I finally saw the movie Scott Pilgrim vs. the World last night. It was so good, so sweet, so true to a time in life that I’d bet—cultural and technological changes aside—a lot of Townspeople can identify. The whole family dug it, and my wife and I took great, snobbish pleasure in explaining to our boys why the film couldn’t have been the massive popular hit and Academy Award winner it clearly would have been had more of the world been more like us.
This morning I’m thinking about some of the key cultural developments since my teen years (that would be the mid-1970s into early 1980s, kidz) that have worked their way into the modern-day rock ‘n roll youth culture. For instance, the history of rock ‘n roll through my teen years was framed by the ubiquitous landscape of cars & girls. There was a good chance that a rock ‘n roll artist in the early days of the genre, such as Chuck Berry, through bands like Loverboy was going to sing about “cars and girls.” Drugs and alcohol would join the mix, but cars and girls were long the driving force, no? I wish I could explain it better; would it make sense if I said cars and girls were key to the mise-en-scéne of rock ‘n roll? (My apologies to film buffs and the French, if I’m using this term incorrectly.)
If it wasn’t clear enough to me, thanks to my Swing Era–loving, “gamer” teenage son whose love of The Mills Brothers, Dean Martin, et al has been furthered by the soundtrack to his favorite video game, the Fallout series, Scott Pilgrim vs the World drove home the point that video games have replaced cars in the rock ‘n roll mise-en-scéne. For that matter skateboards have eclipsed cars. What fun would there be writing about a Toyota Camry?
Girls are still essential to the landscape of rock ‘n roll, but boys are included too, and not just in “Girl Group” songs written by highly frustrated, compensating, domineering dudes.
Video games, skateboards, boys… What else might be new to the rock ‘n roll landscape since you moved beyond its core demographic?
Wow… The Mills Brothers. I forgot about them. The Mills Brothers were from Bellefonte, PA just about 9 miles from State College.
This useless bit of knowledge is offered free of charge.
I’ve often thought there is a book waiting to be written about modes of transportation in rock music. The car song replaces the train song and shifts one from being bound by the train schedule to a departure time of one’s own choosing. Likewise, the ways people can communicate nowadays have changed rock. I can’t imagine The Replacements “Answering Machine” being written today. For most of us, calling next door is the same as calling across the country. No answer? Email or text. Have their been any great songs written about fax machines?
You could also include all of the songs which make reference to someone waiting by a phone (usually in vain) for a lover to call.
Irony and deconstruction of the rock n’ roll band as a group = singer, guitarist, bass, drums. Music videos as art rather than solely a vehicle to convince the audience of the attractiveness or sexiness of the musicians.
Just think of all those songs that included telephones ringing – you could identify the country by the sound.
I don’t think the kidz even use the phone now except for texting, do they?
Dating is certainly different now. No more “I met her at the Burger King/We fell in love by the soda machine” as the Ramones sang. On M.I.A.’s new album there’s a song called Internet Connection:
I’m gettin off the computer
I’m going to do something
Yeah something
I’m down like my internet connection
I’m down
I crashed again last night
I was on there surfin out of my mind
There must be other songs about internet dating, chat rooms, etc.
Though I’m all for a potential Bruckner & Garcia Critical Upgrade thread, video games have yet to make any true headway as a leading subject in rock, despite having been born and grown parallel to and eventually outlasting the Music Video Era. Video games have done their part to bring the music to them, but despite their popularity and the gaming industry’s more profitable stance relative to the music industry, it’s rare that the reference to something as widespread as a Grand Theft Auto, Madden or Call of Duty finds its way into your average rock or pop lyric, parody songs aside.
Hip hop, however, has been home to a hell of a lot of video game lyrical (and sampling) crossover since the mid-to-late ’90s. Which makes sense, in the long run, given the more freedom of form available there.
The relative death of the Car Song is an interesting point, though. Given the “world is too much with us” state of things today, the car is losing its value re: social interaction and as a symbol of freedom, leaving less of a place for it in pop lyrics. Still, give Chuck Berry credit: though the “ridin’ along in my automobile” part would have less impact today, “with no particular place to go” hasn’t lost any of its meaning, so he knew exactly what the real point was when he named the song 47 years ago.
It’s not necessarily lyrical references to videogames that I get from this movie but the analogy to rock’s energy and the energy derived from videogames. On a similar note, the movie Kick-Ass proposed a similarly analogous relationship between rock ‘n roll and comic books.
What I was trying to get at was whether the state described in the Modern Lovers’ “Roadrunner” would, today, more likely involve a kid, rock ‘n roll pumped through earbuds, and the “endless highway” of his or her videogame (or comic book or skateboard route) rather than an automobile and an actual open road.
