The “grunge rock” of the 1990s is pretty much past its sell-by date, but its stink remains in the air. It also illustrates, abundantly, what I mean when I talk about killing the culture.
Here’s what the “Rock My World” website has to say about the history of grunge rock.
“Nothing epitomizes the disillusionment, apathy, and general sense of things all being ‘useless’ than grunge music. The genre captures the essence of Generation X malaise and turns it into music. In doing so, grunge music captured the attention of a generation and became the soundtrack for a youth that had no hope of a decent future” (https://www.rockmyworld.com/the-history-of-grunge/).
Can you give me hallelujah?
On top of grunge music we have heaped “Everything is racist!”, “The world is gonna end in just 12 years!”, the Drag Queen Story Hour, and a perpetual celebration of violence, corruption, and sin.
And then we wonder what’s happened to our culture? Really?
This is what you get when you turn away from God. This is that wonderful post-Christian era we keep hearing about. When we all get all sorts of free stuff and get to do anything we want, as long as some liberal approves of it.
They didn’t want the real God, or his moral laws.
Lots of luck with the false ones.
One thing that struck me in the El Paso shooter’s manifesto was that it was full of nihilism. The culture is sick, and no amount of laws are going to fix it.
That’s our “entertainment” for you.
One thing that I’m noticing is that anything I would consider music is not popular in our day. I see this as much more than a matter of taste. Music has become nihilistic over the decades and there is very little hitting the charts today that doesn’t reflect a mentality that I want no part of. In the meantime, the musical accomplishments of the past have been cast aside and are completely irrelevant to many people today.
Music is a reflection of the psyche. I couldn’t play grunge music, because there is no grunge in my heart waiting to be expressed. I’ve played guitar since childhood and was never impressed with Jimi Hendrix. That music simply did not “speak to me” in any way. I’ve even bought some of that music and tried to understand what others appreciated about it, but to no effect. I don’t hate all Rock; there’s some I consider brilliant, but a great deal of it is rather low on content and high on (social) context. In other words, you have to be part of a certain social subdivision in order to find meaning in it.
But I’m not interested in being a part of any social subdivision which promotes immorality and/or drug abuse. The lyrics to many Rock pieces are immoral and promote a culture of sexual freedom which I prefer not to be a part of. What has happened, at least in my case, is that I’m finding many of the songs I used to like are now distasteful, because I don’t want even the tinge of immorality in my entertainment.
That’s why we have classical and folk music: it lasts.
The dreck that comes out of the cars as they go up and down Main Street–you’d swear people actively desire ugliness and seek it out. When I try to put myself in their mental landscape, I can’t do it. Which is almost certainly a good thing.
I dearly miss the Great American Songbook of Standards and meaningful ballads.
The Dayton shooter was in a Psych Grind band that extolled the raping and killing of women – then he kills his own sister.