Is music more important to the older generations?

[steamboat]

I had this random thought Saturday evening while I was on my way to get some fried chicken. I had a Cain burning and the CD player was just short of its ignition point also and I wondered if music held the same place for my nephews as it did for me when I was their age.

I lived in a very small town in Southern Indiana and you couldn't get a pizza delivered until after I graduated High School, let alone cable so basically music was all there was. My nephews as an example have pretty much everything available on the planet, Cable, Internet, Wii, Gameboy, etc... so with all this other stuff available, does music get kicked to the curb? I assume it has to be less important simply due to dilution but I don't know.

 

[insight]

Probably varies by person and location. I mean I grew up in a big city and music was still a very big deal so I dunno if the rural aspect is really the critical factor. That is with the availability of Duck Hunt, Mega Man, Legend of Zelda and of course rampant drugs and prostitution.

 

[B.HOBS]

Ive thought about this too...even though I'm still pretty young myself. The problem, I think, might be that there is such quick turnover in the popularity of bands these days, that its harder for them to really latch on to a specific band or have a passion for one particular group/style before they are cast aside for the next big thing! I know my dad loves Zepplin, Wishbone Ash, etc, and I'm really into Radiohead, Jet, etc, but Ive never heard my younger brother in law say he loves ANY band. Plus 95% of the new stuff out there now SUCKS! :laugh:

 

[Wurm]

Being 45 and having a 20 year-old and soon to be 9 year-old I'd say that its still as important to the younger generation as it was to mine.

What has changed is the style of the music and the names of the bands.

 

[Cparker]

I guess showing my age, I thnk the advent of the new music delivery methods and social media probably has changed how youth views music.

In my preteen years, FM radio was the bomb and was very album oriented so I think in the '70s and 80' era was an album and then CD that still gave the music artist a full pallet to capture a fan. When MP3 broke and the advent of Napster, I think record companies and some artists lost sight of the importance of the relationship between band and fan allwoing the focus to be on a single song causing what I call the "one hit wonder" goal. An artist just needs one hit and a collective of ring tones, and more money is made than could be achieved with single and album sales combined. Radio airplay has changes as well. I bet I find more new songs off random tv commercials than I do from radio which seems to have a short playlists designed to embed specific songs is your psyche to drive you to download.

Add on top of this Facebook, Twitter, cell phones, video games, on demand tv, and the need for enterainment and the attention span have both diminished. So, my long winded view is that I think music may be equally important to the teens of the tens as it is to me starting in my pre-teen years in the '70s, but I think the relationship between the band and the listener has changed because the current music media does not allow the time or delivery for a teenager to spend an afternoon listening to U2's War, The Smith's Meat is Murder, or other artists whose passionate following was based on the full porfolio of work with the resulting nerds debating who knew most about wha t album.And not that I thnk about it, I don't know that I have bought a CD of a current artist in 5 years. I admit a sign of my age, but also because I have not heard an artist that made me want to buy a whole album/CD. I may dowloand a tack, but my recent CD purcahses are Miles Davis, Theloneous Monk, Allman Brothers and Johnny Cash.
My last CD purchase of a current artist, Pete Yorn. and that had to have been five years ago.

Cparker

 

[Gavin]

I can only speak for myself, as a thirty-something. Music was extremely important to me, both growing up and to this day. I did a lot of DJ work, for a radio station and for parties. I pride myself on my knowledge of certain genres of music. It is true though, that some people are just music people, and some are not. While I love mp3's, I still will go out and buy the cd's of my favorite artists whenever they come out with a new one.

 

[Rodrigo de Jerez]

How do we measure importance? What exactly is music? Each of those other activities that you listed can, and often do, have a musical component.

-Mark

"Everybody is free to wear sunscreen"

Accept certain inalienable truths: prices will rise, politicians will philander, you too will get old; and when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble, and children respected their elders.

....and music was "more important?"

 

[Not A Nice Person]

Here's what I've noticed: it's more pervasive but no longer seems to occupy the same place.