I hear you, Mod, and I didn’t mean for such a literal focus or to go so far into the weeds, just thought it was interesting that it’s a lyrical/topical area that “Rock” seems so incapble of/ill-suited to handling, while hip hop can cycle into games and technology fairly easily. Contemporary R&B has had its share of new(er than the telephone and car) technology songs, and I’d be willing to bet there are some Modern Country hits that tread the same ground, not surprising considering I think today’s mainstream R&B and Country have a ton in common.
I suspect we’d get the definitive twitter song from someone in hip hop much more easily than anyone in rock would be able to pull that subject off. Assign whatever value to that it deserves, but there’s probably some worth in being able to hadle the jargon of your intended audience
Back to your main point, it seems like the reflexive/introspective “song about songs” might be able to take over the Car Song genre, which might give us some Video Era forerunners like “Jukebox Hero” and “I Can’t Live Without My Radio”. And back further to “Johnny B. Goode”, maybe, so Berry still had his giant fingers on the pulse of the youth.
On Scott Pilrgim (which I also liked) and Kick Ass (not as much) and the confluence of rock, comic books and fighting games: did either give you any insight into the appeal of the Comic Book Rock genre, Mod, and the escapist allure that the Ramones and Misfits offered?
Might also be worth noting that hip hop has some roots here, too, when it comes to turning the old battle of the bands idea into the rap battle, and then putting the “battle” part into the context of the literal fights you’d get in a movie/game/comic. Deltron 3030 from 2000 was a concept album that did some of the same things about turning the energy of a rap battle into a literal space battle, and I’d be shocked if that and the weird Japanese cult rock movie Wild Zero – also from 2000, where rock music is used as a literal weapon against zombies – weren’t at least mild inspirations the original Scott Pilgrim comics.
The latter definitely was an inspiration for the movie adaptation, at least. The director, Edgar Wright, intended it to work at least partially as a callback to/update of the musical/rock movie, citing Head, Rock ‘n Roll High School, A Hard Day’s Night and Wild Zero (or “A Hard Day’s Night Of The Living Dead” as he put it) as movies with the energy he was trying to recapture.
I hear you as well, alexmagic. I especially dug what you said about “No Particular Place to Go.”
Yes, I was able to make more sense of the allure of Comic Book Rock thanks to these movies. It’s funny you bring up the Ramones. You may appreciate this:
This is my final year coaching my oldest son’s soccer team, and I’ve been coaching many of these boys since they were tiny. I get so much out of coaching, surely way more than they get out of being coached by me. Leading into the season I decided I wanted to pull a “Phil Jackson” on some of my “veterans” and leave them with a little gift and note as we head into the homestretch of the season. I’ve already picked up a few books and CDs for the boys I have in mind. Our stopper (ie, defensive-minded midfielder, if that makes any sense to non-soccer fans) is a big, energetic, upbeat, redheaded boy, one of these kids you can see smiling from a hundred yards away. He’s got a lot of difficult stuff going on in his life, but he always manages to be the team’s kick-ass heart. I know he likes music and takes guitar lessons. I picked up the Ramones album with my favorite two songs on them (“Judy Is a Punk Rocker” and “Rockaway Beach”) for that kid. I was going to get him the first Modern Lovers album, but his mom might not appreciate “Pablo Picasso.”
Another boy’s getting Talking Heads ’77, one’s getting the first Buffalo Springfield album, and one’s getting a Thomas Berger book, either Arthur Rex or Little Big Man. I’ve got two more boys in mind for my Phil Jackson-style “message gift,” but although I knew them well, their interests are harder for me to determine.
I dont even know what kind of cool car I would want now if I was in high school (makes me think of the scene in Billy Madison when Adam Sandler shows up to high school in his Trans Am – the cool car of his youth and eveyone laughs at him)
As late as the end of the 1980’s the car had more to do with Rock and Roll than video games or skateboards.
Hip Hop has taken over that part of our culture (even for suburban white kids)
You can shop, play, talk, read, learn, gossip, stalk, flirt, listen to music and see movies from your laptop and cell phone. Who needs to go out into the world and REALLY interact. Why save all of your summer job money to buy a cool car when you are going to interact with people virtually not physically anyway?
When I was a kid I never wanted to stay home (and I had a great home) I hated the phone, I was not into video games except for the arcade sometimes. I went to the record store, to the mall, to shows, festivals, Theme Parks,the beach, etc.in my 82 firebird with Van Halen, Tom Petty, Rolling Stones, Springsteen blasting and met new people. not too diferent from kids in the 1950’s, 60’s, 70’s.