They\’ve named a genre of music after guys like me. They call it \”dad rock.\”
I can\’t decide if I should feel insulted. Maybe Fleet Foxes should feel insulted? I don\’t know.
They call it that presumably because it\’s tame, easy on the ears, a palliative narcotic for oldsters like me…so\’s I don\’t get too excited, I guess…blood pressure and all.
Dad rock assumes I like my music like any parent would like their children to be — peaceable, quiet, obedient, clean and tidy, etc. It doesn\’t need me to \”get it.\” It doesn\’t give me eye rolls if I don\’t share its point of view. Upon further consideration, it is exactly like my kids if they were heavily medicated.
I remember being at a very adult, very \”dad rock\” kind of party a few years ago, when my friends and I discussed our mellowing musical tastes. \”I just can\’t stand that loud, aggressive stuff anymore,\” said I. \”If I\’m going to bathe in nostalgia, I\’m hunting bath bombs like \’80s-era Smiths, R.E.M. and U2. If I want a splash of something more contemporary, give me Real Estate, Wilco, The War on Drugs or Phosphorescent.\” This is what I said. In public.
And don\’t get me wrong, I love all those bands. But something has happened.
Lately I’ve been craving feedback. Scrawling guitars, screaming vocalists that sound like they gargle nails. I want Soundgarden, with their sludgy metal riffs. I want Mudhoney, wth Mark Arm’s screech, screaming “F**k You” to just about anybody. I want caterwauling smart alecks like Pavement to mock the scenesters. I want new bands like METZ to play fast and loud and pound my ears into dust.
What on earth makes a largely docile quadragenarian like me suddenly crave that kind of noise? It\’s something I\’ve been thinking about and trying to articulate for months.
Growing up, pretty much every adult in my vicinity would tell me not to listen to certain kinds of music. \”Oh, don\’t listen to Prince,\” they said. \”He\’s filthy.\” \”Don\’t listen to Run DMC. They say curse words.\” \”Don\’t listen to KISS! Don\’t you know it stands for Knights in Satan\’s Service?!\” Ad nauseum, ad infinitum.
The accepted idea seems to be that if you hear the music, it would make you feel a certain way. But that hasn\’t been my experience. What I\’ve found in myself — and why shouldn\’t I assume that everyone thinks the same way? — is that when I feel a certain way, I go looking for the music that gives voice to that.
Not to gloat or anything, but turns out my theory is backed by science.
Australian psychologists Leah Sherman, Ph.D., and Genevieve A. Dingle, Ph.D., published a 2015 study entitled \”Extreme metal music and anger processing.\”
In the study, Sherman and Dingle tested extreme music listeners ages 18-34. They subjected them to \”anger induction,\” which consisted of a substantial interview where they were asked to describe an event that led to extreme anger for them.
Once they were sufficiently and measurably perturbed, they were given their personal playlist, which consisted of bands like Rage Against the Machine, Meshuggah, Slipknot, Metallica and Judas Priest to help them relax.
\”This study found that extreme music fans listen to music when angry to match their anger, and to feel more active and inspired,\” read the conclusion. \”They also listen to music to regulate sadness and to enhance positive emotions. The results refute the notion that extreme music causes anger but further research is required to replicate these findings in naturalistic social contexts, and to investigate the potential contributions of individual listener variables on this relationship between extreme music listening and anger processing.\”
So, basically what I said, right?
Which brings me to a quick bit that just might trigger those of you who might be particularly tribal these days.
I don\’t think it\’s a hot take to say that America is officially off her meds right now. I mean, it seriously feels like we\’re playing \”Dial A Disaster,\” and every single spoke on the wheel is catastrophic or insane. I feel it. My kids feel it. My coworkers feel it. There\’s just an indefinable, overwhelming malaise that just seeps its way into everything lately.
It\’s depressing, but it also makes me angry. I feel like this angst and tension is self-inflicted, and I feel helpless to make it stop. We can\’t talk about real issues mainly because we can\’t talk about politics…and we\’ve literally made everything political. So we all walk around avoiding the subject — any subject — in public, and save all the vitriol and anger for Facebook and Twitter.
This is the way we live right now. It feels so crazy.
And so, when I get in the car and want to hear music on Pandora, I don\’t listen to the R.E.M. station, or the Tribe Called Quest station, or The Meters station, I go straight to Mudhoney…which serves up delectable doses of Helmet and Nirvana and L7 and Sonic Youth. And my soul feels this wave of delight and relief.
It wasn\’t long ago that we were blaming bands like Linkin Park, Marilyn Manson and Judas Priest for all kinds of villainy. But I\’ll bet you the feelings were there before the music was.
That being said, I honestly look forward to the day that I go hunting for the dad rock again.
May we return to the Steely Dan days…and soon.
Photo credit: Natalie Parham at Unsplash