There are bands like the Rolling Stones that I've been listening to almost literally my entire life and still love; musicians I discovered as a young man, like Tom Petty, that are still going still speak to me, new groups and genres that I'm just discovering now . . . and I never really abandon one for the other, I just keep adding to what I like, and it's always all about the MUSIC.

A couple years back, though, I got to see James McMurtry live at a small local venue. He's a brilliant musician and songwriter, huge on the Texas Music and Americana circuits (also the son of that Lonesome Dove and Last Picture Show guy, Larry McMurtry) and live, he just flat shreds. It was an awesome, epic, extraordinary show.

During which a small gaggle of twenty-somethings stood in the aisle by my table, talking over the music to each other and on their cellphones.

I don't get it. ???

How could music that brilliant not make them STFU and left them standing there in awe?

~Boar

 

[steamboat]

I guess showing my age, I thnk the advent of the new music delivery methods and social media probably has changed how youth views music.

In my preteen years, FM radio was the bomb and was very album oriented so I think in the '70s and 80' era was an album and then CD that still gave the music artist a full pallet to capture a fan. When MP3 broke and the advent of Napster, I think record companies and some artists lost sight of the importance of the relationship between band and fan allwoing the focus to be on a single song causing what I call the "one hit wonder" goal. An artist just needs one hit and a collective of ring tones, and more money is made than could be achieved with single and album sales combined. Radio airplay has changes as well. I bet I find more new songs off random tv commercials than I do from radio which seems to have a short playlists designed to embed specific songs is your psyche to drive you to download.

Add on top of this Facebook, Twitter, cell phones, video games, on demand tv, and the need for enterainment and the attention span have both diminished. So, my long winded view is that I think music may be equally important to the teens of the tens as it is to me starting in my pre-teen years in the '70s, but I think the relationship between the band and the listener has changed because the current music media does not allow the time or delivery for a teenager to spend an afternoon listening to U2's War, The Smith's Meat is Murder, or other artists whose passionate following was based on the full porfolio of work with the resulting nerds debating who knew most about wha t album.And not that I thnk about it, I don't know that I have bought a CD of a current artist in 5 years. I admit a sign of my age, but also because I have not heard an artist that made me want to buy a whole album/CD. I may dowloand a tack, but my recent CD purcahses are Miles Davis, Theloneous Monk, Allman Brothers and Johnny Cash.
My last CD purchase of a current artist, Pete Yorn. and that had to have been five years ago.

Cparker

This is a very good response. I checked your profile, I have about nine years on you and I listened to 8 track tapes when I was in high school and remember being blown away by cassette tapes, the sound quality was amazing and it didn't make a horrendous click when it changed tracks.

 

[mmburtch]

My library has over a hundred years of musical change (and reversion) in the shuffle. My kids are 3 & 5, and love music, and because they live with me, the enjoy a very eclectic mix.

Van Halen was better with David Lee Roth

U2 was better when they were a rebel band

How is Kieth Richards still functioning?

I'm not old enough to remember the day the music died, but I understand why some would think that

Rap is not music--- its poetry set to a backbeat

 

[rdj735]

As both a twenty-something and someone with a music degree, I don't think that music is less important. It's just being delivered much differently than it used to be. Music is around us more than ever, in ads, malls, elevators, and anywhere else you can imagine. Even though it might not seem as relevant as it used to be, everyone would notice if it was taken away for a day. It's hard to compare today's music to bands like AC/DC, because today's groups are, well, new. But, I bet your kids will be telling their kids about how they used to have all of the Black Eyed Peas hits, back when we had to download music, before it was sent digitally through the air straight to the little chip in their brains...

 

[MadMonk]

I think music will always be important to any and all ages.

 

[punk_lawyer]

I don't think that music is less important. It's just being delivered much differently than it used to be. Music is around us more than ever, in ads, malls, elevators, and anywhere else you can imagine.

Well said. I recall having to dig high and low to find albums from my favorite artists. You had to WANT IT back in the dark ages when I was a young man. Now, you simply click a button and play. That is an amazing difference from prior decades. That being said, music is just as relevant as it ever was.

