As a ten-year old, trying to be cool like my twelve-year old sister, I spent one day in September of 1980 rummaging through her album collection—something I would do through my twenties. She had excellent taste in music back then. My very first encounter with rock and roll—aside from hearing Chuck Berry, Elvis, Little Richard, Fats Domino and Jerry Lee Lewis in my Dad’s car—was pulling out a record from some band called Van Halen.
My curiosity piqued by photos of four crazy looking rockers on the frontispiece, I looked at the back of the album settling on the cool sounding ‘Eruption.’ Turned the record player on, dropped the vinyl down and found the track. “Why not give the band a 1:47,” I mused: watch the ten-year old brain at work, minimal investment of time.
That two minutes changed my life. Not only did I become a lifelong fan of anything Eddie did, I immediately began a decades long discovery of some of the best music ever made. Some of which I will highlight for you in very new and unique ways.
Musical discovery is similar to the intellectual process. You read a giant, then his or her footnotes, or if its literature, you read the academic preface, introduction or forward. If your curious enough you see the path of their influences and follow it, acedemically you begin discovering the secondary or primary sources and accumulate knowledge while your analytical faculties grow as your mind expands. The process of musical discovery, especially if you are a nascent musician (I play the guitar), is basically identical to that of intellectual discovery. You begin with a scorching Eddie Van Halen guitar solo and soon you’re deep into AC/DC, the Pretenders, Phil Collins, Foreigner, Bad Company, Free, Deep Purple, REO Speedwagon and many more. (I promise, we will get to Queen.)
Dive-bombing into big sisters LP collection, fingers flicking LP after LP until Sad Wings of Destiny—I loved the cover art—by Judas Priest, presented itself. It wasn’t actually big sister’s, a friend lent it to her and she hated it. But not me. Victim of Changes sounded like a good place to start. The arrangement and transitions from heavy metal to bluesy ruefulness back to hard rock beyond any insanity Ozzy could muster blew me away, as did Rob Halfrod’s amazing howls, screeches and soul. Horizons expanded with the Scorpions, “Still Loving You,” which still gives me the chills, especially those guitar interludes. (I am, after all, a guitar man.)
One day in January of 1983, mom asked me to grab her favorite pair of shoes—my parents had finally divorced by this time—from her closet. Now, I’d never rummage through Momma’s closet, or purse for that matter. I respected and had a healthy fear of my mother. She’s a good woman and raised me well. But in that closet I found solid gold: her LP collection from the late 60s through the early 70s. Smack in the middle of the Beatles and Cream—what ever happened to alphabetizing things!?— were four LPs by Led Zeppelin. “Damn,” I realized, “my mom was a total hippie!’
Led Zeppelin was its very own revelation, indoctrination and revolution, like waking up in a new house, with a rock god’s voice piercing closed windows, a throbbing door with each kick of the bass drum, subtle hum of the bass in my heart and the various tchotchkes and bric-á-brac of boyhood rattling around and falling of the shelves to the ever insistent riffs of Jimmy Page’s defiant, vital guitar. Harmonies, melodies, and crushing choruses all.
Even thought I was drawn to heavy metal—I saw Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Motley Crue, Saxon, Metallica, Whitesnake and many others multiple times—as a matter of protest at the mess of a relationship between my parents and generalized early-teen angst (13-16), even then my taste in music was thoroughly catholic.
There wasn’t a genre a music I would not listen to if the music ‘sang to me.’ The college music my big sis was now listening to was fantastic. REM’s Cold-War anthem ‘Radio Free Europe’ and follow up hit, “These Days,” are two of the best songs of the genre, not to mention the era. Indeed, I loved RunDMC, LL Cool J and Public Enemy—partly because their breakouts came near the end of the Apartheid era in South Africa. More importantly their music compelled me to reexamine and then escape the narrow minded bigotry of my elders. Music and politics should be as vital now as they were then. Sadly they got a divorce when the Dixie Chicks, Kanye West and others called out Bush the Younger out on national TV. Still, my youth was divine, as I danced many a night away to the sounds and rhythms of the English New Wave. Even today when I hear Erasure, Simple Minds or Australia’s INXS I smile and sing along.
