Listening to the same music >50 years later!

[Skol303]

How many of us can honestly say that we're 'in tune' with whatever the youth of today is thinking, wearing, listening to, etc...?

Given the demographics of the Basschat membership, I very much doubt - and in fact hope - that most of us don't have a clue about the 'youth of today'. Because if us 40, 50, 60-year olds are in tune with youth culture, then there's something seriously wrong with the world

Of course today's youth will look back on the music from their childhood in 50 years time. I grew up with heavy metal, the Beastie Boys, acid house and rave music. That for me is nostalgia - not the Beatles or the Sex Pistols or Steely Dan.

Much of this debate is just born out of the inevitable aging process that we all go through. Every generation wants to fight getting old; every generation believes that its music is better than that of the next generation; and whatever kids are listening to will never be 'proper music'... until they're old enough to tell the next generation of kids that it is.

I'm 40. And a few months ago I went to a warehouse rave, attended by around 5000 young 'uns who were happily 'having it large' in exactly the same way I was 20 years old. If not moreso. And I found that very re-assuring!

Trust me. The kids are having a wail of time and loving music just as much as we all did (and still do). All that's changed is we're now old(er) and out of touch. Deal with it

[RAY AGAINST THE MACHINE]

A friend of mine has started buying vinyl again.
I gave him a lot of albums /12" I had which I cannot see myself listening to again .
These include ; the groundhogs/ atomic rooster/ ted nugent / hawkwind.
I purchased the deluxe cd box set of hawkwind
Warrior on the edge of time at Christmas .
Tbh , after a few plays I lost the will to listen to it anymore. This being arguably their best album.

I feel that by listening ( and seeing) rammstein opeth etc I'm still not out of touch with what's going on.
I do regret discarding my 7" chart singles in'79 when I first started going to gigs and becoming a headbanger . Having said that I've still got Abbas greatest hits. Gotta get the very early albums now.
As we get older our minds get more mature and we are open to whatever rocks our boat.
Just waiting for the new rammstein /Metallica / tangerine dream /rush

[redbandit599]

I think there were always some kids who were into music, and some who were into other stuff. It may just have been a bit more obvious with the tribal clothing.

The vastly increased choice and availability of music has changed all that I think, but maybe mostly it's down to the way that people/kids listen to music now. It used to be about something social, listening to and sharing physical records and CDs with your mates. You then had to sit in one place and take it in.

With the advent of more mobile ways of listening more becomes more of an individuals soundtrack, and less of an event in itself. Though I suspect these things may be cyclical, once people rediscover the pleasure of sharing music in person I think things may swing back. When you sit on the tube there's loads of people looking zoned out with their earphones in, amongst them there's usually a couple of teenage girls sharing an earpiece each, they are the ones with the big smiles...

I do miss the Tribes though, it's one of the things that's kept me going to Heavy Metal festivals and gigs. These still feel like a gathering of the clan. Well done to the Goths too for keeping it going! There's a couple of young lads in my town who have gone for the full on punk look recently, big mohawks, ratty painted leathers, tartan trousers, moodily sitting about and playing badly in a band in someones garage near me - awesome. Miss the Ska/Two Tone tribe too, that was fun for a while.

[discreet]

Abbey Crunch. That is all.

[BetaFunk]

[quote name='redbandit599' timestamp='1408444907' post='2530137'] I think there were always some kids who were into music, and some who were into other stuff. It may just have been a bit more obvious with the tribal clothing. The vastly increased choice and availability of music has changed all that I think, but maybe mostly it's down to the way that people/kids listen to music now. It used to be about something social, listening to and sharing physical records and CDs with your mates. You then had to sit in one place and take it in. With the advent of more mobile ways of listening more becomes more of an individuals soundtrack, and less of an event in itself. Though I suspect these things may be cyclical, once people rediscover the pleasure of sharing music in person I think things may swing back. When you sit on the tube there's loads of people looking zoned out with their earphones in, amongst them there's usually a couple of teenage girls sharing an earpiece each, they are the ones with the big smiles... I do miss the Tribes though, it's one of the things that's kept me going to Heavy Metal festivals and gigs. These still feel like a gathering of the clan. Well done to the Goths too for keeping it going! There's a couple of young lads in my town who have gone for the full on punk look recently, big mohawks, ratty painted leathers, tartan trousers, moodily sitting about and playing badly in a band in someones garage near me - awesome. Miss the Ska/Two Tone tribe too, that was fun for a while. [/quote]
Excellent post. Couldn't have put it better myself.

