Nick Hornby laments the current state of music in this New York Times article:

It's hard not to think about one's age and how it relates to rock music. I just turned 47, and with each passing year it becomes harder not to wonder whether I should be listening to something that is still thought of as more age appropriate — jazz, folk, classical, opera, funeral marches, the usual suspects.

I'm 42 years old and I still LOVE rock-n-roll. I like a little jazz, enjoy the blues, can handle a little country,and even get into a few show tunes. But at my core I love rock. I can get as lost in Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" as I did twenty years ago. The pulsing beat of the Rolling Stones "Satisfaction" still revs me up as it did hundreds of listenings before.

Rock-n-roll is one of the connections I still have to my youth. I have less hair (thats an understatement), a few more pounds, kids, a job, a wife, and responsibilities. But crank up Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" and I'm that 16 year old boy cruising Main Street, listening to the tunes pumping out of my 8-track player, looking for cute girls, and enjoying the wild irresponsibility of the young. Kiss' "Beth" still makes me feel romantic, Kansas' "Dust in the Wind" still makes me ponder the meaning of life, and Meatloaf's "Bat Out of Hell" makes me want to put the pedal to the metal. As Hornby says:

Youth is a quality not unlike health: it's found in greater abundance among the young, but we all need access to it. (And not all young people are lucky enough to be young. Think of those people at your college who wanted to be politicians or corporate lawyers, for example.) I'm not talking about the accouterments of youth: the unlined faces, the washboard stomachs, the hair. The young are welcome to all that — what would we do with it anyway? I'm talking about the energy, the wistful yearning, the inexplicable exhilaration, the sporadic sense of invincibility, the hope that stings like chlorine. When I was younger, rock music articulated these feelings, and now that I'm older it stimulates them, but either way, rock 'n' roll was and remains necessary because: who doesn't need exhilaration and a sense of invincibility, even if it's only now and again?

Give me that old time rock and roll. That kind of music really soothes my soul......

Edit: If you're really, really bored you can glance through my computer playlist here. Mind you that other people live here and some of the music on the list isn't what I would put there :)


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