Generation Crap

I have to vent. I know some people who think they're cutting edge producers of TV shows and movies as well as musical geniuses. I've worked with them. They aren't. They throw around esoteric references to directors and bands as if to prove they have their fingers on the pulse of what's hot and what's not. They don't.

Their knowledge of movies stops with Pulp Fiction. Their musical tastes embrace hip hop and alternative groups. They wouldn't know the difference between a Bach fugue and seventies funk. They couldn't edit a trailer or create a marketing plan for lunch. I know, I've seen and heard their best efforts.

The problem is that most of them are in their twenties and male. I'm in my sixties and female. You know where this is going. So I just stay the hell away from them as much as possible.

Recently, in a goodwill gesture, if nothing else, I offered to buy copies of a CD they were marketing for little kids. I always felt that they'd taken an idea I'd mentioned to one of them in passing and just kept it for themselves. Can't complain. I shouldn't have said anything. Plus I didn't say DIBS.

As I understood their version of the project, they took some familiar tunes we all learn in childhood and supposedly auditioned a bunch of different music houses to create some new arrangements. Updating the old and making it new. Simple enough idea. Not very fresh, but sometimes simple is better. I know what I had wanted to do with those tunes -- something more sophisticated and fun than what it sounded like they were doing. But I put my idea on hold when I heard their plans. Now I was curious to see what they had come up with.

Yesterday I picked up four of their CD's. They didn't charge me which I thought was nice. On reflection there may be a reason for that. The CD cover has bright, cutesy graphics on the front and back. colorful and targeted to little kids. Based on the art, I thought, at the very least, my young nieces and nephews would enjoy listening to these old favorites when they were strapped to their carseats, riding in the van. Their moms and dads could take a trip down memory lane and sing along with them.

Until I listened to the first cut. It was a train wreck. I was playing the most gawdawful noise I'd ever heard. Sesame Street meets Slash. A heavy metal perversion of one of the world's favorite childhood melodies, entirely devoid of the familiar tune, with a vocal that was nothing but screeching. Metallica sounds like madrigals by comparison. Earth to grunge boys -- you want Mom and Dad to have family sing a longs to THIS?

I quickly skipped to the next cut. Ack. Even worse. The same kind of cacophony. I could hear the "singers" screaming the words we all know, but that's where the resemblance to anything musical ended. The experience reminded me of the commercial where the sales person is asking a mom and dad what kind of music their kid likes. "Putrid trash." "Atonal garbage." It's like being sucker punched." "It's like paper cuts on your eardrums."

One "song" after another. Each was worse than the last. It was the kind of noise that would drive a parent or grandparent insane. Especially when you've got a toddler that loves to hear the same tune [and I use that term loosely] over and over and over.  Assuming the sound didn't scare the poop out of junior and make him want to cry instead.

I think there were eight or ten cuts. Only one bore any relation to the original tune, thanks to the lone female voice on the whole CD. She could actually sing. And just this one time, the arrangement wasn't heavy metal, it was something kinder and gentler.

Did these hip and happening guys not understand that the last thing a parent wants in a music CD for their kids is something only 18 to 24 year old males eating pizza and smoking dope can enjoy?

So I called my music guy to say all bets are off. I played nice with those assheads. I can't wait to let him hear this unadulterated crap. We can have a few laughs at their expense. And then do it our way.