Turn on Genius (baby, baby, awwhh)

Is the ‘boomer backlash’ coming? Three or four generations of people would probably like to think so, but in reality there are still about two billion Nissan Pathfinders worth of folks over the age of 55 owning the shit out of everything. Still, there are definite signs that the ‘boomer’ stronghold on everything from property to jobs is being evaluated in a way it wasn’t when the boomers were seen in a good light; as ‘free-spirited’ or ‘entrepreneurial’ (because that’s a good thing).

An opinion piece by Francis Beckett (himself of boomer age) in the Guardian this month takes a pretty scathing view of the boomers in power in the UK; one that relates almost directly to our own situation. Beckett views boomers as a generation who were given more freedom than any previous yet have decided to restrict the freedoms of younger generations. One of the major points Beckett makes is that, in the boomers’ younger days, tertiary education was free to even the “penniless”, ensuring a sector of younger people without previous access to university places were able to further their learning. Of course, in Australia, when Whitlam abolished university fees in 1974, a giant percentage of those attending university were already on Commonwealth scholarships.

The point Beckett makes is that, for boomers, education didn’t come with an appendix indicating its value with relation to market forces and job suitability. Now, with an overlording focus on economics and the ‘harsh realities’ of unemployment, Beckett writes, education is seen as the “acquisition of skills required to swell someone else’s pockets”. That sentiment hits home when considering recent polls indicating that one-third of Australians are looking to change jobs. It becomes even more powerful when considering the personal conversations between those of us under boomer age about qualifications, thoughts of further study, universities that are ‘academic’ or ‘prestigious’ as opposed to ‘jobs-based’ and what the difference is between the two when it comes time to apply for work. Learning is, by and large, no longer seen as valuable in itself.

It might sound like grappling for a link, but Beckett’s piece had me thinking about the way views on education relate to music: marketability vs the generation of ideas; the ‘friendliness’ of bands or songs to radio programmers’ ears as opposed to innovation regardless of exposure. All pretty well covered topics, and pretty boring, really, until you consider how often bands are talked about as needing to go ‘back to the practise room’ or ‘work on their songwriting’ – if not explicitly, then in the back of our minds when watching or listening to an act who is new to us. We shrug bands off easily because there’s always another band who’ll have their shit together more; because we’ve learned that, when evaluating music, form and ability and execution (regardless of your angle on any of those) are the things to look for. The learning isn’t celebrated in itself.

Cue Seattle 26-year-old Mike Hadreas, who performs as Perfume Genius and has just released his debut album, Learning (Matador/Remote Control). The title might relate to the lessons Hadreas has been through to get to the point of each song’s output (if the lyrical content is taken as true: the affair with and death of a teacher, dealing with an alcoholic parent of a friend, general disappointment and hope), but it also relates to the form the album comes in. Much of it sounds like a spilling of ideas Hadreas has had about genres and song forms and melodies. Barely any of it sounds complete when held against the criteria often given to ‘successful’ songs or albums. Hadreas is learning to use his voice, his words and his instruments; learning, like any student, to untangle the thoughts of how he wants to use his piano, his graceful warble, how to turn a piece of repeated orchestration into a ‘song’.

Such an observation might often follow with a statement of how stunning the album is regardless. In truth, some of it is (and when it is, it really is) and some ideas don’t really hold up. But it is a celebration of learning in a way learning is very rarely celebrated, without attempting to veil the process or playing it down for looking to what comes next. It’s a simple idea but one worth noting.