Music lacks disrespect for elders
Is a Top-40 chart full of music by Ed Sheeran really what we want for our kids, asks Michael Deacon.
Sorry, but it’s got to stop. Something needs to be done. As a parent, I’m growing deeply concerned about the type of music that young people today are listening to.
Quite frankly, it’s far too inoffensive.
Put it like this. The latest Top-40 chart contains no fewer than 16 – yes, 16 – songs by Ed Sheeran. Sheeran is an unassuming, likeable young man who performs pleasant, tuneful, old-fashioned love songs on an acoustic guitar.
Is this really what we want for our children?
Ever since the birth of pop, generations of young people have used it for its proper purpose: to scandalise their elders and alarm the press. Children of the 1950s did it with Elvis. Children of the 1960s with The Rolling Stones. In the 1970s, it was glam, heavy metal and punk; the 1980s, goth and hiphop; the 1990s, house, techno, drum and bass. In each case, music that – to the ears of older listeners – was new, strange, ugly, subversive, threatening and obscene.
Which is exactly how it should be. It is the duty of the young to shock the old – and then, when they grow old themselves, to be shocked in turn by the generation below. It’s the circle of pop-cultural life.
Yet today, disturbingly, we find young people listening in their droves to gentle melodies and innocuous lyrics. Not just by Sheeran, whose new album has sold more than 500,000 copies in the United Kingdom this week – but by Adele, Coldplay, Olly Murs, Ellie Goulding, Taylor Swift. All respectable, presentable people who perform innocent, harmless music.
This simply will not do. Parental horror is proof of a youth culture that is fresh, original and alive. If parents can enjoy their children’s music as much as their children do, something has gone badly wrong.
All I can say is, woe betide any child of mine who I catch listening to an acoustic ballad.
‘‘What on Earth is this rubbish? It’s totally unlistenable. The man’s singing completely in tune.’’ ‘‘It’s Ed Sheeran, Dad.’’ ‘‘Ed Sheeran indeed. Look at the state of him, with his glasses and his nice checked shirt and his little ginger beard. Don’t tell me – I suppose you’ll be wanting glasses and a nice checked shirt and a little ginger beard next, too. Well, if you think you’re leaving the house looking like that, young man, you’ve got another think coming. Why can’t you wear a rubber catsuit, or get some horrible piercings?’’
‘‘But Dad, I don’t want a rubber catsuit or some horrible piercings.’’
‘‘Don’t you talk to me like that. Far too polite. For pity’s sake, you don’t even swear. Show some disrespect to your elders and betters. Good Lord, are there no rude words on this album?’’
‘‘Leave me alone. You don’t understand.’’
‘‘Don’t understand? Too right I don’t. In my day we listened to proper music, full of blasphemy and profanity, and drugs and sex. Now I find you polluting your mind with all this nonsense about romance and commitment. And do you really have to play it so quietly?’’
‘‘Well, I’m sorry, Dad, but I’m afraid times have changed. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got my geography homework to do.’’
‘‘Geography homework? I’ve had just about enough of this. You’re young. You’re supposed to be rebellious. Rebel against me!‘‘ ‘‘But I don’t want to rebel.’’ ‘‘Rebel!’’ ‘‘No!’’ ‘‘Right. That’s it. If you refuse to disobey me one more time, I’m stopping your pocket money.’’ – The Telegraph