I've always prided myself on being a good parent... I've introduced the kids to the Boss, Bono, Andrea Bocelli... They returned the favor and brought me Linkin Park, Matchbox Twenty, the Streets, Corinne Bailey Rae, Metallica, Paolo Nutini...
But something has gone very wrong.
My kids, the Indie music scene fans, the kids who go to local shows instead of big concerts, the ones who ask for "Tegan and Sara" CDs for birthday gifts and not Daughtry... these kids who won't listen to top 40 radio like, no, they love Journey. Journey! Steve Perry. 1970s bloated vocals. Four part chords as music. Melodrama as emotion. Cliches as lyrics.
"When the lights, go down, in the ci-tay..." Oh God no!
I've had to listen to "Don't Stop Believing" on repeat in the family room up to ten times in one session.
S.O.S.
I'm trapped in forgettable 1970s rock.
Get me out!
22 comments:
(blushing) Hmmmm. (whispers..... I like Journey, too.)
Sorry to disappoint you with my plebeian tastes. ;-) It's okay.Your children mostly have good taste in music!
(Go kids!)
They need the videos to FAITHFULLY and SEPARATE WAYS :).
OMG, I love Journey. I will admit there is some disparity between Journey and most other music that I love, but I just have a soft spot for them. Takes me back every time I hear them.
Don't.stop.bee-leeev-in...
Oh no! I'm offending my readers! I had no idea so many Journey fans still exist.
(I have to admit that I used to love REO Speedwagon so I'm not above sappy lyrics and bleating vocals... :))
Ohhh, I love Journey too! (Thanks mom.) But Linkin Park... ew.
I have to give your kids props for Tegan and Sara. :)
-Fracky (Amp's Daughter)
Well I can join you in despising Journey... I saw them a few times back in the 70's and actually even knew about them as a band before Steve Perry joined and took them to a whole new level of commercialism and popularity. They were a Bay Area band (kind of an offshoot of Santana, in the early days) that decided to go for the big bucks by polishing up their sound and moving the music in a poppish direction. (And also by commissioning those bitchin' album covers that were probably inspired by customized Chevy van paint jobs prevalent in the Bay Area in the mid-70's.)
Old-school Journey fans would say they jumped the shark with the Infinity album, but of course, that's when they started going platinum and headlining arenas. From a business sense, the move paid off obviously, but the band created a monster in Steve Perry, whose sniveling bleating vocal styles parasitically infested everything else the band did to the point where several of the other musicians could barely stand to work with him and eventually left the group (going on to form "Bad English," not much of an improvement, to say the least...)
I wouldn't be concerned if your kids affection for Journey were limited to just those few songs you listed, since they have a certain campy appeal. As long as their admiration has a touch of self-deprecating irony to it, that's OK. I have a lot of schmaltzy music in my iTunes collection (Perry Como, Doris Day, Captain and Tenille, all the bubblegum hits from the 60's and 70's like "Run Joey Run," "Your Having My Baby," "Feelings," "Wildfire," and sooooo many more) and I don't consider my tastes compromised at all.
I empathize, I could not handle Journey either! I just wrote about Bruce today on my classic rock blog, glad to see you enjoy him and have had the good sense to to introduce your kids to some real music. My son listens to "music" that makes my skin crawl.
Well Dave you succeeded in completely ruining my day...by reminding me of that horrible, horrible song "You're having my baby"...all day long I have tried to get this song out of my head!
As a fix though I have found that singing any 4 lines of "Bohemian Rhapsody" will cure just about any "song stuck in the head"... but "You're having my baby" almost did me in. It reminded me of another one of my "favorites" Muskrat Love...yikes ;<)
Journey's just fun music.... like junk food. It's not meant to be serious stuff, just like junk food has no nutritional value, but it tastes so good sometimes!
Journey, Boston, Chicago, The Eagles, Kansas, Styx... aaaaah, good stuff all. :)
hee hee
Musing, you made my night!! My kids heard the Family Guy Karaoke start and ran into the room saying, "Oh this is so funny. Wait, you have to listen." And it is hysterical! Hits all the right wrong notes.
Dave, leave it to you to surgically dissect the reasons I can't handle Journey.
I do want to return the favor of bad song suggestions, however. The most hate-able song in history in my opinion is....
"We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun, but the wine and the song like the seasons have all gone."
"Seasons in the Sun" by Terry Jacks.
