The greatest year in rock music, according to Homer Simpson: “It’s a scientific fact!”
It’s perhaps one of The Simpsons‘ most tragically comedic moments of the entire series. Perusing the Suicide Notes, formerly Good Vibrations, record store, family husband and father Homer finds to his horror that the beloved bands of his youth, Bread, Boston, and Styx, are languishing in the ‘oldies’ section. Challenging the snarky employee over the relevancy of such obscure 1990s names like Nine Inch Nails or Sonic Youth plastered on the walls, the final demoralising blow comes when the sullen teenager knows nothing of the 1980s US festival series.
The existential crisis that strikes Homer in season seven’s ‘Homerpalooza’ is a phenomenon no less threatening nearly 30 years after its air date. We’re all susceptible to switching off from music once we leave our teens and 20s behind, entering our third decade on Earth with all the daily responsibilities, professional pressures, and potential family demands that zap all the energy once devoted to immersing yourself in the hits of the day.
As life gets in the way, the sacred era we perceive to be music’s golden age is typically whatever was in the charts when you were young with disposable income and only responsible for yourself.
Cast your mind back across all of Homer’s musical moments during The Simpsons‘ classic run, and his taste stops before punk. Not above breaking into novelty hits such as Herb Alpert’s ‘Spanish Flea’ or Ohio Express’ ‘Yummy, Yummy, Yummy’, but it’s the 1970s’ soft and hard rock that Homer held deepest affection for, the soundtrack to his days rolling to Springfield High School in his prized sheen green sports car, Steve Miller Band, Jefferson Starship, Grand Funk Railroad, and Queen all fixtures on his Plymouth Road Runner radio.
His AOR veneration is at odds with his more idiosyncratic internal songbook. Counting Rappin’ Ronnie Reagan and The Doodletown Pipers in his record collection, the removal of his caricature from Mount Plushmore and subsequent barring from Moe’s Tavern revealed his favourite song to be The Weather Girls’ high-camp ‘It’s Raining Men’. Homer is also capable of making a sentimental detour for his wife and life partner, Marge. The Carpenters’ ‘They Long to Be (Close to You)’ long-standing as ‘their song’.
It’s the morose stroll following his grapple with age in Suicide Notes record store that Homer reveals music’s peak year, in his estimation. “Everyone knows rock attained perfection in 1974,” he declares. “It’s a scientific fact!”.
1974 was certainly a big year. Kraftwerk drops their electronic classic Autobahn, Ziggy Stardust makes way for Diamond Dogs, Van Halen plays their first show on Sunset Strip, and ABBA wins the 19th Eurovision Song Contest with ‘Waterloo’. But the two decades that passed Homer by left him in a very different music world, a pang of unfamiliarity that’s no doubt struck anybody wandering the ruminative road of doubting their cool.
After hanging out with the likes of Smashing Pumpkins and Cypress Hill, Homer finally acquiesces to his transition from hip to dad rock, summing up his bout of mid-life crisis with the immortal wisdom: “Maybe if you’re truly cool, you don’t need to be told you’re cool.”
Never Miss A Tale
The Far Out Classic Rock Newsletter
All the latest Classic Rock content from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.