Lee Dresselhaus / L’Observateur / December 8, 1999

So..enough, already.

For a generation which prides itself on being different and individualistic, and who tend to view the sixties and seventies as a quaint accident with an accompanying bad taste in clothing, this current batch of young people sure seem to have a hard time coming up with music of their own.

I was flipping through the radio stations the other day and stumbled across one of the stations of the new generation, the ones that call themselves “alternative” stations. Im not real sure just what theyresupposed to be an alternative to, because theyre just basically rock stations that play the newer rock music. And despite the tattoos and thepiercing of any body part that can get attention, and the Im Bad attitude and body language of a lot of the young rock groups, most of what they do is just the modern equivalent of the sixties bubble-gum music. Its YummyYummy Yummy with attitude and heavy metal guitar. At their best, manyof them do a poor imitation of real rock.

I hate to be the one to break it to them, but a whole lot of their music really stinks.

And thats why they do so many of the old songs, or I should say, TRY to do so many of the old songs. Unfortunately, for the most part they do thembadly.

A very fine example of a pathetic attempt at making an old song theirs was the song I stumbled across on that alternative station. It was by thegroup Pearl Jam, and it was a re-make of the sappy sixties song The Last Kiss. Well, that song was never too great to begin with, so I didnt mindthat they took it and tried to make it better. They didnt. It was a tie forwhich version was the most awful, the original or the cover.

It was the very next song that caused me to roll down my windows, turn on my vent fan, and moan with pain. Baker Street, the great little piece ofguitar and sax rock by Jerry Rafferty, has been re-made by the Foo Fighters. And, guess what? You guessed it. Its stinks. They attempt tomodernize it by replacing the line “hes gonna give up the booze and the one night stands” with “hes gonna give up the CRACK and the one night stands”.

Ack. And now I understand theyve done a cover of a Pink Floyd song, whichis darn near sacrilege.

I decided to look around for some other covers by some of the newer groups and was amazed at how many are out there right now. Somethankfully unidentifiable group has a horrible version of Peter Gabriels Shock the Monkey, which they are welcome to. Yeesh.

Rage Against The Machine, which is a group short on talent and long on the ability to vocally protest anything and everything, has a cover version of Springsteens, The Ghost Of Tom Joad. It aint bad but, baby, it aint goodeither.

Limp Bizkit also managed to destroy the tune, Faith. Ill never be able towatch the George Michaels video again without hearing this pathetic version of that song. Ill still watch it every chance I get, mind you,because any video with Cindy Crawford in a bubble bath has redeeming value, music notwithstanding.

And of course, everyones Fairy Princess nightmare, the idol of psychotics, sociopaths, and anyone looking for someone on which to blame bad behavior, Marylyn Manson, has also joined in the rush to try to do something better that was done right in the first place. He has butchered(oops, bad word when it comes to this guy) the Annie Lennox/Eurythmics song Sweet Dreams Are Made Of These. This is one I havent actually satand listened to, and you cant make me. I just heard about this version froma friend who assures me that I dont want to hear it. Ill take his word forit.

The exception to my tirade about the covers not being as good as the originals is the Lenny Kravitz cover of American Woman, done originally in the late sixties by the Guess Who. This guy is a great talent and produceseighteen carat, genuine rock. And his spin on this song shows it. Unlikesome of the groups that cover songs from other, more talented people, he adds more to the song than just noise and attitude.

If you think Im just being an old fogey, look around and tell me if you see any group out there with the quality and originality of Pink Floyd or the Moody Blues. While youre at it find one of these new groups with thepower of Led Zeppelin or any of the new R&B performers with vocals of Al Green or the blockbuster talent of Aretha Franklin.

It must be a bummer to belong to a generation of young people who must continually play catch up with us, the parents. Despite the bluster andattitude they seem to be so fond of displaying, and their insistence on going their own way, they sure do seem to be imitating us a bunch.

Thanks, guys, but unless you can do it better, you should probably just leave it alone.

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