We're having some work done on our home's rear deck by two young guys in their mid-20s, who are trading out manual labor for legal work from my wife as they start their own business.

It's really bizarre listening to their music as it blasts in via their ghetto blaster: it's the same music I listened to in my teens: Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Judas Priest, AC/DC, Ozzy Osbourne et al.

Last year, Jonah Goldberg wrote about how pop culture has been living off its past for quite a while now. Jonah's essay was in the context of TV and movies but his point is also applicable to music:

I speak to college kids on occasion. And whenever I do, I tend to make references to TV shows and movies because, well, I'm me and that's what I do. At this point you would think that my references would be lost on many of them — and theirs on me. But that doesn't seem to be the case. What's also interesting is that these kids are quoting the same movies that my buddies and I quote, which might be a function of the fact that young men today would rather re-watch, say, Stripes or Roadhouse, than invest time in My Wife and Kids or some other drek. In effect, kids today are living off the entertainment capital of the previous generation.

Now, I'm not a Luddite--and I use a lot of these tools when I make my own music and love them. (I wrote a piece in 2003 defending the Antares Auto-Tune pitch correction program, and stand by it.) It's also not necessarily a technology issue. Metallica were never my taste, but they were a blast of raw fresh air in the hair-metal days of the 1980s. But when every friggin' heavy metal group sounds like them these days, and eschews tunes, chord changes and interesting song structures for thrashed-out 16th note dropped-D guitar bashing and Cookie Monster vocals, it's not an avenue for exploration and growth.

Hey, maybe rock music really did jump the shark at Live Aid!

Don't know where I am going with this--but it does seem strange to see a new generation of young adults listening to exactly the same music I used to listen to.