by Bill Crandall
from Bam Magazine (California) - Mar. 12, 1999
Illustration by Eric Jones
ON BACK-TO-BACK NIGHTS, IN TWO different cities, in front of hundreds of teenagers and twentysomethings, Carlos Santana brought down the house. Not his performance, mind you, though it was just fine, but his name. Oakland's Paramount Theater and San Francisco's Bill Graham Civic Auditorium erupted when Lauryn Hill announced that the man about to accompany her on guitar was Carlos Santana. Mr. Santana can in part thank his emcee for his ovation (hell, Levi's is betting that by sponsoring the denim-skirt-wearing Hill's tour they can revive their sagging sales), but there is more to it than that: It is again time for Carlos Santana.
One week earlier, in Mission District watering hole the Make-Out Room, late-twentysomething / early thirtysomething alterna-rock enthusiasts are sipping drinks in anticipation of the night's Noise Pop festivities. The festival began in 1992 to showcase '90s bands (Fastbacks, Overwhelming Colorfast, Meices, etc.) weaned on the loud '80s sounds of Hüsker Dü and the Replacements, but, to keep Noise Pop going for seven years, much of the noise has had to evaporate out of the pop. Lying on the bar, on the cover of SnackCake, the magazine devoted to all things Noise Poppy, is former Hüsker Dü chief Bob Mould. Below his balding head reads the headline 'Bob Mould--These Important Years." I guess, by important, they mean to his family and friends, 'cause Lord knows damn few others care.
Same's true about Replacement architect Paul Westerberg. The faint hissing you heard last month was the sound of his third solo album being released. He should be a respected elder-statesmen by now, right? Maybe playing a little guitar and yukking it up on the Grammys with B.B. King--no, wait, that was Eric Clapton.
Though Mould, Westerberg, Morrissey and Stipe defined rock 'n' roll cool in the '80s, and turned the rockers who preceded them into "classic" rockers, now they're about as appealing to America's youth as Clapton and Steve Winwood were when they were making Michelob commercials a decade ago.
Speaking of Stipe, remember the MTV Rockumentary on R.E.M. that came out around the release of 1991's Out of Time? In it the band joked about how they planned to play a New Year's Eve show in 1999 and breakup afterwards. The way sales of Up are going, that scenario sounds pretty feasible, but they better not reserve too large of a venue.
U2 learned the large-venue lesson the hard way. Who can forget the 1997 trainwreck known as the Pop Mart tour, wherein the mightiest of all '80s rock bands played to less-than-capacity crowds and even canceled some dates. Sponsored by K Mart, the Pop Mart concept was to poke fun at America's consumerism, the ironic twist being that the band would be selling gobs and gobs of albums and tickets. When the sales didn't happen, that joke just wasn't funny anymore.
These trends are cyclical, right? If Carlos and Eric can come back, can't Paul, Bob, Michael, and, uh, Morrissey? Well, not exactly. You see this is a numbers game. The post-war baby boom produced millions of prospective rock 'n' roll fans. This generation still welcomes new music from their heroes (note Paul McCartney's and Clapton's recent Grammy nominations), and they've even turned their millions of kids onto it. In addition to making up her own words to Santana instrumentals, the young Lauryn Hill grew up on her mom's old school soul albums--and, in 1999, you can hear selections from them at Hill's shows.
The folks born in between the Boomers and their kids (the much-maligned Generation X, the only people who can even spell "Hüsker Dü") are not the people you want your career in the hands of, because, frankly, there just aren't that many of them.
Mould and Westerberg are doubly screwed because, although they are revered as two of the most important '80s rockers, they never reached much of their target age-group the first time around. (Remember, two of Santana's albums went No. 1 and seven went Top 10.) It's tough to have a comeback when not many people knew you ever were.
The kids will always be alright, the old school--courtesy of its behemoth fan-base--won't have to die before they get old, but the middle school is just not cool. Important years? No, Mould and Co. won't see those again.
return to Morrissey-solo