Then grunge exploded onto the scene and American music entered its silver age. The music of the nineties and early ‘aughts is second only to the golden age of the late sixties and seventies. By the time Nirvana repudiated the glam-metal bands I was a junior at university. I didn’t particularly like their sound, but I did appreciate them on an intellectual level. Pearl Jam had some great moments and Eddie Vedder’s soundtrack to Into the Wild will forever recall images of my year-long walkabout across the globe in 2008-2009. Alice in Chains, Stone Temple Pilots and the Presidents of the United States of America all climbed the charts and inhabited the CD player in my 1985 Toyota Supra 5-speed manual transmission with a straight six. Lord, I loved that car. But the true grunge standout was Soundgarden. Let me say it now, loud and clear. This live version shows off Chris Cornell at his finest, and validates his inclusion into the pantheon of rock gods. Cornell puts on a master class of vocal range and power the equal of but different to both Freddie Mercury and Robert Plant.
This is as good a place as any to wrap up this long winded preface and introduce you to to something that is hopefully new to you: YouTube™ Reaction videos. I’ve chosen seven performances and first time reactions, five of which are absolutely iconic, and two from the same artist who is new to scene and an example of a new generation of singer/songwriters. All this for your edification.
There is something hopeful watching Millennials and Gen Zs discovering the music of my youth. Like the intellectual process, musical discovery leads first to repetition then innovation. I doubt anyone will argue with my next assertion: every genre of modern music sounds the same today as it did twenty years ago. What was on the radio in 2004 sounds identical to 2024. The only change I see is the growing recognition of a group of singer-songwriters, rooted in folk, country and sixties rock, of which the premier member of said group is Jason Isbell—who we will watch. Hope springs eternal.
So, down the rabbit hole we go!
What makes these video reactions precious is watching a young white working class British rapper react to Soundgarden’s ‘Outshined,” for the first time. He follows Chris Cornell’s obliterating sonic pounding with Eddie Van Halen’s 1987 live performance of “Eruption,” which is without a doubt the greatest guitar solo of all time. Thank you Eddie, and rest in peace. Those two minutes you gave me forty-three years ago made my world a fuller, richer and better place.
Or watching two young African-Americans watch Freddie Mercury strut across the stage singing Queen’s incomparable hit “Fat Bottomed Girls.” Sadly, Body-postive activists raised enough of a stink to get the song removed from the latest release of Queen’s Greatest Hits album. What is the problem with people these days? Do they not understand that this song celebrates big bottoms? Brian May said he penned it for Freddie because Freddie liked girls and boys with big fat bottoms. So too do a lot of African-Americans and Latinos. We Gen Xers might be cynical—why not after inheriting a complete disaster from the Baby Boomers—but these children are cynically and hyper-self-obsessed. It reminds me of the failed movement in the early ‘aughts (2000s) to excise the word ‘nigger’ from the writing of Mark Twain. Why not edit Shakespeare too? But enough of that bullshit. We’re here to celebrate music!
Penultimately, please enjoy these two reactions by Millennial guitar teacher, Michael Palmisano, discovering the sumptuous and captivating stories Jason Isbell sings. My personal favorite is “Cover Me Up,” but Palmisano’s reaction to “Elephant” is proof positive of Isbell’s songwriting prowess. His voice is powerful and angelic at the same time. Indeed, I’m with Palmisano in seeing him as the greatest lyricist in America today. He’s like John Prine, Ryan Adams and Rik Emmet all rolled into one.
But, I’ve saved the best for last. This is a true gift. Just watch this young man from Zambia listen to Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody for the first time. Watch the kids face and listen to the first words he utters at the end of the song, “Dear Lord . . . This. Is. Music.” You’re goddamned right, Bman. I envy your journey.
What all of these songs do is expressed best by an eloquent and gracious comment in the Bohemian Rhapsody thread. Mike Gutschow 8384 writes, “[Bohemian Rhapsody] really brings people together that would otherwise probably not know they had much in common and [it] bridges the gap between generations and cultures.”
Head over to YouTube™ when you get a chance and look up a reaction video to your favorite 60s-70s-80s or 90s song. There are thousands of them made by people from all walks of life. Folks from as far away as South Korea or right behind your California backyard, white female vocal teachers and Latino kids in the barrio. Please share your favorites in the comments.
Some are good and some folks make too many damned interruptions, but they all prove music’s unifying gift, begining with Mozart and consummateed by artists as diverse as Beethoven, LL Cool J, Robert Johnson, Aretha Frankin, Chuck Berry, Edward Van Halen and rock royalty, Led Zeppelin; there are only two kinds of music: good music and bad music.
Enjoy!
Soredemos
I can’t speak for what’s playing on radio (no one listens to radio anymore); maybe that does all sound like 2004, but plenty of new music is as varied and fresh as it ever was. It’s just all scattered across a vast internet landscape these days.
