A poster of Kurt Cobain hangs on the wall behind my computer. Its edges are torn from its trip from home. On my right a poster of the cover of London Calling hangs, wrinkled. It was the last copy School Kids Record had.
These men were not of my generation: Cobain died when I was eight, and The Clash broke up before I was born. Close your eyes and try to imagine a college student 20 years from now. What hero from our generation will he deify by hanging a poster on the wall?
Paul Simon once sang, "Every generation throws a hero up the pop charts." Dylan, Lennon, Gaye, Bowie, Marley, Springsteen, Cobain: Icons cannot help emerging-until now. As a generation, we have failed to raise an idol, to create an art and even to dream.
As any print media will tell you, Bono is the biggest rock star in the world. Nothing against Bono and his humanitarian efforts, but his stardom is pathetic. U2's greatest album was released more than 20 years ago-the band's recent works are popular because they are so innocuous that they could not possibly offend anyone.
Unfortunately, they can't inspire anyone either. For all of his political activism, Bono does not believe in the power of his music to energize our generation. Instead he searches within established avenues to create change. It is not all his fault-Bono once sang to his generation, and perhaps still does, but that generation is reaching its 40s and becoming a part of "The Establishment."
No, it's not Bono's fault. It is our generation that cannot raise a hero. Rock and roll is dying. The Strokes, once heralded as the saviors of rock, just released an album. Its theme is that no one, especially these failed messiahs, have anything to say. No one has risen in their place. Instead, rock has fractured into so many delicate sub-genres that no one can climb to prominence.
Hip hop has risen in rock and roll's place, but it has failed miserably in recent years. Instead of energizing a generation, instead of demanding satisfaction, artists like 50 Cent and Jay-Z perpetuate the status quo, declaring themselves fat, rich and happy and telling a generation that happiness is bitches, hos and 9mms. Eminem could have been our Elvis, taking an essentially African-American art form and presenting it to the entire world, but Eminem forgot to be happy: he made his Blood on the Tracks divorce album before he "stayed up for days writing" his "Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands". Eminem never had the vision to speak for a generation; he never wanted stardom. All he ever wanted was respect.
Where Eminem failed due to his own insecurity, Kanye West, hip hop's recent golden boy, fails due to hubris. On his debut, College Dropout, Kanye begins by ridiculing superficiality ("Workout Plan") and those who adhere to societal pressures ("All Falls Down.") Sadly, Kanye also discards education and hard work ("Spaceship.") Yet Kanye's worst transgression comes on "Jesus Walks," a song in which he self-consciously uses religion for its shock effect ("You can sing about anything except for Jesus").
Kanye does not believe in anything except his own talent. For him to become a hero-to grab a generation-he must find some faith in the only thing music has ever been about: love, desire and loss. His new album, Late Registration, may sound like a change of heart, but Kanye remains unrepentant. If his best rallying cry remains "We want pre-nup," he will fail.
Meanwhile, the biggest stars of our generation have nothing to say. They are mostly oblivious young females popular because of their physique and their disturbing mixture of seduction, corruption and naivete singing the words written and handed to them by a past generation. They are symbolic of a generation so obsessed with stardom and superficiality that they have forgotten how to think. They have no genius and no imagination. If someone has to be "bigger than Jesus," I'd take John Lennon over Lindsay Lohan every time.
Without men like Lennon, without heroes, our society has no one to dream. On the radio recently I heard my personal favorite Christmas carol, Lennon's "So This Is Christmas (War is Over.)" It was a cover by a silky-voiced woman with a professionally executed melodic sensibility. Yet in the background there was no echoing chorus singing "war is over." Clearly, the war is not over. And, sadly, no one even has the guts to record their dream of peace and to dare to look toward the future.
Jordan Everson is a Trinity sophomore and tech editor for The Chronicle. His column runs every other Friday.
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