I’ve had to face the fact that the older I get, the more alien some of this shit gets.

Anyone remember Sting? You know, that old guy who used to sing with some group called The Police and then did some muzaky solo stuff and tons of interviews about the joys of tantric sex? I just read an excerpt from an interview with him in which he says, “Today’s music is not designed for me. I don’t understand a Beyonce or a Justin Timberlake.” From there he launches into a diatribe about how superior his own music is.

The second point is debatable but the first is not. Dude, you’re 55 years old; you’re not the target demographic. Get over it. Willie Dixon wrote, “The men don’t know but the little girls understand,” and, Sting, I don’t think you’re a little girl, even if you whine
like one.

Okay, it’s trite to say that getting old sucks for a lot of reasons, and maybe not understanding the current hits isn’t exactly the biggest, but for a music fanatic, it’s not an easy concept to cope with. Most of my friends gave up right after college. They got cosy jobs, wives and kids and started going to see the Beach Boys without Brian Wilson or Elton John running around stage in a duck suit and claiming to enjoy it.

I’ve always tried to stay current, not for the sake of it but because I enjoy new music, new sound, new artists. I’ve tried hard not to be as clueless as my parents, who referred to the Beatles as the Beat-less and one time asked me why Janis Joplin was trying to sound black. But I’ve had to face the fact that the older I get, the more alien some of this shit gets.

An example is one of this summer’s biggest hits, Kick Push by Lupe Fiasco. (If you haven’t heard it yet, don’t worry, I’m sure they’ll start playing it in HK clubs in five years.) It sounds great, even to my hairy grey ears, but when you listen to the words, he’s talking about skateboarding. Skateboarding? I just can’t relate. But that isn’t Lupe’s problem (he’s still selling plenty of CDs and getting rave reviews), it’s my problem. At least I can recognise that fact and try not to cry in my beer too much over it.

I’m from The Bronx. That’s where hip-hop started. Okay, I ain’t from the South Bronx, and I never partied in some burnt-out tenement listening to a DJ with mad skills rap about how life sucked in the ghetto. But I’m from there; I’ve seen the life, I’ve known the people, and I’ve understood it. And I’ve followed hip-hop for 30 years, just like I followed punk and techno and Brit pop and other sub genres and fads too numerous to name.

I may not ‘get’ gangsta rap and I get bored hearing 20,000 rappers each proclaiming they’re the best, over and over and over again. But the sheer inventiveness and joy in every Missy Elliott record gets to me every time, no less her new compilation, Respect M.E. Missy’s an outsider too – it seems like these days female singers and rappers are expected to fit an image, to be willing to show as much skin as possible and be packaged as the fantasy of every adolescent MP3 downloader. But when you actually listen to her, she’s brash, she’s funny, she’s outspoken and, most importantly, her records don’t sound like anyone else’s. They’re some of the most sonically inventive stuff to be found in pop music today.

The opposite end of the spectrum is Christina Aguilera. I guess this will sound strange, but Xtina reminds me of Linda Ronstadt. Thirty years ago, Ronstadt powered through every song, hitting almost every line at top volume and full force, a typhoon that just knocked you over. She got away with it because she had a decent voice, chose some good songs to cover and often didn’t wear a bra. Today, she’s developed into a fine singer who can sensitively interpret a lyric, as she’s proven yet again on her most recent album, Adieu False Heart, a series of duets with Ann Savoy.

Aguilera is early Ronstadt times one hundred. She yells, moans, grunts and ululates her way through every song. Back to Basics just keeps hitting you over the head with “I’m the world’s greatest singer” – whether you think she is or isn’t is beside the point – and dozens of rappers in the background rhyme her praises just in case you didn’t already get the idea. The album assaults your senses like the third movie in a dying franchise – everything BIGGER, LOUDER, MORE. I have yet to be able to listen to even one disc all the way through without screaming “Enough already!” and spinning the wheel to, say, Van Morrison who understands that a song has to be about more than just what a great vocalist the singer is.

Circling back to Beyonce and Justin Timberlake, whom Sting claims not to understand. Well, I can’t understand how anyone could not get Crazy in Love, no matter what your age. If you can’t get this, you probably shouldn’t be listening to anything other than Perry Como or Twins. I think Beyonce’s solo stuff owes most of its appeal to Jay Z, but that’s fine since he isn’t making his own records any more. Plus, how can you not like a singer whose latest album, Bidet, is all about her clean butt? (Wait, someone just said it’s called B’day. Nah. She had to know.)

And Justin Timberlake? He’s one of the rare few – someone from a boy band who is actually fashioning a viable adult career in front of our eyes, and you can count on the fingers of one hand the others who’ve managed that (and still have a couple of fingers left over). Futuresex? Mostly produced by Timbaland. So if nothing else, Justin had the good sense to bring in the best producer working today, stay in tune and sleep with Cameron Diaz. Jokes aside, it’s an album that works whether you’re out on the dance floor or sitting in the dark with headphones on.

With Christina Aguilera, we’re going to have to wait another 10 or 20 years to find out how good she really is. With Missy Elliott and Justin Timberlake (and OutKast and Kanye West and more than a few others), the good stuff is here today. And it’s good enough that even some of us old farts can enjoy it. And dat’s da name o’ dat tune.