Monday 26 July 2010

Whatever happened to the Teenage Dream?

Have you ever had that deja vu moment? On the High Road this morning I saw a lad in a Clash City Rockers tee shirt. He would've been early 20s at the most and he was wearing a tee shirt (black, of course) with a legend from 1978, years before he was born.

When I was his age that would've been shameful. It was against the unspoken law to like anything your parents might like and that was part of the unspoken rule about music - like stuff that your parents will hate. So why would you wear a tee shirt with a legend from your parents generation?

I've seen various other tee shirts over the last few weeks on youngsters who may or may not have realised their meaning, like The Who's Spitfire logo and Joy Division's 'Unknown Pleasures' album cover. Is this because they are truly iconic symbols of rebellion or that the youth of today think they still look good from a design perspective? Or don't they have any symbols of rebellion of their own?

To quote Marc Bolan, 'Whatever happened to the teenage dream?'


Update 28 July: Today I saw a lad in a 'Mott The Hoople' tee shirt...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Coming from a 21 year old me (me)
I absolutely love the Clash, Bolan all the rock n roll legends from pre 90s. There hasnt really been anything since the 90s that has been truely iconic in the sense of the old days so I go back and dig up the really classic shit. Its a shame I couldnt live through and experience it happen. So I really dont feel the true and real essence but its some what there.

Answer, we dont have symbols of rebellion and kick ass rock n roll these days.

Anonymous said...

I´m investigating about this song because my final proyect for art university is called "teenage dream". I´m 24 years old but I have loved de 70´s since I was 13... I think no other music has reached teenagers like glam rock, as It was written specialy for them. And I think that this stuff was real, authentic, and today most things is just looks and suerficial stuff, for me Bowie or Bolan said everything I needed to hear, things that musitians from my generation couldn´t say...(sorry about my english, I´m from Spain) And thankyou for this post!!