The Soundtrack for Our Lives

Watching a rock music documentary on TV the other day, I heard one of my favorite presenters, Mark Radcliffe, utter the wonderful phrase "Lead guitarists are people who create the soundtrack for our lives". Maybe you have to be of the right generation (it's probably less relevant if your music tastes are limited to folk music, garage, or grunge) but to me it really, if you'll pardon the pun, struck a chord. It requires only the first few bars of a classic rock track, or a snippet of a well-known and much loved guitar solo, to switch my brain into neutral and instantly block any capability for logical thought. Somewhat worrying when I'm trying to write technical guidance while Media Player is tuned to the random music stream exposed by my file server.

I suppose it's partly because I spent my formative years in the period that is now associated with classic rock, that so many of the legends and their music are woven into my consciousness. Yes there are bands around today still creating that magical aura, though even the young kids seem to have a passion that's hard to understand for music that is, in many cases, 30 or even 40 years old. It's odd that rock music has that effect. I can't say I know of many young people who have anything like the same passion for swing, jazz, big band; or for the crooners and songstresses that were the "in thing" of my parents' generation. What is it about classic rock that has radio stations all over the world playing it 24 hours a day, bands where the members should long ago have retired still selling out stadium tours, and endless documentaries and concerts on TV?

And by some odd coincidence, last Sunday I went to see a rock tribute band at a local club - mainly because my wife's cousin plays bass guitar for them. The band, Floydian Slip, perform a range of classic Pink Floyd tracks from Dark Side and The Wall. Unfortunately none of Syd Barrett's earlier work that I remember so well (think "See Emily Play" and "Piper at the Gates of Dawn"). But they are extremely good. The technical accuracy is amazing, and the atmosphere they generate is incredible. Music originally written in 1973, yet some 37 years later is still magical, innovative, relevant, strange, and yet wonderful.

It's hard to think of anything in our industry that you could say the same about after 7 years, never mind 37 years. OK, so I know there are people who still play Space Invaders and Aliens in DOS mode, and there's bound to be somebody somewhere who can't bear to be parted from Windows 3.1. But even XP and Windows 2000, which are barely 10 years old, now somehow seem dated, old fashioned, and unexciting. How is it that a few assorted sound waves generated by amplifying the noise of some pieces of vibrating wire can still create such emotional and magical effect, compared to the way that the full-featured multi-media capability of computer programs seems passé after only a fraction of that time?