Music and Generations

[Eric the Green]

(05-21-2020, 04:01 PM)GeekyCynic Wrote: Really interesting video where three film reviewers (all Xers) discuss the new Beastie Boys documentary and the group's legacy and how the Beastie Boys' music and story doesn't seem to resonate as much with younger people. Music from a specific era tends to resonate most deeply with those were there and came of age with it and those older and younger may not "get it" as much. I could see Boomers saying the same things about The Beatles or Stones. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRotErV2Chs

I agree and disagree, though. Younger people are more into music, take more time for it, and there's peer rewards for listening. Young people dominate you tube videos today, with billions of views for today's stars, but only millions for the most popular boomer and Xer songs.

I listen when I can to any music that comes along, but I think the Beatles/Stones era was in fact better than other pop eras. I can't help it if I came of age then. I have always listened to music, and have known what I liked. I can enjoy some pieces from any era. But I don't think our society and culture from the later 80s onward, or in the early 1950s, supported creative work in the field very well. The Reagan era deregulated radio, and the media consolidated. Creative folks were not encouraged; it was about selling to make the fastest buck. Younger people today reject the older music, and thus learn nothing from it. They resent boomers because they are boomers. OK boomer. That was less true in the past than it is today. Even the boomers, despite their famous slogan, and the silents too, were influenced a lot by the styles of the past, and still heard them on the radio too.

More recent pop styles just don't have as much content. Lots of loud screaching and screaming, angry rapping, distorted grunging, lots of sex parties, expressions of boredom and ennui and cynicism, but very little musical content in the melodies and sound arrangements. With some pretty good pieces around, of course, as well. It's a big world, and many Gen Xers created some great music way out on the fringes of the American pop scene and beyond, and many artists of all generations continue to do so.

So yes, I think the music I came of age with was better, but not all of it by any means. There has always been lots of lousy and mediocre pop music in every era, and there was even more bad pop music throughout my coming of age boomer-youth era than in the earlier pop eras, in fact. The most popular hits from my coming of age era are not all that great, really, overall, even compared to some later hits. Earlier pop culture had the advantage of expert jazz and big band musicians, and an abundance of romantic ballads and show tunes. See our thread about the best songs ever.

It's just that in the mid-sixties, and the 2T generally, there were more standout songs and works offered. There was a confluence of many competent studio musicians, many trained in the big band era and many others who developed in several US metros by producers ambitious to create great sounds, and many great pop cultures in other countries. The Beatles inspired many new bands to form. Rock music often aspired toward art. There was an attitude of experimentation, and there was the stimulus of mind expanding drugs, spiritual counter-cultures and movements, human potential movements and folk protest movements that inspired some artists to aim for the highest musical expression, as for example The Who, or Bob Dylan, The Byrds, etc.. Awakenings are times when creative expansion can occur. The other turnings in the USA tend to suppress this.

My top 400 from 1956-1977 with notes on and songs from other times too:
http://philosopherswheel.com/ericrock.html