THE YEAR THAT WAS

I take issue with Robert Hilburn’s article about anger in rock music (“It’s Still All the Rage,” Year in Review, Dec. 25).

As a ‘90s parent of two teen-agers, I think I can see what is happening here. It seems that young people celebrate the achievement of parental outrage. That is the goal: whatever it takes to make Mom and Dad’s blood boil.

In order to ensure parental exasperation, nothing is left to chance. Songs and attitudes must be totally and unmistakably defiant. As a result, many young people are now walking arsenals of bitterness. They listen to, and identify with, the ranting and raving of rock stars who use their listeners as shrinks, to absorb all the demonic rage that went into the making of the music.

The question is not whether the music itself is OK. The question is--and always will be--whether the lyrics condone and even encourage the type of thinking that reduces women to the status of mere toys or encourage listeners to use a gun on authority figures.

TIMOTHY THOMAS

Valencia

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I am 25 years old, I have a college education, and I have been listening to heavy metal for the past 15 years. In that time I’ve experienced the metal genre becoming popular and unpopular with the culture at large; I’ve watched how the mass media have exploited heavy metal for the sake of some tired joke on a more tired sitcom; I’ve seen heavy metal reduced to nothing more than backward-masking and satanic worship on daytime talk shows. Hilburn’s article was the last straw.

Before he goes attacking and trying to compare heavy metal with “the new ‘90s bands,” he should think about what came first and what will still be around even after he’s gone on to the next “popular” thing.

Ozzy Osbourne and the rest of the original Black Sabbath lineup were so ahead of their time that they could have waited until 1994 to start up a band together and still be more original and relevant than any buzz band out now.

But then Seattle would be just another city.

BRYAN KLINGER

Laguna Hills

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This year featured a great deal of debate about whether the “Generation X” label, with its attendant characteristics (low self-esteem, diminished expectations) is truly representative of today’s young people. The popularity of such bands as Nine Inch Nails, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden provides some evidence that a great number of young people do in fact fit the description of Generation X.

In this regard, the defining rock ‘n’ roll moment of 1994 for me was the symbolic spectacle of the “Mud People” at Woodstock ‘94: confused, frustrated youth thrashing about in a frantic, desperate struggle to find meaning and direction in life by immersing themselves in nature.

Then again, maybe it was just a bunch of kids having fun in the mud.

BRETT M. BARBER

Newport Beach

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Regarding “Arts and the Coming Storm,” by Diane Haithman (Year in Review, Dec. 25):

I guess the family values boys--Gingrich, Helms and Buchanan--are at it again. But then the only kind of “family values” those men could possibly know anything about would be the kind practiced by the Corleones.

Maybe their idea to get rid of the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is part of a plan to do away with things that make us a more civilized and caring society--and increase the number of people who think like they do.

What a stroke of genius!

STEVE BARR

Culver City

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As usual, Martin Bernheimer did a fairly thorough job on this year’s Beckmesser Awards (Year in Review, Dec. 25). However, I did notice this omission from the “Curious and Curiouser” section:

Providing-a-community-service-as-long-as-it’s-our-community-award: To public radio station KUSC General Manager (and Long Beach resident) Wally Smith and his wife-announcer Bonnie Grice for the decision to broadcast the Long Beach Symphony concerts after the station stopped broadcasting the performances of major American orchestras.

ALAN R. COLES

Long Beach

Associated Press

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Must we have yet another picture of “The Dream Team” of Katzenberg, Spielberg and Geffen printed in your paper (“What a Wacky Town II,” Year in Review, Dec. 25)? Every day of every week of every month of every year? Enough, already!

We know who they are, what they do and how often they’ve been congratulated. How about giving at least a line or two to some others who work like mad to earn a living in this business--or this world, for that matter--without benefit of high-priced P.R. firms or overdone hype?

KEITH EVANS

North Hollywood

OK, this will be the last time. Well, we’ll try. . . .