It's time for you to stop pretending that you don't like Nickelback. It's okay: we left being embarrassed about the music we like back in the '10s. Did you really think that Von Dutch trucker caps could get popular again and there wouldn't be a knee jerk comeback of dad-rock as well? Now that the sartorial mistakes of our youth are being relived with splendid unselfconsciousness by the new generation, it's time to admit that it has never been wrong to love a bit of grizzled paint-by-numbers rock'n'roll.
Foo Fighters, Nickelback, Staind, Muse, Manic Street Preachers, ZZ Top...all of these and more have come under the banner of dad-rock over the years—a hitherto vaguely derogatory term thrown around by those who think music must be difficult or pretentious in order to be enjoyable.
When Pitchfork critic Rob Mitchum introduced the term dad-rock into the general lexicon back in 2007 with a (5.2/10) review of Wilco's sixth studio album Sky Blue Sky, he meant it as a "snarky aside". Since then, it's developed into a sweeping term to describe most 'uncool' white guy rock supposedly made and packaged for the middle-aged man and older. You know, the kind of songs that appeared on BBC's Stig-adorned CD series Top Gear: Seriously Cool Driving Music back in the noughties.
In a move that feels like Australians using "cunt" as a term of endearment, teenagers on TikTok have started deploying the more extreme 'divorced dad-rock' to denote this genre of sound. Though it may sound like a diminishing term, the hashtag and categorisation actually holds an enormous community of teenagers and twenty-somethings confessing their love for all things The Police and Third Eye Blind.
The difference now is that 'uncool' no longer holds as much weight. Naff, if anything, has become a cool sub-aesthetic characterised by unhindered enjoyment. Dad-rock, hampered as it is by its derogatory beginnings, deserves a rebrand. I suggest daddy-rock.
'Daddy', I think we can all agree, both neatly aknowledges the renewed fetishisation of all things so-called imperfect (an older, less sleek man, for example) and honours Gen-Z: the people who have popularised the word 'daddy' and regenerated the social clout of an entire genre.
The youth's acceptance of sometimes-deritative soft rock is happening, whether you're ready for it or not. First they searched Depop for Von Dutch and Punky Fish; soon, the teenagers may start putting money down on old copies of Top Gear: Seriously Cool Driving Music. If you've denied yourself the pleasure of listening to 'Bad To The Bone' by George Thorogood and the Destroyers or 'Brothers In Arms' by Dire Straits for fear of ruining your streaming history, today should be the day you break your fast.
