Suck weighs in on the resurgence of phoney Beatlemania, and while I dig the idea that this represents “an attempt by aging boomers to colonize the youth of their children, to make all who come after them replicate the boomers’ own sensibilities, tastes, and experiences in a way far more totalized and stifling than anything the ’60s generation rebelled against”, I think Mr. Mxyzptlk overstates the case a tad, at least when it comes to the omnipresence of sixties music. If the fact that Beatles 1 sold more than Black And Blue is supposed to be some kind of victory for boomer culture, my, what a shallow one it is. While certain reissues and back-catalogue material from sterling sixties artists like the Dead, Dylan and the Stones have made some nice little successes, none of them have even remotely approached the über-platinum of the last few Beatle releases. And how meaningful could the Fabs’ triumph be when it’s still dwarfed by the continuing decimation of the American mind perpetrated by certain country-rock retards from the seventies? (Who, rumor has it, are “acquainted” with Cthulu, and in the biblical sense at that.)
If the young’uns of today are trying to experience the sixties, by and large they’re only choosing to consume only the most obvious of the obvious sixties signifiers, purchasing of a lame-ass greatest hits compilation that neglects “Strawberry Fields Forever” but keeps the duff authenticity of “The Ballad of John & Yoko.” Why would any boomer take comfort in that? (Any sensible boomer, I mean.)