I'm sure that the kids of today have the same fun as we all did and that's great but i do think that listening to music is not as important for them. I'm sure it's enjoyable but it's just one of the many things that they enjoy. In the 50s, 60s and 70s all groups like Teds, Mods, Skinheads, Hippies all had their own music which was very integral to being in one of those groups. Nowadays there aren't those types of groups so music is less important to them even though i'm sure that they still enjoy it.

[BetaFunk]

On the subject of todays teenagers listening to 70s music i've often thought what my reaction would have been if after buying 'Freak Out' by The Mothers Of Invention in 1967 someone had given me this which was recorded 40 years before.

[media]http://youtu.be/Dq9BlOfH5-I[/media]

Edited August 19, 2014 by BetaFunk

[Weststarx]

I can tell you what youngsters are interested in these days and that is Made in Chelsea, The Only Way is Essex and Geordie Shore.

I'm 21 and I have absolutely no interest in the above, but throughout school and college those above programmes is what everyone ever talked about and was what everyone was interested in. The idea is, you buy the most expensive designer clothing, and then to go out clubbing with the sole intension of making sure the night club photographer takes a photo of you and your mates flexing your biceps, pointing at each other, and looking seriously into the camera.

They don't even have fun, and they are far too 'cool' to dance or even have a laugh.

In my opinion youths of today are interested in trying to look like the 'stars' of reality TV programmes and want to get as many 'Likes' and 'Followers' on social media as possible.

The youth of today are a generation of self obsessed morons.

[redbandit599]

Cheers
I think you're right. Maybe music as a 'focus' will be something that comes a bit later in life than it did with previous generations? Once all the many varied options of today have been filtered through their young years, there'll maybe be some who gravitate towards music as an interest/passion. Just a bit 'late.'

Similar thing happenned with me and my mates, we'd always loved our muCsic but had been going through the usual youth treadmill of standing about in clubs and pubs failing miserably to pull girls, Cheerswhen we literally stumbled on the local pub rock scene. That was it then, our ticket out of club boredom, and into a circle of like minded soon to be friends, which led in turn to thinking 'I can do that...' and picking up the bass.

[redbandit599]

[quote name='BetaFunk' timestamp='1408445601' post='2530147']
Excellent post. Couldn't have put it better myself.

I'm sure that the kids of today have the same fun as we all did and that's great but i do think that listening to music is not as important for them. I'm sure it's enjoyable but it's just one of the many things that they enjoy. In the 50s, 60s and 70s all groups like Teds, Mods, Skinheads, Hippies all had their own music which was very integral to being in one of those groups. Nowadays there aren't those types of groups so music is less important to them even though i'm sure that they still enjoy it.
[/quote]

Now somehow this has gone arse about face - this should be above. Computers, send me a teenager now

Edited August 19, 2014 by redbandit599

[gadgie]

I think there might be something about the new music medium...ie MP3 downloads, iTunes etc etc. Kids now have access to 1000's of tunes all quite cheap if not totally free. So they load up there pod/phone whatever they have with all this stuff and hardly listen to a fraction of it. Where as when I were a kid, or at least a young teenager, I had very few records and the ones I did have had to be good (for me at least). So you would end up with a genre of your liking if you know what I mean. I can clearly remember my path through music.
Johnny Cash because my uncle loved it and played it all the time
Simon and Garfunkel...as above
Slade/Sweet
Quo
Deep Purple
Then there was a liking for Soul music!
Two Tone/Punk
Punk
Two Tone
Punk/Two Tone
A smattering of Police, Jam
Hmmm back the Punk Tone
And that been my staple diet of music over the last 40+ odd years

There have of course been various inbetweener things. Blondie, Hendrix, Scaggs [size=2][i]WTF!, [/i][size=4]Weller, OCS, Tubular Bells, Simply Red, Lloyd Cole, and a few more[/size][/size]

Edited August 19, 2014 by gadgie

[Bilbo]

Of course todays kids will reminisce about the stuff they listen to today. Most of what is popular at any point is filtered through time and what remains is a 'best of' selection. I often think, when I look back to charts of yesteryear, 'what was that, I don't know that band, who is he' and so on. Over time, the various artists are honed down to a select few and we 'forget' the dross (unless there is something specific it references for us. My first single was Billy Don't Be A Hero by Paper Lace. I later tried to swap it for Good Grief Christina by Chicory Tip. Both significant records for me, both utter sh*te to everyone else! Popular culture HAS to change, that is what it is for!!

