Run-DMSteve

When I was 15 and maybe even 20 I knew what was happening. Not every note, but I knew a lot. OK, I missed something big once. Epic, really: punk. In 1977 I was offered a free ticket to see The Clash on their first U.S. tour and I turned it down because I thought punk was a joke. This is particularly ironic given that in 1977 I was a disco activist.

My sense of what was happening musically was resurrected in my 30s when I worked for an alternative newspaper. Our reviewers were plugged in. We were all it and a bag of chips. And yet we missed something big once. Epic, really: grunge. Time and Newsweek  broke that story in 1991. Irony overload – Sub Pop was located right in our building and I often shared an elevator with some shambling, hairy hulk from Mudhoney.

My knowledge of popular music has deepened and broadened but I rarely know what’s new. Last week I wrote about a local band, Red Fang. It took me two years to catch up with them, and I caught them only because they were featured in The Oregonian. And if they’ve been featured in our daily paper’s lifestyle section they are probably way past their expiration date.

Fortunately, in my 40s I realized that I could still learn what was happening in music by befriending people younger than me and asking. That’s how I discovered Internet radio in 1999. (Spinner: Free music and a cool boombox on your desktop!) Youthful friends of mine in Boise made major contributions to my musical knowledge, not counting the guy who’s still fixated on Night Ranger.

Isabelle is in the house!
Today we’re going to learn about music from somebody who’s so young, she’s barely older than my dog, Storm Small. Ladies and gentlemen, please give a warm Run-DMSteve welcome to my 12-year-old niece, Isabelle!

Isabelle is an amazing young woman. I would’ve known this even if she hadn’t told me, which she did. In Isabelle’s world, when you want your music, you go first to YouTube. Her iPod is in second place. Third place is held by an ancient technological device called the radio. I visited her favorite station and checked the last 20 songs they’d played. I knew one, Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way.” I had a lot of ground to cover.

Isabelle’s favorite artists right now are Ke$ha and Bruno Mars, so I listened to their debut albums, Ke$ha’s Animal and Mars’ Doo-Wops & Hooligans. I was prepared to floss my brain afterwards with Miles Davis, but I enjoyed myself. This is probably bad news for Ke$ha, whose audience is not middle-aged men, but good news for Bruno Mars, who is striving for a more universal appeal.

Trying to fill Lady Gaga’s skyscraper heels
If you take the nonstop pop appeal of The Go-Go’s, the sauciness of Bananarama, the oops-I-did-it-again dance grooves of Britney Spears, and then lower everyone’s IQ, you’ve about got Ke$ha. Her songs mostly focus on having a good time even if you have to drink until you can’t spell your own name. Which in her case wouldn’t take long. “TiK ToK” was a huge hit, and “Boots & Boys,” “Take It Off,” and “Hungover” neatly sum up the principles by which she lives her life.

I was surprised to see “Dancing With Tears in My Eyes” on this album, but when I got there it turned out not to be a cover of Ultravox’s 1984 hit. Too bad, as Ke$ha would’ve kicked those syntho-pop pretty boys from here to eternity. Ke$ha’s song is about a love affair she torpedoed with her self-destructive behavior. This probably happens to her a lot.

“Party At a Rich Dude’s House” builds on a rich pop tradition. In Randy Newman’s  “Mama Told Me (Not to Come),” the narrator is appalled by the shenanigans around him. The B-52s turned this idea inside-out with “Party Out of Bounds.”  They’re not appalled; in fact, they’re stealing everything out of your icebox! The Beastie Boys updated The B-52s when they told us “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party).” Ke$ha’s contribution is to throw up in a rich dude’s closet.

Animal has some spring-loaded dance tunes that will probably sound dated in 10 years but are hyperkinetic right now. Ke$ha spends a lot of time being kittenish, and I can’t tell how much of her voice is her and how much is her engineer, but overall she’s hard to resist. I probably won’t listen to Animal again, but I am sure that “Boots & Boys” will one day become a female anthem. When women hear it they’ll storm the dance floor, as they do today for “Dancing Queen,” “I Will Survive,” and “Venus.”

With a name like that he should be playing third base for the Cardinals
Bruno Mars is like David Bowie and Prince in his ability to change shape from track to track. He’s run every song recorded in the last 50 years through the blender that is his brain. “Runaway Baby” sounds like a 1960s rave-up between The Animals and The Dave Clark Five. Bono could’ve sung “Just the Way You Are” and it would’ve been the B-side of “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.” “Marry You” is an innocent gem that would’ve been right at home on MTV in 1985. “Liquor Store Blues” is reggae, “Count on Me” is Jack Johnson or Cat Stevens, and then there’s the weird “Grenade,” which sounds like Michael Jackson crossed with a European New Wave act I can’t put my finger on. (Not Ultravox.)

Mars has a supple tenor voice that seems to work in any genre and he not only loves Elvis, he impersonates Elvis. I can’t say that Doo-Wops & Hooligans is one of my favorite albums, but it does reward the time you invest in it.

Isabelle also informed me that the Worst. Song. Ever. was “Friday” by Rebecca Black. This song is such a stinker that Rhapsody not only refuses to carry it, they sent an electric shock through my keyboard when I requested it. Although Isabelle and I are of different generations, we can agree that “Friday” sucks. I haven’t heard anything this bad since the time Storm Small cornered a weasel in our drainpipe.

Thank you, Isabelle, for furthering my musical education. But before I get to Rihanna, Pit Bull, and P!nk I think I will give Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue a spin.