So I was at opening day with some buddies (Go Rangers!) 2 x'ers and 2 y'ers and we began discussing compare/contrasting X v Y from a musical perspective and then broader cultural perspective. Thought I would pose this to the board. Compare / Contrast / Praise or bash.
I’ve done X and I enjoyed music and culture and everything in the cosmos during that time. Never done Y.
I read some research once that found people most identified with pop music which first became popular when they were between the ages of 15 and 25.
Maybe it's just old man syndrome, but i find very little redeeming in the way of music especially rock n roll coming from gen y. Maybe I just haven't given Justin Bieber a fair shake Maybe it's due to the destruction of the music business model. But even when I go to a show, no one seems to enjoy the moment. They're too busy trying to get some sorry crappy recording to post on facebook to document their kick *** life....oh idiocracy....
What do they mean by "most identify with" ... most pop that came out between when I was 15 and 25 was pretty crappy music.
I am a late generation X. Early generation Y are not too different. However late generation Y are going to be quite culturally different in many ways. This is why I don't like broad generalizations about X vs. Y, or baby boomers vs. X, etc. I do think there is more contrast between generation Y and Z though. Generally speaking Y was born before computer technology took hold while generation Z was born in it and cannot remember anything predating it. It is like growing up only knowing MP3 and itunes vs. remembering going to a record store and buying a CD. I am not a big fan of generation Z at this point but it is still early.
I'm kinda in awe that 'slugga is only 28. I'm in my late 30s and am glad I grew up with great music. Not sure if we had better music education in schools or just the nature of today's music industry promotes more garbage. There is great music being made today but you really have to hunt to find it. Maybe it's Al Gore's fault for inventing the Internet. Now that seems to be the only way to research and find good music since it's rarely on the radio or TV anymore. Thank God for stations that expose people to great new music such as KEXP and the like.
I am 33 and there is not a big difference in many generation's taste than yours slugga. That is with 'X' generation ending in about 82. You should have grown up listening to much of the same music I did for the most part. I certainly like alot of the music in the 80s but there is some pretty bad stuff there too. In the 90s I like the alternative rock, which led to emo, and then eventually led to whieney rock which I did not like. The rise of the indie labels led to the corporate takeover of the indie labels. I have always liked albums but the technological breakthroughs of the last decade have made it ever more important to have a great single than a great album. Music itself has been distorted b/c of the way music sounds when it is coming through ear phones vs. a stereo. But there is still great music out there even if the music scene seems to be dominated by 13 years girls more than ever. Hope I caught your choice of music correctly. I guess technically if you are an early Y then you grew up listening to music producted by the 'X' generation but it was put out during the 'Y' generation time frame. I just refer to as the generation in which it was released, And I guess by that logic you actually don't like 80s, early 90s alternative, or emo....is that correct?
While there is some group overlap early y / late x, I see music that was produced as a bright line demarcation between the two. Also,while I specifically mentioned rock, it carries into country and hip hop as well.
I was thinking about this from a technology perspective recently. I was born in the late 1960s, and my childhood probably had more in common with my parents who were born in the early 1940s then with my children/nieces/nephews. My parents had black and white TV; I had color. My parents had albums; I had cassettes. Computers were rarely in people's home until I graduated from college. Overall, not much difference in that 25-30 year time frame between my parents birth and mine. In contrast, kids born after the late 1990s do not even remotely recognize the world I lived in the 1970s-1980s. Culturally, I think television (with the exeption of reality shows) has become exponentially better since when I was a kid, or the stuff from before I was born. The Brady Bunch would never make it now.
"Culturally, I think television (with the exeption of reality shows) has become exponentially better since when I was a kid, or the stuff from before I was born. The Brady Bunch would never make it now." I was born in 1962, so for the most part I would agree about tv from that era, but there were still some classics and great movies from that time that are well timeless and better than tv or movies of today. Not from a production or effects standpoint, just the story and theme. IMHO music from the mid-60s till about the late 70s will never be topped in terms of quality compared to music from Gen Y. Oh, there's some good bands that came out in GenY, but collectively, the music is not near the quality of music that came out during that era from 1966-1979. And obviously, with so many recognizable classic songs that are still played 40 years later that still influence young kids today is a testament to how good the music was back then. Even the obscure bands from that era put out good music that thrived not because of some MTV or VHI1 or other way, but just on excellent musicianship.
