Will We Survive?

Earlier today, I was listening to DJ Rafft, on local high-school-operated KYDS radio, introduce that favorite 1977 Saturday-Night-Fever hit “Staying Alive,” and thinking MY GENERATION’s Disco music is safe in the hands of Gen Z. Then she bulldozed over the artist name: Beeze Geese, instead of Bee Gees. “I Will Survive” Gloria Gaynor became Gloria Gaynyor. I wondered, does she even know, or care? She was choosing good tunes, but these pesky artist names seemed to be unimportant abstractions rather than critical knowledge. A baton has been dropped in the relay race of knowledge transfer between generations. Will we survive? (I agree with my Facebook friend Bob Reece, who comments:

Because of my experiences working in radio, I can assure you that this young DJ loves the music, enjoys playing it for her audience - no matter how small it might be - but she's not in an environment where she's heard the proper pronunciation of the names. There's nothing more embarrassing for a DJ when she has mispronounced a name on air, and then a listener calls to say, "it's actually pronounced....")