Barbara! Love your music blog and love your taste in music. :D
Did you see Bruce in his solo tour for Devils and Dust? Still the most incredible concert I've ever been to. The man is such a poet! And performer.
Did you know that Seasons in the Sun was written by the noted popular poet Rod McKuen, who translated it from a text by Jacques Brel? (That's a unique and kind of impressive pedigree for such a widely disdained song, imo.) I have a version by the Kingston Trio from 1963 that reveals that the song itself isn't quite so horrible as long as it's not sung with the please-put-me-out-of-my-misery mewling that Terry Jacks brought to that performance. But I concede that it may be hard for many listeners to give the tune a fresh chance. But let me just remind you that it was the overall #2 most popular song worldwide in 1974! The overall #1 (according to Wikipedia)? None other than Carl Douglas' "Kung Fu Fighting!" Now That's What I Call Music! ;o)
r. michael, sorry, didn't mean to plague your imagination with that reference to Paul Anka's big comeback hit (another vintage '74 release) - I'll try to be more circumspect from now on before I drop such references (though I hope that citing Kung Fu Fighting didn't have a similar effect!)
And I agree, Barbara (Layla's) music blog is pretty cool...
Dave what are you doing up so late? :) Kung Fu Fighting was among my favorites in junior high. My friend Julie (yes, same name) and I made up a dance to it for P.E. :) Fond memories.
You really know the scoop about "Seasons in the Sun" - wow. Who knew!?
I just got finished blogging about the movie "Sunshine" that I went to see tonight, that's why I'm up so late. By the way, my old band, The Church Police, performed a cover of Kung Fu Fighting - it was great, a lot of fun, people in the audience would be chopping each other and Tim our singer would be doing these awkward funky nerd kicks at center stage.
We also covered "Love Rollercoaster" by the Ohio Players and "Killing Myself to Live" by Black Sabbath...
My sister and her friend made up a dance to "Jackie Blue" by the Ozark Mountain Daredevils. And that song gets me thinking about "Brother Louie" by Stories (the tragic tale of a forbidden interracial relationship that a lot of folks just weren't quite ready for... "Louie Louie Louie Looo-weeee, Louie Louie Louie Looo-waaaah,
Louie Louie Louie Looo-weeee,
Louie Louie, how come you cry?")
OK, I really hafta get to bed!!!
Oh not. You did not call Journey forgettable 70s music!
I love Journey (well some of their stuff anyway).
Where's the unsubscribe button?
;-)
Peace,
Brian
Love me some Kung Fu Fighting!!
So fun to come read all these comments this morning. :)
I happen to enjoy Journey (cheryl- I like the junk food analogy, and Dave, anyone who listens to "Your Having My Baby" just can't complain about sappy music, sorry- that's right up there with "Me and God are Watching Scotty Grow" gag....), but I had to appreciate the Family guy video! Oh my! Still wiping the tears from my eyes. Thanks, musings.
Well I have to add a funny.
My kids sat and read this blog entry last night (shout out to Fracky for knowing Tegan and Sara, said one of them) and they were mystified by why I don't like journey (and cited the many sane individuals here who do like them).
Then Jacob in a moment of clarity said, "Wait. Do you feel about "Don't Stop Believin'" the same way I'd feel if one of my kids told me that he loved "The Reason" by Hoobastank and then played it over and over?"
YES! I said.
Jacob said, "Oh Mom, I'm so sorry. I totally get it. I'd HATE that." :)
Ah signs of empathy. Love them.
Carrie, you got me there re: complaining about sappy music, I suppose. "Having My Baby" is pretty close to the bottom of the barrel when it comes to cloying, mind-numbing and outright weird mutations of sentimentality. But I still find some kind of macabre pleasure when that song (or others like it, such as Bobby Goldsboro's "Honey" or Charlene's "I've Never Been To Me") come up in the random shuffle! Of course, with over 25,000 songs on my computer at the moment, I hope no one makes the mistake of letting these particular selections "define" what I'm about musically!
I'm going to have to look up that "Watching Scotty Grow" song though. I don't think I have that one yet... (Ah, I see that it was another gem from Bobby Goldsboro! What an artiste!)
If they get hooked on "Ebony & Ivory", throw out the ipods.
I love Journey, but I think that if they actually saw the cheesy 70s outfits and hair as well as the air keyboards in the video for Separate Ways, it might cure them.
It is still the 80s stuff that moves me the most, though... [sob, sniffle]
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