against Phil

I am on the record as being anti-Phil Collins. This puts me at odds with some good friends who have jumped wholeheartedly into the half-serious Collins renaissance that’s been plaguing our great land as of late. Frankly, I’m surprised it’s got legs given its likely provenance, which seems to me to clearly involve Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, This American Life and/or a need to sidestep mainstream America’s rededication to all things Journey. The SWPLishness of the situation is so glaring as to be embarrassing.

But it’s not just this specific musical throwback that worries me. Even though I enjoyed Yglesias’s 90s alt-rock party, I have to admit that the theme made me uneasy. I believe that as we get older the first muscles to lose tone are the ones that, when tightly clenched, produce a convincing sense of irony. Sure, listening to Silverchair might seem like a great idea now. But if you aren’t careful, before you know it you’ll be no different than your uncle who paid $120 for an obstructed view at an Eagles concert that starts at 5pm.

I’ll admit that the alternatives are grim. But I think there’s at least somewhat more dignity to be had by clinging tightly to Pitchfork’s Best New Music section and copies of Paste until the whole enterprise buckles and collapses under the weight of your teenage offspring’s embarrassed disavowals. Nostalgia is best left to people who’ve given up or are too young to have been there in the first place.

But I know that most people don’t find this very convincing. So let me try another tack: this past weekend Emily, Scooter, Lauren, Sommer, Jeff and I were at a bar in Philly — one of the few where you can still smoke, and therefore one that is certifiably cool. We headed upstairs, where we found a table and some DJs. These guys seemed authentically hip: sporting horrible beards and wraithlike t-shirts, they looked like emaciated bears that had staggered out of the woods and into a Salvation Army, where they constructed poor disguises before setting off to South Philly in search of PBR specials and/or salmon. It should have been a pretty good set, in other words.

Instead? Marcy Playground. Excusable, perhaps, for novelty value (which for some reason seems to be synonymous with “totally monotonous and unbearable”). But then they followed it up with Verve Pipe’s “The Freshman” and I knew we were doomed. The biggest hits from the darkest days of the 90s continued to issue from the speakers at an uncomfortable volume (to replicate the effect, turn your radio up and tune it to DC101).

Emily eventually saved us and, pouring on the charm, got them to turn down that dag-blasted racket — we were the only patrons in the room, so it seemed okay to ask. Despite our miraculous escape, the lesson should be clear: ironic musical nostalgia is too dangerous a force to be trusted to civilians. It can go so horribly, horribly wrong.

But I understand the impulse. Maybe it’s inescapable. For example, I can’t help but regard this as being among the most awesomely moody things I’ve ever seen:

And no, I can’t tell if I mean that ironically.

(Thanks to Jon for sending me that clip originally)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 30th, 2008 at 11:15 am and is filed under music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.