That said, for rock and roll specifically, that is essentially dead in the west. Oh, metal is as alive as ever, though it’s atomized into fifty different sub genres. But old style hard rock endures outside the English speaking world, particularly in Japan.
Curt Kastens
Some good news for guess who is overdue.
mago
Huh, señor Kastens? Guess who?
American Woman?
Ok. I’ve got a few things to say about Sean Paul Kelly’s great riff here, but maybe later.
Sean Paul Kelly. What a name. Love it.
Up next, The Sean Paul Kelly 1914 Cayahuga Bird Club Band.
Nate Wilcox
I love YouTube reaction videos. The genre of 20-something Black dudes enjoying dad rock is oddly touching and hopeful to me.
Willy
I saw a video where they played Ten Years Gone for a couple black youths hearing it for the very first time. They were both clearly amazed and demanded to know who it was.
There are some pretty good videos explaining the fading of the high-talent high-creativity garage band era I grew up with, into the corporate greed blandness of today, where good stuff is still out there but you’ve gotta know how and where to look.
Back then if you wanted to see anybody live, whether it be Floyd with lasers in a big arena, or the flying fingers of an acoustic John McLaughlin up close and personal, it was never more than reasonable busboy money, or around $50 in today’s dollars.
I was weaned on the Beatles and Zeppelin, then moved into prog rock and jazz fusion. I liked some of the new wave, hair metal, R&B, synth, grunge, rap, funk, punk, reggae, rockabilly etc. as each era arrived, never being loyal to one but enjoying at least something which each had to offer me.
Today, I’m at a complete loss to understand the popularity of modern pop country. But I try not to sweat it. Same for the amazing staying power of urban rap. If you need to listen to endless variations of the same thing, then you do you. I have absolutely no idea what Lady Gaga is and can’t for the life of me get why we’re supposed to worship Snoop Dogg. Somebody eagerly shelling out $400 for reasonable seats to see either one is beyond my reckoning.
My very last concert was seeing Boston 20 years ago for the bargain price of free, as long as you didn’t mind sitting on the grass.
Radio people make no sense to me. I’ve already heard Roundabout enough times for one lifetime already, why not listen to Tempus Fugit just once? Is there some kind of familiarity ‘comfort food’ aspect they’re into?
I appreciate the instant demand music sources though. Hear some long-lost riff on a commercial, and within minutes you’ve got the whole song as often as you want to hear it. Then move on to the next long-lost song. Pretty cool.
both sides do it
“everything from ’04 to now sounds the same” misses the mark so widely that it’s not half-right it’s false
the ability to manipulate sound digitally has deepened, cheapened and democratized since ’04
any pop song, rap song, r&b song etc from that era sounds so much tinnier, emptier, less dynamic etc. than any given song put out by even a small label in the genre today that it’s not a question of taste: there’s a huge difference, as different as eg guns n roses and Jason Isbell
i think what you’re pointing to, which I agree with, is that the *evolution of genres* has stopped
the transition from the 40s to 00s involving jazz/blues, r&b, rock ‘n roll, rap, glam rock, prog rock, heavy metal, folk, grunge, pop etc. was dramatic and *steady*
that definitely stopped sometime in the aughts
and was replaced with, I dunno, iterations on Imagine Dragons forever
Mark Fisher is the lodestar on this (esp. Slow Cancellation of the Future and Ghosts of my Past)
mago
Forgive the vowel elimination. The e.
Sean Paul Kelley.
One strives for precision and errs.
Willy
Humans were dancing around campfires for a lot longer than they were paying good money to see and be seen at mega-EDM concerts dancing to a single DJ playing a computerized music box. I prefer much smaller campfire-sized crowds, but it sure seems that most do not.
No doubts corporate overlords have pondered over eliminating that DJ. But how do we dress up that box? Would giving that box an entourage of sexy groupies give it street cred? Can we cover it with corporate sponsor stickers? Hey I know, we can pay kids to sport corporate tats. Lookit how many of them have already crossed the line from NFL jerseys to Nike tees. Focus Willy, focus. Computerizing talent and skill. Where’s this going and who gets to control it all?
I learned late in life that my beloved Led Zeppelin were notorious riff lifters. Hendrix said as much and nobody listened. I even worked with a fellow busboy who’d warned me. I’d said okay, so who do you prefer. Joni Mitchell. Joni Mitchell? WTF? Where’s the fun in Joni Mitchell? I’d rather say that I’d seen Zeppelin at the Coliseum.
