Imagine you’re 14 years old (if you’re actually 14 years old, GET A HAIRCUT, YA PUNK). You’ve probably never purchased a physical album your entire life. Why would you, with millions of songs available through Spotify and Pandora, not to mention iTunes, illegal torrents, and YouTube? The possibilities are almost literally endless, the entire history of music at your fingertips straight to your tinny Apple earbuds you’ve been meaning to get rid of. With so much out there, it’s getting harder and harder to be exposed to the Old Guard, the bands that your parents blast in the car (and you zone out to when they play “that weird octopus song” again).
So it’s not really a surprise that Kanye West fans of a certain age have no idea who this Paul McCartney bloke is. And it doesn’t really matter. That’s just how music works.
When was the last time you listened to Johnnie Ray, or Eddie Fisher, or the Fontane Sisters? They were some of the world’s biggest pop stars in the 1950s, but they’ve almost been completely forgotten to time. The Beatles are unquestionably more influential than any of them, but many of the artists that inspired the Fab Four, including Cliff Richard and the Shadows and the Everly Brothers, aren’t exactly showing up on too many iTunes playlists. (The last time McCartney released a top-20 hit was in 1985 with “Spies Like Us.”) One generation’s “THIS IS MY FAVORITE SINGER/BAND EVER” is another’s “who’s Duane Eddy?”
The Beatles are great, the Beatles are meaningful, the Beatles are one of my favorite bands, but I grew up listening to classic rock radio, and that’s how I first heard “Hey Jude” and “I Wanna Hold Your Hand.” But we’re no longer held hostage by Clear Channel — we can listen to whatever we want to, wherever we want to, and if some 13-year-old kid chooses Taylor Swift on their iPhone over mom’s “Come Together,” so be it. Just because we’ve accepted that the Beatles are IMPORTANT doesn’t mean Jaden or Alyson have to.
Who’s to say Kanye West can’t be their Beatles?
Music is generational. Just because I love the Beatles doesn’t mean my future-kids have to. It’d be nice if they at least know OF them, but it’s not like my dad’s able to name one Kanye West song. And I can’t say, say, say a single Artie Shaw track. We’re all someone’s KIDS TODAY.
