BLOG: What I've learned from teaching English to teenagers: the death of rock n'roll heroes.

Let's make things clear: teaching is like being a contestant in Survivor. But it pays the rent, and the concerts, and the booze, and the Eurostar tickets and a few extras. So here I found myself, in a class, trying to insufflate some interest- if not love- for British culture through, guess what, music.

And the first thing I've learned is that kids have absolutely no idea about recent bands. Let's say that they have some vague knowledge of American hip hop and punk-rock (what the radio is feeding them) and absolutely none about indie music. But they do have requests.

And that's the second thing I've learned: kids have no kids taste. I mean, how come you can relate to Adele when you're 14? Where has teenage angst gone? Shouldn't they be asking for something loud? Well, obviously, not. Or not anymore I should say, because when talking about their musical/rock n' roll heroes, the names I finally got were : Led Zeppelin (« alright luv, but they're like you're grand-fathers age? »), Nirvana (« I remember the day Kurt Cobain died and you were not even born ») and AC/DC (same profile as for Led Zeppelin).

So coming third is the direct consequence of I've noticed just before: rock n' roll heroes are dead and gone. Who could socially embody rock n' roll heroism these days for 13 year old kids? When my mum was a teenager, she had a plethora of singers and bands- the 60s being the cradle for heroes. When I was a teenager, I had two brothers who didn't give a fuck about the rest of the world, about their band or their fans (or that's what they said). But being 14 in 2011 is living in a musical wasteland where old heroes try to re-enact old flames, where new bands and singers address a small part of the teenage population without being able to gather their contemporaries whose musical minds have become obese, listening to junk music.

Video might have killed the radio stars but internet probably killed the rock n'roll heroes, literally stuffing kids with tons of new bands without being able to push forward any of them.  And I'm not looking back in anger, I swear.