 

[souldog]

U2 was better when they were a rebel band

Rap is not music--- its poetry set to a backbeat

Best posts in this thread Matt, bar none. I love my U2, but I do admit they were better when they weren't playing music to the sound of the record companies' drums...

And rap is not, I repeat NOT frickin' music. it's "poetry" (if you call saying "uh, uh" every 4 words poetry), and definitely not to my taste. :angry:

 

[LilBastage]

But, I bet your kids will be telling their kids about how they used to have all of the Black Eyed Peas hits...

:0 :0

If that happens they're out of the will. :laugh:


RE: the thread topic...

Maybe I just live in a different kind of place (and I do, really), but I can't go anywhere without seeing a teenager walking around with earbuds in their ears. I don't know anyone under the age of 25 and over the age of 10 that doesn't have at least one iPod or similar device (including a phone that plays music) that's packed to the gills with tunes.

Music is too subjective to really delve into much discussion of when it was "better" or "more important". We all have an individual soundtrack to our lives. To say one is more important than another is ridiculous.

In Western culture, there's really little personal meaning (importance) to music for consumers outside of that which we ascribe to it. I'm pretty sure I know what Jimmy Buffet had in mind when he wrote "Trying to Reason with Hurricane Season" and I'm sure that it brings certain thoughts to mind each time he sings it. I'm equally sure those thoughts have nothing to do with me and Ginny on a pontoon boat in the middle of Lake Monroe one summer day all those years ago. I can't help but smile every time I hear that song.

Music is just as important as it has ever been. Sure, most of it stinks, but most of it has always stunk to somebody. For every great band there are 100 from every decade and every genre that are deservedly left on the ash heap of history.

 

[lurch]

Rap is not music--- its poetry set to a backbeat

And rap is not, I repeat NOT frickin' music. it's "poetry" (if you call saying "uh, uh" every 4 words poetry), and definitely not to my taste.

mu·sic
–noun

1. an art of sound in time that expresses ideas and emotions in significant forms through the elements of rhythm, melody, harmony, and color.



Rap has every right to be considered as "music"... I'm in no way a rap-fanatic, but I do appreciate someone's hard work and dedication to a good song.

Outkast, Pharrel, Tupac, T.I., Eminem.... all innovators in their own right and form.

 

[Not A Nice Person]

Rap is not music--- its poetry set to a backbeat

Well, technically, it's doggerel set to a backbeat---that would be the technical term for endstop rhyme for the sake of rhyme, without other artistic merit.

Sorry, but as an English major (and teacher) with a penchant for actual poetry, everything from Alfred Lord Tennyson to T.S. Eliot to Theodore Roethke, I decline to refer to rap lyrics by the same term.

~Boar

 

[Bsneed51]

Rap is not music--- its poetry set to a backbeat

And rap is not, I repeat NOT frickin' music. it's "poetry" (if you call saying "uh, uh" every 4 words poetry), and definitely not to my taste. :angry:

I don't listen hardly any current rap, but older rap is definitely music. Listen to the Beastie Boys, KRS One, Dr. Dre. Original rap had a message behind the lyrics, and alot of the beats and song drops are well thought out and well done.

 

[LilBastage]

I don't listen hardly any current rap, but older rap is definitely music. Listen to the Beastie Boys, KRS One, Dr. Dre. Original rap had a message behind the lyrics, and alot of the beats and song drops are well thought out and well done.

Hip hop died in 1997.

Cause of death: Puff Daddy

You should go back further, Brent. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Melle Mel, Kool Moe Dee, Afrika Bambaataa, The Treacherous Three, Sugarhill Gang, Fab 5 Freddy, Kurtis Blow, and a whole lot of other great artists from the earlier days of hip hop were putting out some great stuff.

Then comes Def Jam, The Juice Crew, and Boogie Down Productions. Not to mention Eric B. and Rakim, Public Enemy, early "gangsta rap", and The Native Tongues crew.

Man, I need to break out some of the stuff I haven't digitized yet.

 

[Not A Nice Person]

Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five! Now THAT was some good rap!

The Message


~Boar