I’ve decided that pop music is one of the most interesting social phenomena of my lifetime (and your lifetime, too, unless you happen to be dead while reading this).

When I was growing up, I spent a lot of time plunking away at a guitar. Sometimes, when I was feeling in a percussive mood, I picked up a wooden spoon and banged on an upturned pot. I was a noisy little bastard.

By my teen years, I was doing what everybody else was doing, which was starting a band. It’s almost a rite of passage in the states. Once you hit a certain age, you are obligated, regardless of musical talent, to find three or four other people and agree on a regular meeting place where you will create the worst noises in the universe (mostly by fighting – very little music is played in these teenage bands).

The deeper I went inside that scene, the more I felt that there were Laws of Pop:

– You, for the most part, had to be an angry male (or at least pretend to be angry (you could also pretend to be male, but this was harder))

– You should be better at setting fire to your guitar than playing it

– Once you turned 30, your days in the business were over – you were out of creativity, and nobody wanted to see your wrinkles

In retrospect, you could hardly blame me for thinking these things. I grew up with pop/rock music from many generations. I listened to everything from the Ventures to Ozzy, with some Steve Vai and Stravinsky thrown into the mix. Along the way, I encountered:

– A large quantity of audio testosterone

– A lot of silly antics

– A lot of people who died, or who disappeared, quite young

There were a few exceptions to the Rules, though:

– Madonna (I love this woman)

– The Police (mainly Sting (of course))

– U2

Time chugged right along, and these three (along with many others – I’m just using this group as an example) went right along with it.

Sting is now a balding, wrinkling man of somewhat advanced years.

Madonna has finally given birth, married (for real), and settled down.

U2 is populated by four guys, all of whom look very much like Men rather than the yelping, smooth-skinned boys they were Back When.

According to Rory’s Original Rules of Pop/Rock, none of them should still be performing or putting out albums. At the very least, even if they do break the rules, nobody should like it.

But I sat down a couple days ago and watched a good sampling of Live8: Coldplay (along with the frontman of the Verve), Mariah Carey, Robbie Williams, and anybody else who got in the way of my mouse clicking. I sat, mesmerized by the performances, for a Very Long Time.

While watching, I was impressed to find that:

– Sting can finally sing live. His performances with the Police stank. The guy can finally perform his own material live, and he did a fantastic job of it.

– Madonna, particularly with her Ray of Light performance, was nearly perfect. Like Sting, she finally learned how to sing, and the result was pretty bloody powerful. The dancing, the attitude, and the fact that, oddly enough, she’s never looked better, all came together to account for one of my favorite Live8 performances.

– U2 worked the crowd, which is what U2 have always been good at. Bono could never really sing live, and he’s worse now than ever. His voice sounds like it’s trying to crawl out of his throat so it can vomit down his chin, but his energy engages everybody. The band, as usual, played well.

So, what about the shows being put on by newcomers? I was left flat. When the first few notes of “Bittersweet Symphony” played, I got chills. One minute in, I was bored. No finesse. No panache. Just posturing that failed to engage. Coldplay was similarly dull. And don’t get me wrong – I love Coldplay, but they were just dullsville live.

Stevie Wonder? Fantastic.

Here, then, are my revised rules of Pop/Rock:

– A good song is a good song. It doesn’t matter if it’s from the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, or last week. Madonna put “Like a Prayer” and “Ray of Light” back to back, and they were both fabulous.

– A good performer is a good performer. All the downy, youthful chest fuzz in the world couldn’t compete with Bono’s presence. He was a royal dork when he was younger, but he’s turned into one of the coolest and most bad ass guys you’ll ever see on stage. Maybe we’ll see the same thing happen for Coldplay.

– Age seems to be irrelevant provided you can still put on a show. There might be a limit, and the Stones are really pushing it, but I’ve lifted many of my previous age restrictions. If you’re 55 and you can outperform your 30 year old self, then congrats. I’ll keep buying your stuff.

This is all very interesting because pop music is still so new. When it first appeared, it was in the domain of the young and crazy. What nobody seems to have expected, though, was that these guys were going to continue doing what they do without Losing It along the way. I’m certainly shocked. I was worried about Madonna’s performance, but was blown away by watching her do Her Thing better than she’s ever done it.

I imagine that there’s still a lot of concern in the minds of these people. Bono wakes up in the morning and thinks, “Do these jeans make me look fat? Do those silver whiskers compromise my sex appeal?”

When you’re too deeply involved with something, it’s easy to lose perspective. Bono and U2 are putting out some decent albums, but putting on the best live shows they’ve ever done, and Bono’s probably concerned about how his ass looks. Madonna, instead of focusing on how bloody cool her presence was on stage, is probably freaking out because you could see the beginnings of Old Lady sJowls in her cheeks for about four seconds during one shot. Sting, who hit some fantastic notes during “Message in a Bottle” seems more concerned with communicating his sexual potency than his musical talent.

That’s all fine, and it’s to be expected.

Let’s bring this around to coders.

Coders will argue, fight, and scream about My Platform vs. Your Platform. If an application wasn’t written in Python or C++ or Java or VB.NET or [insert language here], then it’s crap.

But, what does the user see?

The user sees the following:

– A good application

or

– A bad application

A user doesn’t care if you wrote your app using Delphi. It doesn’t matter.

And I don’t care anymore how many rings Sting would have if I chopped him in half and counted. As long as he can do what he’s doing, I say he’s welcome to do it. If a song he wrote twenty-five years ago is relevant now, then more power to him.

Yup.