I think most of you have heard by now that Elton John says the Internet is “destroying good music", suggesting that perhaps the "Internet should be turned off” for a few years. Blatant techno-ignorance aside, all he really does is come off as an old crank waving a stick at the youngsters on his lawn.

As some have pointed out, at least he admits to being a luddite; but admission of incompetence doesn't excuse you when you decide to comment on things anyway. And, indeed, it's pretty clear that not only does John not know anything about what he's talking about, half of his point isn't even connected to the Internet, really. And let's not get into how preposterous the idea of “shutting down the Internet” is in the first place—it's quite literally an impossible task given how it's constructed—but I'm sure it's just a symbolic expression on his part anyway.

The main error he commits, as so many others have committed before him, is the strange assumption that we communicate less because we have the Internet today. Honestly, nothing could be further from the truth; people today, and youths in particular, communicate with each other on a much grander scale than could ever have been imagined 50 years ago. While it was once a rare occasion to meet someone from far off—such as a foreign country, perhaps—today, that is just average and ordinary. On a daily basis, we talk with people thousands of miles away, as if they were right here—and isn't this nothing short of amazing? No, John, we don't communicate less because we have the Internet—we communicate a lot more than we ever have before. Your self-admitted blindness about how we do it doesn't mean we don't do it.

My favorite part of his little spiel is this:

In the early Seventies there were at least ten albums released every week that were fantastic. Now you’re lucky to find ten albums a year of that quality. And there are more albums released each week now than there were then.Elton John

This part makes me giggle, because what Elton John is really saying is he doesn't like modern music. Well, he's not alone, and he's not the first one either. People who find themselves getting older—and John is 60 now—have always whined about the musical taste of the new generation. Times change, and so do tastes along with them. Maybe Elton John can't find any good albums today, but then again, I find myself looking at a lot of the music from the '70s and thinking to myself “how the heck could people listen to this shit and think it was good?” as well.

No, there's not really anything new under the sun here. People get older, and slowly transform into cranks with nothing better to do than to yell at the next generation for having their own new, unique taste in music, clothes, and culture. A fading relic of the past, that's what John seems to be doing today.