The old guard returns

Okay, time to get this column happening. Granted, I could make list.in.to.chicago the main focus, or at least more of a focus, of this section, but I was hoping to have more to say than that. Or at least commit my self to actually saying what it is I have to say. And don't even get me started on reviews. Man, I suck.

Anyway, it was about two weekend ago that I had an interesting little epiphany. There may be an odd little movement afoot in modern rock these days. At least I hope it's a movement, and not just a temporary return to glory. You see, it seems that many of the people who were instrumental in the birth of commercial alternative rock are back, and not a moment too soon. Amidst the hundreds of times I'll hear Disturbed's "Prayer" on the radio in a week, I'm also getting healthy doses of Audioslave, which is Soundgarden's Chris Cornell teamed up with 75% of Rage Against the Machine, Foo Fighters, the previously unreleased Nirvana tune, Pearl Jam and Queens of the Stone Age. Throw in the new song from Zwan that Billy Corgan dropped on local radio, ostensibly without the help and generosity of independent promoters, and it's practically a geezer-fest. And this may be some ageist, generational gap thing for me, but it's head and shoulders above the newer crap that has been dominating the airwaves as of late.

I mean, how can you even compare such current modern rock "hits" like...like...um, well that's pretty much the point, isn't it? I had been relying almost exclusively on radio in the car while I've been waiting to get my new stereo, and I can't remember much of anything. You've got bands like Stonesour, Trust Company, Puddle of Mudd (sic), and countless others that are completely indistinguishable from another, along with a radio machine with such a short institutional memory that they'll pronounce "She Hates Me," which I think is from one of those bands, as a revolutionary single for it's heavy reliance on the word "fuck." It's not like Tool's "Aenema" and "Starfuckers, Inc." from Nine Inch Nails did it first, and actually used the word for strong contextual effect. Heck, even Eminem curses with some sense of gravity. Maybe it's the first entirely gratuitious and shallow use of the word in a radio release?

So, to mix metaphors on the old/new front, it's a huge breath of fresh air at the moment, but if we've learned anything from radio in the aughts, it won't last.