When music had its Concorde moment...

Most of us born in the 80s tend to have grandeurs of eloquence. We believe the rest of humanity is a lump of turd, that it is somehow beneath us to even have some attributes in common with them. It is always us vs. them. Heaven forbid if we should ever share a taste in music or clothes. That would be sacrilege. As Motley Crue once famously put it, "The biggest career gaffe that we could ever make was getting caught having a glass of milk." Perhaps they did not put it quite this articulately with all the booze and drugs getting in the way of their coherence but you get the drift.

The 80s was all about excess. Rock n Roll excess, Metal excess, and even bad hair excess. For all that us 80s progenies make a fuss over, the one thing we completely disown is the decade's sense of style. We lean more towards 90s grunge styling. It is a reflection of the times that we live in - contradictions are everywhere.

The latter half of the 20th Century can be described musically. Elvis Presley ruled the 50s. It was all about The Beatles in the 60s. Def Leppard rocked the 70s. Michael Jackson was the king of the 80s. That MJ managed to carve out a throne for himself atop the metal mania is a feat in itself. Of course, for us 80s borns MJ's music is beneath us. Hypocrisy? No. That is what our trait is. As I often keep saying, you do not begrudge a Scorpion for its sting.

As the 80s gave way to the 90s and then to the 00s, 80s borns entered their teens and their adulthood. Ironic isn't it that not a single artist / band stands out in the last two decades? Oh there has been an explosion of 'artists'. Either none has been good enough to rule the roost or we are a screwed up generation that does not know what it wants.

Of course, if you ask most of us metal heads we will tell you that music died with Kurt Cobain's suicide. The bands we listen to even today belong to 80s and before - Quiet Riot, Metallica, Megadeth, Motley Crue, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Twisted Sister, to name a few. We wear our taste in music almost as proudly as a mother displays her child's trophies on the mantle piece. Unlike a mother though, looking down on someone who listens to a Britney or a Mariah is a given. Today's pop culture makes us cringe.

Being as I am, a result of the 80s, I believe we had our Concorde moment in music in the 80s. For the uninitiated, a Concorde moment is one where mankind reaches the pinnacle of its achievement - ever since the Concorde no passenger aircraft has been built that can fly supersonic, and perhaps none ever will be. It is all downhill from there.