The Good Old Days

Days ago, I was mistakenly watching a music show on a supposedly respected national TV where the host was interviewing a composer.  The host started talking about the good old days of Arabic music and the old singers and the impossibility of having such great people again in our lifetime. She added that most of the new generation singers have nothing to do with music and art and nobody can ever take the place of our deceased old artists. So ideals, ideals and ideals.

It is not the first time I hear such a lame argument and I have also heard the same argument about other kinds of art.

I got no problem with those who like classics or old timers stuff but I have a problem with those who undermine the new generation without a valid argument.  I personally rarely see their work as high standard but here I would like to say why do I have a problem with that?

1. Art in general is a result of a social, psychological, political, etc... status of a given nation and as a result if those new guys are losers, it is a definite consequence of the disastrous status of our culture. So shoot at the culture and not at those poor people who think they got talent.  Their talents are relatively good compared to the nothingness that they live in.  To make the story short, we lack culture and we live in the culture of lacking.
2. Most who criticize the new generation and their limited capabilities are past oriented people who dwell on the past and live the dreams of the good old days or are negative competitors who won't admit any positive trait for people in their field of work. (I will shortly post an article about the culture of negative competition).

Guys, most of the old generation artists in our culture were not that good.  Only few made it and those are the ones you hear about today. (although I doubt the talents of many due to several plagiarism cases that were revealed).

I haven't heard Al Pacino talking bad about Brad Pitt or about Andrew Garfield trying to undermine their work.  I haven't heard Dolly Parton talking bad about Jay Z or about Rihanna.  Never seen a show on any respected western TV that demolishes the work of any popular artist but rather in many circumstances present a social/political/psychological analysis of his/her work.

Try to positively criticize and just forget about the wrong national quote that says: "Akbar minak youm, afham minak sini" which translates "He who is older than you by one day is a year ahead of you in knowledge".  This is not always true and I am sure many of you can prove that.