Sorry about the overflowing verbiage. I’m procrastinating. Need to do some sketchy and physically demanding work involving tall ladders and this is a lot easier.
elkern
The most important machine I ever had was a beige clock-radio the size of a small loaf of bread.
Growing up halfway between NYC and Philly in the heyday of AM radio, I could get four different Rock stations, so I could always switch stations to avoid annoying commercials or news.
Born in 1954, the music of my earlier years was a mix: my Dad liked Big Band Jazz, while my Mom was more into Beatnik Jazz & Folk; I never really connected with any of that. My [rich] Uncle was big into Classical, and that actually sank in more.
My first two albums (gifted) were “Meet the Beatles” and “December’s Children” (Stones); a pretty good place to draw the line between 1950’s “Rock’n’Roll” and “’60’s Rock”.
I probably started listening to that old clock radio a lot in 1965-6, as my homework load got heavier in 6th Grade. AM Radio through the last half of the 1960’s was a wonderfully eclectic hodge-podge of Rock, R&B, Folk, Soul, (residual) Jazz, Motown, Show Tunes, and Novelty Songs. The Beach Boys, Elvis, and even Frank Sinatra were still crooning melodies, but they were soon swamped by the drug-fueled explosion of creativity and chaos which kicked in about when I started really listening.
Rubber Soul, Revolver, and Sgt Pepper were the soundtrack for my transition from Child to Teen. The world was still beautiful & magical, but much bigger and more complex. Bob Dylan, The Jefferson Airplane, and others railed at the cultural and political boundaries of my Boy Scout up-bringing; but there was also plenty of comfy, romantic Bubble-Gum, which was still a better fit for my (slow) evolution toward sexual awakening. Soul got more political as cities burned. Jimi Hendrix played the best-ever version of our National Anthem…
That ugly Clock-Radio connected me to a magical time in History.
Willy
I had grandmas Telefunken. Claimed to be stereo, but I could never tell. Way too heavy to carry around on my shoulder. A bunch of us eventually grew out of hand-me-down equipment and used our part time job money to buy trendy stereo components.
For some reason I was a guy musicians wanted to show off new skills to. Maybe they sensed I could sit quietly for a long time. In class, a guy I barely knew insisted we get a library pass together. “I have something really important to share with you”. I thought, oh no, Amway. Or LDS. I went along anyways. He pulled out a tape player with a tape of him playing “Train Kept a Rollin’. He was so proud he could play the whole thing. He’d later drop out of the college his rich father had gotten him into, to play with a famous 60’s band for many years. My sister brought home her college boyfriend for a weekend and he stayed with me in my room. He played my “Walk This Way”, at least a dozen times. I think she was his first girlfriend.
My HS gang hated disco. If you were into disco then you were an evil imperialist. We were the good guys, part of the rebel alliance. Years later I’d be algorithm’d the Venus Hum + Blue Man Crew doing Donna Summers “I Feel Love” video. I played that one a dozen times. Made me wonder about the true purpose of our anti-disco angst. The disco guys were after all, getting all the chicks the jocks weren’t. I think it was all about the comradery.
mago
Erudite is a good word to describe JPK’s observations across the spectrum.
Great to read his insights.
About R&R. I was grooving as a 13 year old kid with the Stones, the Beatles, Dylan, Led Zeppelin for sure. The Young Rascals with Good Lovin, yeah yeah yeah /that’s all I need/good lovin.
I started an album collection at age 11 with the Brit bands and branched out to the blues masters that inspired them as I went through my teenage years.
I had Blue Note Folklore albums that recorded artists from their Delta porch shacks.
An eclectic vinyl collection spanning generations and genres. Around a thousand LPs, maybe more.
I left my ancestral Western home for the east coast at age 23 and left that collection stored in my mother’s basement.
Returned two years later to find them gone without explanation.
Somewhere over the rainbow on the good ship lollipop birds fly free and troubles melt like lollipops
Doo whop a doo whop
Rockers gotta rock.
Don’t mind me.
mago
Correction. I had a few hundred LP’s, not a thousand outside my head.
Whoops outside my head.
Jorge
Great nostalgia walk! I have a strong preference for instrumental music, and grew up with classical piano, Wendy Carlos’s Clockwork Orange Soundtrack, and some other weird records that I played the hell out of.
These days, 40 years later, I collect video game soundtracks and listen to them straight through while working. Video-game music is structured for repetition and even excitation levels. “Sunless Sea” is a great one to start with:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lB6cKhq4QVUKumNJcIBPYFLZ9RQE14D4g