[EliasMooseblaster]

[quote name='BetaFunk' timestamp='1408436425' post='2530027']
I really do think that listening to music is less important to kids today mainly because they have so much more to occupy themselves with. All of the lads aged between 18-25 that i worked with over the last 10 years had an interest in music but nowhere near the interest that i and my contemporaries had at that age. Gadgets to them are king. Queuing all night for a new iphone/ipad was not unusual.
[/quote]

I have shared a flat with a guy who admitted he "wasn't really interested in music" and just listened to "whatever's popular." Somebody on a different thread here coined a wonderful phrase of "music for people who aren't interested in music," to describe most of the current chart incumbents, that my former flatmate is now doubt listening to.

Presumably such people must have existed in the past? There was certainly plenty of music marketed to people who would buy a s**te novelty single throughout the '60s - and as musicians, we come from an inherently different perspective. The question is to what extent things have changed...it's a bit of a hackneyed theory that popular music has become increasingly cosseted by the industry ("The Man"), but at the same time I'm having to go down increasingly obscure avenues to find new artists I genuinely enjoy. But then is that actually a result of artists being forced to toe a line laid down by "The Man," or is it down to me not knowing where to look and/or becoming increasingly cantankerous in my tastes?

[Skol303]

[quote name='Weststarx' timestamp='1408446008' post='2530154']The idea is, you buy the most expensive designer clothing, and then to go out clubbing with the sole intension of making sure the night club photographer takes a photo of you and your mates flexing your biceps, pointing at each other, and looking seriously into the camera. They don't even have fun, and they are far too 'cool' to dance or even have a laugh... The youth of today are a generation of self obsessed morons.[/quote]

...but there were kids doing exactly that on Saturday nights at the Hacienda in the early '90s, whilst I was making my way to some warehouse in the back ass of nowhere to get off my rocker with other dishevelled techno hippies

The youth of today are no more self-obsessed than any previous generation. There are just more ways of broadcasting self-obession in today's climate of social media and cheap telly.

By comparison, I'm fairly sure it took a good dollop of self-obsession and vanity to be a dedicated Mod, Rocker, Skinhead, Punk, etc

[ead]

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1408442062' post='2530095']
Oh dear you lot do realise your parents said all this when you were young!

It was all fields around here, bag of chips was ten pence, waggon wheels were as big as your head etc etc etc
[/quote]
[quote name='leschirons' timestamp='1408442171' post='2530099']
You must be a youngster yourself as chips were in old pence when I were a nipper
[/quote]
[quote name='Marvin' timestamp='1408442370' post='2530104']
Wagon Wheels and Farleys Rusks are most definitely smaller! They were bigger than my hand when I was a kid. NOW! Pfft, barely the size of my palm.
[/quote]
[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1408443067' post='2530117']
I bet you had to walk fifty miles with no shoes to get them too?, lol

I was born five years after decimalisation, thank God, what was that all about!
[/quote]
[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1408443189' post='2530121']
Anyone had a curly wurly lately? They are neither curly nor wurly anymore, just a series of triangles,wtf.
[/quote]

Nostalgia's not what it used to be

[fumps]

The issue i keep seeing in the above post's is the classic big tunes were written by the big bands of the day, unfortunately there ARE no big bands today because of the MP3 dominated world we live in.

Scenes are now diversifying into smaller sub groups & no rock gods exist's anymore hence the lack of anthems that exist's today. Before there was a small amount of record labels that in a way gave you limited choice in what was available to buy there was large fan bases that grew from that limited choice.

Nowadays bands can release music themselves so smaller crowds follow them and if you are not internet savvy in the way the youth of today is people like us do not hear about them.
For instance I heard a great band on 6 Music that blew me away, so I went looking for more of their music & found not only had they released 3 albums idependantly their last tour is happening now, luckily I got tickets but I've missed a band that I would have been really into during their career is i'd known about them.

Music has diversified to a point where you have to go looking for it, rather than it comes to you, I often find it funny that kids today are considered idle becuase they have everything at their finger tips but to follow a scene now you have to be actively a part of it to keep up. I love the way music has gone, there is all sorts of great new music out there, it's just something you have to actively participate in to get something out of.

