"Do you know 'Gangnam Style?'" my 17-year-old niece asked.
I had absolutely no clue what she was talking about, and initially thought it was something completely different and even more disturbing than it was.
Then she logged onto YouTube and showed me the video for a South Korean pop song.
It did what most of today's music does for me - absolutely nothing.
I mean, here's a sampling of the lyrics ... "Oppan Gangnam Style, Gangnam Style, Op op op op, Oppan Gangnam Style, Gangnam Style."
Hardly the stuff of Lennon and McCartney.
And then there's that beat - that same annoying, pulsating throb you hear coming from oversized speakers in a souped-up, 10-year-old Honda Civic at 3:34 in the morning.
"Thump. ThumP. ThuMP. ThUMP. THUMP..."
Surely you've been torn from a deep sleep by that noise approaching from miles away, and then thought about hiding under the bed because it seemed a horseman of the apocalypse was soon trotting by.
I know what you're thinking - "Steve's an old fart, a stick in the mud."
That might be true when it comes to some things, like clothes and hairstyles, but not music.
I'm particularly partial to Neil Young, old Van Halen, AC/DC, Guess Who, Rush, early Metallica, the Beatles, Ron Hynes and Blue Rodeo.
However, I appreciate good music of all types - speed metal, classic rock, folk, pop from the '60s and '70s, Canadian, grunge, classical and a lot of Irish/Newfoundland stuff.
But I just can't do this dance crap. It really does all sound the same and it's more irritating than those stunned swarms of wasps buzzing around these days.
"Gangnam Style" - with its 262 million YouTube views - might have that driving (and redundant) dance beat, but that pales in comparison to the opening of a song like Van Halen's "Unchained," which continues to rock 31 years after its release and is so brilliant that writing the opening riff phonetically would do it an injustice.
And the pop music flavour of the day might have such powerful lyrics as "Eh, Sexy Lady, Op op op op, Oppan Gangnam Style," but that's a joke compared to "Well, I dreamed I saw the knights in armour coming saying something about a queen. There were peasants singing and drummers drumming, and the archer split the tree."
C'mon, young people. There is so much better music out there. Do me a favour and discover some of it. Here's a start: borrow your dad's copy of Van Halen "1984" and listen to "Panama." It will move you in ways better and different than you've ever experienced with your current tuneage.
And if you won't take my advice and search for superior sounds, at least do me the favour of not sharing your music with my kids.
Steve Bartlett sadly now finds himself humming "Oppan Gangnam Style. Op op op op." Reach him by email at sbartlett@thetelegram.com or follow him on Twitter: @SteveBartlett_





I guess being a bit more educated about something and trying to explain it makes you a hipster?