This video brings up a few good topics for discussion. For one, who but himself declared Will I Am the voice of our generation? I'm not just trying to be polite when I say that I do, on some level, like and respect Will I Am. He seems like a pretty decent guy trying his hardest to spark some sort of generational unification. While I can't say I like the Black Eyed Peas at all, nor do I like the countless, overbearingly sentimental, and obvious attempts at creating rallying cry songs (not "Let's Get Retarded") like the sixty plus songs he wrote for every stage of Barack Obama's road to presidency, I think his heart is in the right place. I do, however, think it's a stretch to compare him to Dylan.
I'm not one of those sore assholes who constantly compares and criticizes my generation for not being the baby-boomers. Frankly, I'm sick of the comparison and sick of the watered down and incredibly safe versions of trends from decades past seeping into current pop culture. But, it's just that Bob Dylan really is beyond comparison.
And why is the Dylan comparison so coveted anyway? He wrote a few really cool protest songs, then two or three great rock albums (Highway 61 Revisited is, in my opinion, the best American rock album ever made), but beyond that, he's made a more bad records then good ones and he's notoriously an asshole. Not that there's anything wrong with that, that's what's so cool about him, but at the same time I'm not sure why our generation needs a Dylan. And if our generation had a Dylan what would he say?
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't understand why the baby-boomers are so self-aggrandizing. Especially considering that they are the first American generation to leave the country in worse shape than before. And I'm also not sure why our generation welcomes, identifies, and perpetuates the comparison.
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