Day 15,115
Back around the early 1980s, when I was a teenager, I remember listening mostly to music that had been made in the late 70s or early 80s. The music of the previous decade was considered "old stuff", but had a certain amount of cool. Music from twenty years before, that was hippy old rock, for the adults. Music from thirty years before was Classic Rock or Square Music (depending on if it was Elvis and Buddy Holly or Pat Boone and Paul Anka). Going back 40 years, and now you were into old fogey music... big band or crooner stuff.
Yet as I listen to the radio these days, I hear music from ten or even twenty years ago played on the "new" music stations (Nirvana's Smell's Like Teen Spirit is nearly 20 years old, people... it's as old today as The Beatles Can't Buy Me Love was in 1984, but get's way more airplay.) Even music from 30 or 40 years ago get's air play.
What's kind of disturbing to me isn't that we're hearing this old fogey music today. It's that the music is practically indistiguishable. Smells Like Teen Spirit sounds relevant today. U2's Sunday, Bloody Sunday, edging up on 30 years old, is still cutting edge. Heck, thanks to the Indie movement, suddenly the rockibilly of the '50s and the psychedelia pop of the 60s sounds current again.
It's no wonder I can stay semi-current with new trends and listen to the stuff my younger friend's listen to, since it doesn't sound all that different from what I used to listen to in my own youth. But I wonder what it means over all to how we can define our generations?
Yet as I listen to the radio these days, I hear music from ten or even twenty years ago played on the "new" music stations (Nirvana's Smell's Like Teen Spirit is nearly 20 years old, people... it's as old today as The Beatles Can't Buy Me Love was in 1984, but get's way more airplay.) Even music from 30 or 40 years ago get's air play.
What's kind of disturbing to me isn't that we're hearing this old fogey music today. It's that the music is practically indistiguishable. Smells Like Teen Spirit sounds relevant today. U2's Sunday, Bloody Sunday, edging up on 30 years old, is still cutting edge. Heck, thanks to the Indie movement, suddenly the rockibilly of the '50s and the psychedelia pop of the 60s sounds current again.
It's no wonder I can stay semi-current with new trends and listen to the stuff my younger friend's listen to, since it doesn't sound all that different from what I used to listen to in my own youth. But I wonder what it means over all to how we can define our generations?