It is 35-45 years in the future and us Gen-Xers are populating what is remaining of the retirement home industry after the bust during the Boomer Dieoff of 2026-34. Frustrated at finding juke box after juke box filled with “My Girl” and “I Think We’re Alone Now,” we rebel: We demand entertainment and we demand it now!
So we organize a party and hire a band. And they play all the songs that our kids are sick of hearing as well, the new “Gen-X standards” that play during commercials, Super Bowls, TV shows, etc. (Sort of how we’re forced to endure “Twist and Shout” 100,000,000 times.)
But seriously, what songs do you think the band will play? What songs from our generation do you think will become the new “standards,” the ones that pretty much everybody knows through 30 years of sheer media repetition?
Here’s a few to start the party off:
“Smells Like Teen Spirit,” Nirvana
“Macarena”, whoever
“One”, U2
(we’ll assume the band comes equipped with male and female singers and all the proper instrumentation required)
There’ll have to be an [BOLD]REM[/BOLD] set:“Losing My Religion”, “It’s the End of the World as We Know It…”, “Stand”, etc.
If they play “Macarena” I, regardless of what kind of health I’m in, will beg to be euthanized.
“Ice, Ice Baby” You-know-who
“Are You Gonna Go My Way?” Lenny Kravitz
“The Freshmen” The Verve Pipe
“Push” Matchbox Twenty
“Jumper” & “Semi-Charmed Life” Third Eye Blind
“Jeremy” Pearl Jam
“Can’t Touch This” MC Hammer
“Ants Marching” & “What Would You Say” DMB
“Hold My Hand” & “Only Want To Be With You” Hootie & The Blowfish
“You Were Meant For Me” Jewel
“I Don’t Want To Wait” Paula Cole
“Gangster’s Paradise” Coolio
“Fly” & “Every Morning” Sugar Ray
“All-Star” & Walking On The Sun" Smashmouth (but I hope not)
“Closing Time” Semisonic
“Good” Better Than Ezra
“Wild Thing” Tone Loc
“Bust A Move” Young MC
A few years back, a friend and I were talking about about how much we’d love Pearl Jam when we were old. Only we may not remember the words exactly, so we’d be in a nursing home singing “Don’t call me Leonard” and talking about the good old days. “Remember the Grunge?” “Oh my, yes.”
The cool embrace of a youthful accidental demise suddenly seems more appealing. Or a highly detailed ironclad DNR order.
Let’s see. Your emocore fans will have offed themselves long before retirement age. Electronica fans won’t be around because they’ll find out too late that ecstasy has rather nasty long term effects after all. And hardcore punk kids will be dead from a combination of hep C from dirty tatoo needles and mosh-induced aneurysms. So I guess I’ll be stuck with the mainstreamers.
The good news is maybe me and some gangsta grampas can throw hard candy at elderly Phish fans in their ultraburnt vegetative state.
“Rio” Duran Duran
“Girls” Beastie Boys
“Tainted Love” Soft Cell
“Crash Into Me” DMB
“What If God Were One Of Us” Joan Osborne
“Where Have All the Cowboys Gone” Paula Cole
“Leaving Las Vegas” Sheryl Crow
“Can’t Get You Out Of My Head” and with my luck I will still be signing that horrible somg on my death bed
“Scream If You Want To Go Faster” Geri Halliwel
some crap by the Spice Girls
The song that epitomizes our Gen-X heyday (which we ought all to admit is over now, at least musically) is “You Oughta Know.” Alanis’s first hit, not to mention her only song I ever liked even for a moment.
And maybe they ought to toss in some Haircut 100. Yeah! “Love Plus One,” dude!
