I Ain't No Gee Bee

Rock and roll brings me a lot of joy. But it doesn't startle me enough anymore. Perhaps that lays at the heart of my disagreement with Jim Fusilli.

Fusilli is the pop music critic for the Wall Street Journal, and he recently got some attention with an article about "Gee Bees." Gee Bees are the "generationally biased" -- people who insist, without fully hearing the evidence, that the music of their youth was better than any of the crap around today.

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They don't even want to hear today's rock and roll.

Fusilli argues that Gee Bees would have rejected Chuck Berry and Bob Dylan back in the day because those artists were influenced by, and sounded like, earlier artists. Thus the Gee Bees, who are mostly boomers, would have missed some of the extraordinary things that people like Dylan did.

Gee Bees are also arrogant: "Often aggressive and belligerent, the generationally biased...rarely attribute their affection for the music of their youth to tender memories. They present their argument as perceived wisdom: Popular music was better then. For you to disagree is to reveal a deficiency on your part."

Fusilli is right that there is plenty of great popular music being made today, from Radiohead to Bon Iver and Sugur Ros. I'm a fan of these bands, and at 47 continue to seek out new music.

But here's the thing: rock and roll doesn't startle me anymore. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but I think it gets to the heart of the "Gee Bee" phenomenon Fusilli writes about. Let me explain.

If you look throughout the history of rock and roll, it has always been marked by new innovations that provide a delightful jolt. Contrary to Fusilli, there have been moments that seem completely untethered to the past, even if the sounds produced speak to deep eternal angst and longing in the soul (indeed, some musical innovation is so exciting because it so deeply reveals ancient stirrings in the soul).

First, of course, was the creation of the electric guitar itself. This made rock and roll possible, and gave jazz and especially early rock and roll a new and exciting charge. The Beatles were fans, of course, but added the elements of skiffle, pop, country, rockabilly and English music hall to the mix to create something sui generis. And here's the thing: it was a sound that not only delighted the listener, but startled the listener when he first heard it.

I remember the first time I heard the sound of the Beatles coming of my older brother's bedroom. That primal whacked chord that heralds the song "A Hard Day's Night" didn't just excite me; it startled me. And in a good way.

There is a difference between hearing something that brings you joy, and hearing something that startles you with its originality and greatness. Of course, both can happen at the same time. But one of the great tricks of popular music in the 20th Century is that technological innovation has allowed it to continually startle the listener with something new.

Some of my best rock and roll memories are from when I was at friend's house or a party and someone dropped the needle on a record and you were seized by that wonderful shock of the new. It happened the first time I heard "She's the One" by Bruce Springsteen, or the spidery synthesizer loops of the Who's "Baba O'Reilly," a song whose grand weirdness really did have no precedent. It happened the first time I heard the Clash, and when I first heard Kraftwerk, and Joy Division. It happened when I heard Public Enemy for the first time.

It even happened the first time I heard Sade -- a particularly vivid memory. I was in college in 1984, and was getting dressed to go to class with the radio on. I was walking across the apartment and was suddenly stopped short by a voice on the radio:

what...is...that? I didn't just feel seduced; I felt startled.

A voice like Sade's had never been heard. Adele is a brilliant artist, and her record 21 always raises goosebumps for me. But I don't feel startled. I don't feel like I'm hearing something truly new, the way I did when I first heard "Smooth Operator."

And I would be remiss if I didn't recall the cold winter day in December 1982 when I was driving home from high school and heard the song "Thriller" for the first time. As the hippies -- Gee Bees? -- say, my mind was blown. This was something totally fresh. it was not a copy of a copy of a copy. Does any 16 year-old today have a similar experience with pop music? I mean, who needs Green Day when you had the Clash?

Fusilli often cites Radiohead, a genius band. But after four or five albums of electronica, does anyone not know what's coming next from them? Gee Bees may just want to be surprised again.

Artistic movements and eras can only have so much innovation. Rock and roll remains fresh and exciting, but, at least for now, it may have just plain run out of fresh shockers. This probably has a lot to do with the fact that no new instruments have been invented since the synthesizer. This doesn't mean the music today isn't great, innovative, and even brilliant. I have argued before that rock and roll is a great modernist art form, and that the way it has been assimilated into bourgeois life is similar to the way modernism in art and literature was over the course of the 20th Century.

People were shocked by James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, Picasso and Andy Warhol, and all four are now part of the Western canon. If someone were to attempt a cubist painting today, the audience would yawn.

In a recent email conversation I had with Fusilli, he made the following observation: "It's my opinion, and I like to think it's an informed opinion, that we are hearing more [musical] originality now than in any period in my quite a long while. It stands to reason. Transglobal communication; the high level of technical competency; the willingness to manage margins and entertain a niche; improved opportunities for women; the ease of recording that permits experimentation -- all of these things encourage originality among musicians."

Do they really encourage originally? Or does the ease of recording and managing margins and niches promote laziness? Perhaps all the transglobal communication just makes an artist feel swamped. And all the opportunities for women have produced plenty of Britneys, divas and feminist punks, but not one modern Chrissy Hynde.

Still, I repeat: rock and roll is a dynamic and wonderful modernist art form that still brings awe and joy. And fun. I ain't no Gee Bee.

I saw the great D.C. punk band Fuzagi at the 9:30 club in 1988, and saw the neo-pop group Marina and the Diamonds at the same club -- though in its new location -- 25 years later, in 2010. Both were great shows. But only one startled me. Only one offered the shock of the new.

Mark Judge is a columnist for RealClearReligion and author, most recently, of A Tremor of Bliss: Sex, Catholicism, and Rock 'n' Roll.