[Dean Roddey]

We are in a time of quite reduced social and political disruption these days, and tastes in music probably reflects that heavily. Yeh we have our periodic scandals and financial crises, and even a war. But it's nothing like what it used to be. Without those fears looming near, people seem to gravitate towards non-challenging, party time type fare more and more.

There are always exceptions obviously. There'll always be the kid in the goth gear listening to death metal with the suspicious cuts on his arm and all that. And there's always a certain amount of homornal doom and gloom among young people. But no kids are looking at being drafted and dying in a jungle, and (cynicism aside) the government is actually probably not nearly as big a danger to us these days as in the 70s, and the world is substantially a fairer, more stable place (though of course still a long way to go.)

In a time like this, it just gets more and more about fashion, partying, consumerism, and non-challenging entertainment, etc... I think it's inevitable. If the cost of that is people get shallow and whatnot, that's a hard call, but I think I'd rather have shallow than having kids learning duck and cover drills at school. Hopefully, in time, they'll change without looming death to inspire them. Though, it's always possible we'll do it old school and spiral into decadence and decay, who knows.