Cross-genre call outs
I don’t like songs that celebrate a genre. I think this is the root of my hatred of Huey Lewis and the News, since “Heart of Rock and Roll” is the only song of theirs that I can remember. They are certainly not the only offenders: Joan Jett and others did “I Love Rock and Roll,” The Rolling Stones did “It’s Only Rock and Roll,” and I don’t like those songs, either. Singing praises to your genre strikes me as the last refuge of the songwriter out of ideas. Once the well of songwriting ideas has run dry, write a song about what it is that you do. Genres in themselves aren’t terribly interesting. There are good and bad songs in any style of music.
I got a haircut today, and whoever is in charge of the radio at Great Clips decided to tune it to Kicks 101.5 (WKHX Marietta). I’ve grown more tolerant of country over the years, so I mostly just tuned it out as I would if I were listening to WJZZ in a dentist’s office, but there were two songs that were memorable. One of them, playing when I walked in, was the country equivalent of “I Love Rock and Roll.” Some guy was singing about how great country music is and was requesting that the person playing the steel guitar turn it up, or possibly rock a beat. The other song was playing when my hair was actually being cut, and it had a similar theme. It was Alan Jackson singing “Don’t Rock the Jukebox,” a song explaining how country music is superior to rock and roll for sad times, since rock and roll is ineffective at capturing the pain of heartbreak. The song’s theme was similar to the earlier one, but I didn’t mind it as much, because, after I thought about it, I realized that he was right.