[discreet]

[quote name='Weststarx' timestamp='1408446008' post='2530154']
The youth of today are a generation of self obsessed morons.
[/quote]

[size=5][font=times new roman,times,serif] “...Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannise their teachers...”

[color=#181818]― [/color]Socrates[/font][/size]

Edited August 19, 2014 by discreet

[flyfisher]

[quote name='EliasMooseblaster' timestamp='1408448804' post='2530198']
I have shared a flat with a guy who admitted he "wasn't really interested in music" and just listened to "whatever's popular." Somebody on a different thread here coined a wonderful phrase of "music for people who aren't interested in music," to describe most of the current chart incumbents, that my former flatmate is now doubt listening to.

Presumably such people must have existed in the past?
[/quote]

Those people would include my parents. Goodness knows where I got my interest in music from. Rebellion I guess.

[Marc S]

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1408397131' post='2529862']
... who can forget that song that was playing when you met your first love, had your first drink, drove your first car, smoked your first joint, went to your first gig..?
[/quote]

Blimey, that was a busy night

I'm not sure some of the chart music now will ever be listened to in the same way older music is replayed and replayed....
Some of it will survive, I think
But perhaps as we become more of a disposable society, future generations will treat music the same way as an-other "commodity"

My lad is 22, and he and all his pals are into 80's metal bands like Maiden & Metallica
They listen to newer music, but all think of the 80's as some magical metal heavenly period....

Interesting question, and some interesting answers too....

BTW. I do like new stuff too
My tastes have changed, and I like to think, moved and ebbed and flowed.....
I do discover new stuff all the time, and look out for new, young bands at festivals
(and there are plenty!)

But I do go back to older stuff from time to time too...
Some of which has dated, but some of which sounds as good as ever

[Marc S]

[quote name='EliasMooseblaster' timestamp='1408448804' post='2530198']
........Somebody on a different thread here coined a wonderful phrase of "music for people who aren't interested in music,"
[/quote]

Oh, I do like that quote

[BILL POSTERS]

I think kids do like old music more than we think. But for some reason like to listen to it when your not there

My daughter would moan if I play my compilation CDs in the car or played old vinyl in the house,
She is home from university for the summer and left my netbox thingy logged in to her spotify account. just for something to listen to I put one of her playlists on and about every third track is something obscure or ancient that she heard round the house growing up, The rest is newer guitar based stuff which although I wouldnt buy it, for the most part its good stuff.

Edited August 19, 2014 by BILL POSTERS

[BetaFunk]

[quote name='redbandit599' timestamp='1408446895' post='2530167']
Now somehow this has gone arse about face - this should be above. Computers, send me a teenager now
[/quote]
I'm scratching my head to what that actually means.

[Bolo]

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1408449967' post='2530216']


[size=5][font=times new roman,times,serif] “...Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannise their teachers...”

[color=#181818]― [/color]Socrates[/font][/size]
[/quote]
😂

[Marvin]

If the constant grumbling about poor attendances at gigs are anything to go by, then the yuuf in this area are definitely not interested in music. Although to be fair gigs are basically a solo artist with an acoustic guitar having a whinge... which is why I don't go to gigs much either

Edited August 19, 2014 by Marvin

[Mykesbass]

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1408397131' post='2529862']
We tend to like the music that was playing when we were most impressionable and new experiences were a regular occurrence... who can forget that song that was playing when you met your first love, had your first drink, drove your first car, smoked your first joint, went to your first gig..?

Important events indeed and the soundtrack to them is burnt into our minds and have special significance.

I'm sure it is no different for today's teenagers.
[/quote]

Got to disagree in my own case. In my impressionable years I was in to some pretty complex Jazz-Rock - John McLaughlin, Billy Cobham - all very clever, brilliant stuff but later on I started enjoying music much more for its entertainment value rather than the technical mastery (probably 'cos I never got good enough to do the latter)

[BetaFunk]

[quote name='Mykesbass' timestamp='1408476825' post='2530630']
Got to disagree in my own case. In my impressionable years I was in to some pretty complex Jazz-Rock - John McLaughlin, Billy Cobham - all very clever, brilliant stuff but later on I started enjoying music much more for its entertainment value rather than the technical mastery (probably 'cos I never got good enough to do the latter)
[/quote]
I muist have been into some even more complex stuff back then because i always thought of jazz-rock as easy listening compared to most of the music i was listening to at the time.