Talkin' 'bout my generation

I have this very distinct memory from high school.  I was alone in the car with my English teacher and a neighbor on the way home from school.  Both of these gentlemen are of an age with my parents, and are members of the part of that generation who defined themselves by breaking with their parents' social standards and forging a brave new world.  That world is now primarily remembered for experimentation with drugs and new social standards, as well as a revolution in music.  This neighbor, feeling cantankerous perhaps, asked me a question as something of a challenge.  His question was, "What music defines the legacy of [my] generation?"  I was a shy kid.  I mumbled something about The Pixies, as that was the first thing that came to mind. He shot me down dismissively, saying that Art Rock had been around a long time.  He was, of course, perfectly right.  For his generation, Rock and Roll was a revolution that has changed completely the shape of music ever since. 

I suppose it says something about me that this conversation has stuck with me for so long.  I think about it periodically, and have come to the conclusion that the correct answer is very simple.  I was too prejudiced at the time to see it.  He would have hated it and I didn't have the strength of character to argue the point at the time, so I suppose it is for the best that I didn't try to defend it.  The answer, of course, is hip hop and the parallels are striking. 

Both hip hop and rock music have roots in African American music traditions.  Led Zeppelin (the band for which the term "heavy metal" was coined) started life as a blues band.  Rock, of course, has had at least thirty more years to evolve and permeate the mainstream than hip hop has, but when it started, the older generation dismissed it as noise, not music.  Ironically, those same rebellious youths who dismissed their parents as square are now all grown up and dismiss hip hop as noise, not music. 

Unlike rock, hip hop has remained primarily segregated racially.  With a few exceptions (Vanilla Ice, and Eminem standing out among them, each in his own way) artists that most would consider true hip hop remain black or brown (Pit Bull and other Latino artists are examples here).  All it takes is a few minutes on a modern pop music station to hear the influence of hip hop and R&B on modern pop.  I spend as few minutes as possible listening to modern pop music stations, so I am not going to embarrass myself here by trying to list names and songs.  Like rock in the eighties, hip hop aesthetics pervade modern music.  It is my generation's musical legacy.

Perhaps writing this piece will purge my memory of this conversation and allow me to stop making this argument in my head during idle moments.  Of course, it brings up another question to keep me up at night.  I like to think of myself as a pretty cool dad.  My iPod contains plenty of music my parents would find headache-inducing.  I do some judicial editing with the on-off button on my car stereo so that my daughter can indulge her passion for Eminem's Haley's Song (you see, she shares initials with him, and came up with the nickname M&M for herself independently so she feels a certain connection to that bleached-blond, foul-mouthed bad boy of hip hop).  Now that I have freed up some mental real estate, I can spend my time worrying about what the musical legacy of my children's generation will be.  What, in twenty years, will they be listening to that I will consider noise, not music?