Down with dinosaurs!
Pound me with Rod Stewart's signature soccer balls if you will, but I argue the original (and still relevant) mandate of rock music was to sonically embody youth rebellion. I repeat, "youth" rebellion.
Think about it. Proto-rockers like Buddy Holly, Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis all combined a fiercely original sound and near blasphemous assault on their parents' value systems.
Follow that up with Elvis' hips, Jimi Hendrix' national anthem, the Beatles' India adventures, the Sex Pistols' art school anarchy, Guns 'N' Roses' white trash anthems and Nirvana's anguished distortion.
All were clarion calls of a new generation rebelling against the authoritarian structures of their elders.
Even Stewart, in his Faces mode, presented an electrified rock uprising. But when he brought out former bandmate Ron Wood to co-star in an abysmal MTV unplugged episode, he announced to the world he was now a rock dinosaur.
Some good older rockers
But not all aging rockers need hang up their leather pants. While we deify bands that self-destruct at their prime -- Doors, Beatles, Nirvana -- some artists maintain dignity and respect past their prime.
Neil Young and Bob Dylan, for instance, tour constantly with new material that, if not quite matching their greatest hits, at least shows artistic integrity.
And unlike the Eagles and Rolling Stones (or KISS and the Sex Pistols) they seem to be performing for love of the music not the money.
Driven by money
But Stewart, who appears at the Corel Centre offering tickets at the low, low price of $57.59, $67.59, $77.59 plus Ticketmaster charges, appears to be in it purely for the profits.
After all, he is touring his "new" album, a collection of covers of young U.K. acts such as Oasis, Primal Scream and Skunk Anansie, called When We Were the New Boys.
At least Stewart did write the title song, filling it with "ironic" lyrics like "And we never would grow old/when we were the new boys."
Now that he's an old boy, Stewart should realize that mining baby boomers for excess capital is one thing, but covering young acts to retain rock relevance is more than ironic, it's just plain sad.
