's too early to tell its personality (if it has one at all).

But after seeing all the rehashes, all the remakes and all the covers, it makes one hope that for this generation's sake,





"Papaya" will not be the defining song of this age.


One can only be so (un)lucky.