SAINT-REMY-DE-PROVENCE, France — The full-page ad gracing the back of last week's Village Voice hit me like a heavy pointy object. "HOT SUMMER TOURS," the headline blared. As a U.S. citizen residing in the city of New York, I enjoy the golden opportunity to see '70s band Steely Dan perform at the romantically named PNC Bank Arts Center on July 7. Alternatively, "Margaritaville" '70s crooner Jimmy Buffett will perform his hits Aug. 29 at the Jones Beach Amphitheater, and '70s diva Diana Ross is at Madison Square Garden July 6.
It's just as if, as a gifted music critic whose name maddeningly escapes me at deadline said, punk never happened. Remember the Sex Pistols, the Clash and the Dead Kennedys? Aggressively political, sonically stripped down and violently opposed to the pretension of musical masturbation, the punk era of the late '70s and early '80s tore down the old order. Dinosaur rockers like Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were history; 22-minute guitar solos were consigned to the dung heap. But not really.
In reality, brilliant punk poets like the Adverts and Avengers never sold any records, radio never played their music and the musically illiterate masses spent the '80s buying the same old classic-rock crap they did in the '70s. The art-rock band Genesis became Kenny G-lite Phil Collins' Noo Wave wannabes; the Police became Sting, who wanted nothing more than to become the next Air Supply. More often, the old simply became the new: Yes became Asia, Foreigner became Toto.