Sometimes, I un-ironically listen to soft rock from the seventies (Steely Dan is very much excluded from this category, being one unto themselves.). My mom’s music. It is not that bad, marimba solo in Starbuck’s ‘Moonlight Feels Right’ notwithstanding.
In some ways, the seventies soft rock was a better mirror to the weirdness of the time than Led Zeppelin or Rush is to mine (snotty-nosed rage-y teenage boys listening to music sung by men in tight jeans). It was odd, smarmy Jovan Musk scented sex. And, my gosh, the best artifact of that world is ‘Chevy Van’ by Sammy Kershaw.
Yeah, that’s right. While we were listening to Roger Daltry sing about teenage wastelands, moms were listening to people having sex on the beach or in the back of some random guys Chevy van.
The seventies were weird man. There was a whole ‘the end of the world’ kind of hedonism going on. All set to tasteful sax solos. It was your mom’s music. My mom’s too.
Out of curiosity, I dug out a playlist from my thirties (which was her age, which seemed positively ancient to thirteen-year-old me), and damn it! I WAS LISTENING TO THE SOFT ROCK OF THE 90s!
What a broadside to my ‘musical’ taste. I made fun of soft rock and yacht rock, but I can’t be judgmental anymore. The ‘adult’ rock I listened to in my thirties, is just as weird as my mom’s. Counting Crows, ‘Mr. Jones’? Ben Folds, ‘Brick’?
I know I am not the only one who listened to it. For god sake, Hootie and The Blowfish’s first album sold 14.5 million copies. (Not that there is anything wrong with Darius and the guys) If you bought Gin Blossoms ‘New Miserable Experience’, your mom has every right to give you shit about your acquired soft rock tastes.
You say, “But mom, marimba solos? Really?”
And your mom can simply answer, “Really? New Radicals, ‘You Get What You Give’,”
And she would be right.
Remain Lost 