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David Spates Attention Kmart shoppers
-- You know you've reached a turning point in
your life when music that you once considered new and dangerous
is now played over the PA system at Kmart. I've reached that point, and it's more than
just a little disconcerting. I was in Kmart recently when I heard a familiar
ditty floating from the housewares section to the gardening section,
where I was. It was the Red Hot Chili Peppers performing Stevie
Wonder's "Higher Ground." Now, granted, of all the
songs the Peppers have performed over the years, "Higher
Ground" is about the only one Kmart could play in public.
Stevie Wonder lyrics aren't going to offend too many, if any,
suburban shoppers. Little Stevie is about as middle of the road
as they come. "Higher Ground," while fairly edgy for
Wonder, is quite milquetoasty by Chili Peppers' standards. These are the lyrics I heard as I held my
daughter and tried to determine which type of weedwhacker string
I needed: "Powers keep on lyin' / While your people keep
on dyin' / World keep on turnin' / 'Cause it won't be too long
/ I'm so darn glad he let me try it again / 'Cause my last time
on earth I lived a whole world of sin / I'm so glad that I know
more than I knew then / Gonna keep on tryin' / Till I reach the
highest ground." It's fairly innocuous, assuming you're not
mortally offended by the mere notion of reincarnation. I clearly remember when the Red Hot Chili
Peppers burst onto the scene. They were weird, crude, rude, misogynistic
and nobody you'd want your daughter to date. And that was what was so great. They were
dangerous, and old people hated them. Of course, when you're 17 and 18, "old
people" were anyone in their middle 20s. Never underestimate
the ability to appeal to one group by irritating another group
- put simply, if the parents hate it, the kids will love it. Elvis knew it. The Beatles knew it. The Stones.
The Who. Alice Cooper. KISS. Marilyn Manson. Eminem. They all
knew it. The forbidden fruit is the most appealing. But now the forbidden fruit is part of discount
department store shopping. The same thing happened to Elvis and The Beatles
and those other older performers. We've all heard "Hound
Dog" and "Eleanor Rigby" in the elevator or while
we were on hold or in the pediatrician's waiting room. It's just
funny to look back and realize that what was once considered
mindless teen-ager music evolves over the years into easy listening
golden oldies. The transition from avant garde to nostalgic
is a fascinating one, and I suppose it mirrors us individuals
as well. Like the music we listened to when we were teen-agers,
we had the ability to shock and surprise The Establishment with
our youth and vigor. The trick is that every generation has to
crank it up a notch to get anyone to notice. It's all been done,
after all, that is until someone comes up with something new
and fresh. The Red Hot Chili Peppers came up with something
new and fresh in the middle 1980s. They danced around naked on
the stage. They sang crazy songs about sex and drugs. They combined
funk and punk into something that no one had ever heard. And
now these sex-crazed, drugged-up, tube-sock-wearing mohawked
punks from Southern California are part of the Kmart experience,
along with Blue Light specials on Wisk. For better or worse, the world keeps changing,
and none of us, apart from Dick Clark, are getting any younger. Where did the time go? This isn't the department
store I remember as a kid. When did Kmart become so cool and hip? Or have I become so stagnant that Kmart has caught up to me? And who took my tube sock? · · · |