I dread day Mr Brightside is considered classic rock
The inevitable passage of time comes for us all in the end, no matter how hard we try to escape from it. Objectively I am still a young man. I’ve just turned 27 and have only spotted the occasional grey hair in my beard. And yet, I am starting to feel old. I know it probably sounds ludicrous but yet as the calendar flipped over to 2021 it was how I was feeling.
I have yet to wrap my head around
Tik Tok and how it works. But perhaps most worrying of all, the things I loved growing up are celebrating 15th and even 20th anniversaries.
Only a few months ago, Linkin Park marked two decades since the release of Hybrid Theory – which is one of the earliest albums I remember buying.
Later this year, My Chemical Romance’s seminal album The Black Parade will be turning 15. How?
Fall Out Boy’s From Under the Cork Tree and Panic at the Disco’s Fever You Can’t Sweat Out will be turning 16. It will also be 14 years since Paramore put out Misery Business, 17 years since
American Idiot shot Green Day back into the limelight.
When I was starting secondary school, Naruto was one of the most popular kids’ shows at the time. In October it was 18 years since it debuted on TV. For those who remember Nickelodeon, this month marks 16 years since the first episode of Drake and Josh aired.
It will be 14 years since Call of Duty 4 and Guitar Hero 3 were released – two games that quite literally everyone in my year at school got for Christmas 2007. It felt like a giant cultural moment.
But the one I am perhaps dreading the most, is the day that Mr Brightside becomes known as a classic rock song. That truly will be the final nail in the coffin of my youth, more so than the other songs I’ve referenced because Mr Brightside feels so ageless.
My Chemical Romance and Fall Out Boy feel like a product of the time – the emo/alt-rock boom of the mid-00s.
But soon even Mr Brightside will be considered a throwback to a by-gone era, in the same way the likes of Bon Jovi did when I was growing up. Perhaps to Generation Z it already does.