The Des Moines Register from Des Moines, Iowa • Page 45

Sundy1 (Xt. 3 1,1 993, Section OnTheGo--3F Travel Watch 4F Div CHRISTINE R1CCELU, Diversions Editor, 515-284-8192 Seventies High School "Dazed and Confused" might be described as an "American Graffiti" for those bom too late for Woodstock Pge6F ersio Arts 7F Movies 8F TravelEntertainmentArts Pop artists of the baby-boom generation struggle to stay relevant as they mellow with age. pit- Llw Li The Who were together more than 20 years. i 7 Billy Joel: Still "doing this crazy music thing." iv 1 By GARY GRAFF hi 1965, the Who's Pete Townshend wrote a song called "My Generation" and coined a phrase that would define and curse the attitude of rock 'n' rollers the world over: "Hope I die before I get old." Townshend, 48, is still alive and still putting out rock 'n' roll records and staging concert tours. He now says his most famous line refers to the "spirit" rather than the chronology of aging.

And the members of his and other rock 'n' roll generations haven't exactly abandoned ESC 'I i liMMiilMBh Eric Clapton maintains a loyal fan following. 'J P' 'Classic' rock sounds musty, almost laughable It's as if the music belongs to an era so distant that it's hard to imagine how it was once considered hip. that loud and raucous music that their parents yelled at them to turn down. "Rock 'n' roll was a nine-day wonder," says Rolling Stone Mick Jagger, who this year turned 50. "It was supposed to be here today, gone tomorrow.

It's obvious you're going to have old rock 'n' roll singers, though some of them may look very ungainly." That doesn't necessarily matter to their fans, however. "I still like the same kind of music that I did when I was 20," says Julie Dundr, 44, a legal secretary from Troy, Mich. "I still like the noise. I still enjoy the rock concert atmosphere though I don't do it as often." Adds Steven Bartley, 45, of suburban Detroit, "I still listen to rock 'n' roll. It's the main push buttons on my radio.

I probably spend less time than I used to but I spend more time than anyone else I know." What they listen to and how much time they spend listening those are the habits that change as pop music fans get older. As families, work, homes and other responsibilities creep into their lives, there's less time and less disposable income to spend on music. Life no longer affords them the opportunity to sit around the bedroom all afternoon with friends, listening to new albums or to the radio. There's barely 'enough time to read the newspaper, much less the latest issue of Rolling Stone. Hanging out in a record store is a luxury; consequently, they're using mail-order music clubs more often.

And sometimes there are even battles with children over who controls what's coming out of the speakers. Indeed, the aging rock 'n' roller doesn't necessarily adopt the tastes of his or her parents; Lawrence Welk doesn't replace the Beatles on the stereo. And there's even room for some new tastes to develop: Bartley, for instance, grew to appreciate atmospheric new age 9 ft Hi ByJ.D. C0NSIDINE B.M.TIMt IRK Si funny thing happened on the way to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame a surprising amount of classic rock has turned out to be a lot less endur 1 ROCK Please turn to Page 2F janjs j0pjn: Would she be as popular today? Jefferson Airplane played ambitious folk-rock. Meat Loafs new album sounds like rehashed leftovers Out of Hell II' sells well f)ut wallows in operatic bombast and excess.

ing than previously believed. Music that used to seem daring, exciting, inventive now sounds dated, quaint, cliched. It isn't that the songs simply seem old; it's as if they belong to an era so distant that it's hard to imagine how anyone could have possibly considered the stuff hip. I'm not talking about music from another era, either. After all, you'd expect listeners who grew up in the rock era to have a hard time grasping just what it was about Eddie Cantor or Rudy Vallee that drove their fans wild.

But The Who? The Jefferson Airplane? Deep Purple? Those acts aren't exactly ancient history. Deep Purple still has a recording contract, the Airplane got together for a show with Signe Anderson recently, and The Who reportedly is considering another reunion tour. Yet an awful lot of what many fans would consider their finest work now sounds old and musty laughable, even. Listening to it today, one thought keeps recurring: What on Earth were we thinking then? Maybe it was the delusion of youth. Maybe it was the spirit of the times.

Maybe it was the drugs. But whatever it was, it has long since worn off. And with that in mind, here's a look at five classic rock acts, and why they don't seem so classic anymore. The Who In the '60s, The Who was the quintessential mod band, writing about class consciousness and generational anomie with a realism the Beatles or Rolling Stones never managed. In the '70s, The Who came on like punk pioneers, the godfathers of anger, noise and unfettered destruction.

In the '90s, The Who hit Broadway as rock's answer to Andrew Lloyd-Webber. What's wrong with this picture? It isn't just the notion of rock rebellion competing By PATRICK BEACH Rrt.istkh Staff Writer mmm a addled teens as well as aging boomers who bought the first record (and whose hormones are presumably under control by now). "We've been selling tons of it," said Qory Ilodnefield, assistant manager at Peoples Music in Des Moines. "We've been selling cases and cases of it. I was amazed.

When I saw the album in the store I just laughed. But it's sold as good as any other new release we've had in the past couple of weeks." It's caught a lot of people by surprise. But there are some interesting parallels between Meat Loaf's success in 1977 and today. Both periods were screwy musically. In '77, Elvis Presley died, the infamous disco club Studio 54 was born and tremors of the punk movement were beginning to be felt.

Today, punk has begat grunge, a style that combines varying amounts of punk and '70s-style epics "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" and "Two Out of Three Ain't Bad" among them that inexplicably, incredibly became one of the biggest-selling rock albums of all time. How big? Oh, 25 million worldwide. Not only that, "Bat Out of Hell" continues to this day to sell a million or so copies a year, or 15,000 a week. It's been on the charts in Britain without interruption since 1978. But, for all intents and purposes, it was presumed that Meat Loafs geezer carcass had been disposed of.

Attempts to stink up the charts with solo albums after his breakup with Steinman didn't work. Steinman, see, is the one responsible. Then, heaven help us, they started talking again. The result is a 14-years-late sequel, a virtual photocopy of the first record and surely one of the most vacuous and cynical long-players ever made. But as a piece of broad marketing, it's nearly perfect: It appeals to hormone- Meat Loaf on top of the Billboard pop album charts again? It's enough to make you question the existence of a benevolent God.

"Bat Out of Hell II," with the unintentionally humorous subtitle "Back Into Hell" is selling hotter than anybody including Marvin Lee Aday Mr. Loaf) and Jim Steinman could have imagined. You remember the first incarnation of Meat Loaf, right? It was in the dnrk days of the late 70s when Steinman and his howling hired hajid concocted an album of unconscionably bloated Wagnerian rock CLASSIC PU'ase turn to Page 2F EAT LOAF Please turn to Page 2F He's back Meat Loafs new album is a top seller..