English Gen-X-er (1969) here. I never write comments on youtube, but will make an exception for this, simply to say what a pleasure it is to hear someone talk so intelligently and energetically about anything (let alone about a subject as close to my heart as music)! You joke about rambling, but these 20-minute lectures of yours are impressively coherent and engaging. I look forward to watching many more - but right now I am signing off to go rediscover a name I haven't heard for 40+ years - my own early favourite, B. A. Robertson!
I am from 1957, by the time my ears were fully developped the Beatles started, these guys are in my blood/dna/stomach/brain. Its really extreme, I even get emotional by listening to Helter Skelter. I should thank my parents for the timing, could not being born in a better time.
Me too. My first LP was George Formby Souvenir. My second was Revolver. I was relieved many years later to learn that The Fabs were also big fans of George.
You are six years older than I am. Sometimes, that gap between '57 and '63 seems like what Evel Knievel faced at the cliffs edge overlooking the Snake River.
Another proud Gen Xer here! Also born in 1968! We inherited a love of the 60s and 70s from our parents, survived high school in the 80s, and came of age in the 90s when grunge made its statement and electronica really took off. By 2000 we were no longer hip. In the end, the 70s were my favorite decade for music.
The way you're able to talk at length, off the cuff, with focused passion, tells me you're a good teacher. It's not rambling. It's a coherent viewpoint put across with enough supporting detail to make it convincing. I'd say the kids over at Kidderminster are lucky.
I'm a Boomer. My son, a Millenial, asked me this exact question on a recent road trip to Kanasas. My short answer was that, to us, music really mattered, in a way that it just didn't to his generation. He said he understood exactly what I meant.
Nowadays, it's all about style, about fashion, about being "cool" or enjoying "cool" things in a superficial way. I call it superficial, because they enjoy only the "cool" image, the "cool" sound, the "cool" look of the video. Even the resurgence of vinyl records and turntables can be traced back to their "cool" image.
Haha, he understands logically 😁 I think we all get our worldimages from what comes into the world, newborn fashion hypes, that fit the needs of the spirit of that time around, around 10 to 30 in age. And the music we like when we search for what is cool and touches us to cheer. This then gets encoded in our memory and is stored to become a trigger we hold, getting us back in time later on. Not just feelings, it gives us power even later. Thats why we love to hold on this memories. The nature of music is wonderful 😇 for us using this imprints. The same happens to my sons, but they can not share it the same way, coz there is an overflow now, too diverse attractions. Commonly shared spirits are rushing, less time to share, talk off and ride the spirits in this floods. Though there still is a strong spirit in time.
This actually came up the other day. I said Nirvana was the last band to define a generation. When you say Nirvana, you think Gen X. I said, if you don't think so, name the band that defined the Millenials. Someone said the Strokes. Another said the White Stripes. Another said My Chemical Romance, and then an argument ensued. Which proves my point. Gen X is much closer to Boomers in the sense that they were the last generation of cigarettes, rock n roll and the cold war. For Millenials, music was more a choice among many choices than a defining thing.
Funny thing about legacy artist, just got to see Jon Anderson and the Band Geeks a bit ago. I'm in my early 20s and got around to Yes pretty recently. They were great.
Brilliant précis! Parents survived war as older teens to return to freedom dance floors and swing. But unlike their previous world this new one kept changing and the tight jeans and effeminacy of Plant shocked them. They were forced to suffer or embrace it which they did and even agreed The Beatles had some talents. Because they were musicians, real ones, self taught but ordinary people getting a chance and producing good stuff. The hierarchy of classical had been cracked and for me it was them, Hendrix and modern music like ELP who were sticking it to the man. ‘Look WE can play that and actually be even more imaginative with my guitar/moog. So lucky to have lived in the most exciting developments in music AND to have experienced it live!
Andy, you are Gen X and should claim it! My husband is a Boomer (1960) and we were watching this last night together. This monologue was just spot on and made me think more about how music has changed so dramatically since the 80's in how it is produced and marketed. Music was so exciting and new because there was innovation and creativity.
Music has been sidelined by more interactive pursuits like video games since the 80s and more recently UA-cam/TikTok creation. I would say streaming is the new rock n roll
“…when they do come along, I’ll be too old to recognize it.” Nailed it. I’ve only recently discovered your channel and absolutely marvel at how you can do a one-take in-depth essay on a given topic. I am just a few years younger than you and am also a musician (but not a professional one) and I agree with most of your observations - particularly related to jazz and culture. Loved your series on the English aesthetic. I’m a yank, but have a true fondness and affinity for the English ways, particularly around understatement and dark, satirical humor. All the best!
You make some very interesting points. I was born in 1972 (does that make me Gen X or Gen Z - I don’t know), and I was brought up in a household where my dad played mainly modern jazz (not fusion - he’s never really got into that), and my mom played The Beatles, and rock music - Cream, Jethro Tull. Their middle ground was singer songwriters - Paul Simon, Carole King and so on. When I started to get into my own music, I wasn’t really interested in the charts (although up until the mid 80s I listened every Sunday, tape recorder cued to record my favourite songs), and a lot of popular music of my teen years passed me by. However, I learned of new and interesting bands from friends - especially at art college and university - Zappa, Steely Dan, Weather Report, Little Feat and so on. The best thing that happened to me was Stourbridge library - they had an brilliant record and tape lending library (later CDs), and I’d go every weekend and come home with a stack of new albums - Squeeze, The Stranglers, The Police, Talk Talk, Dire Straits and so on. I also borrowed more progressive jazz albums - I got In A Silent Way for instance, out of the library. The point I’m trying to make (badly) is that the music I listened to as a kid set the groundwork for music I was about to discover and grow to love. It was (and is) an eclectic mix - I get as much joy from listening to Billie Holliday as I do listening to Led Zepplin, or early Louis Armstrong vs Erykah Badu. The strand linking all of the musicians I love, is MUSIC. These guys, no matter how hyped by the labels, were never portrayed as pretty people in shiny suits doing a nice dance routine. Even the really poppy stuff I like has to have music behind it. Now, this is the Boomer’s lament. The only time for instance I’ve really enjoyed Harry Styles (who has made one or two decent records), Billie Eilish (who can really sing - a great voice when she’s not mumbling), Lady Gaga (another immense talent, when she’s not tying to be controversial) or Taylor Swift, is when they’ve been covering more musical older songs. Maybe that’s my boomer musical education - but we were privileged to have been brought up in an era where musicianship and songwriting was revered and promoted. I see the shift in music now as being as radical as in the mid 50s - parents used to big bands and crooners simply hated rock’n’roll - I’m sure many a teen during the 60s was told to ‘turn that racket down - it sounds like someone building a shed!’, or ‘call that music - it’s just shouting and banging’ - and so it goes on and on. Doesn’t mean that I like a lot of modern mainstream music - I’m saddened that it has become so commoditised, and that it feels like the artistry has gone. But, times, and tastes move on, just as they did in the 1950s (rock n roll), 1960s (rhythm and blues, and the British Invasion), 1970s (prog, then punk), and so on. The biggest difference now though is the technology - you no longer have to be a musician to make a hit song. And in the case of the ‘Cowel’ years - as long as you had something to be exploited, then the record label would do just that…….anyway, boomer rant over!
I think your perception of the music scene is the result of your stepping away from it. I see current music as a firehose with a great many talented artists appearing during any particular decade in the 21st century. If you are on the periphery of the stream, all you see are the most popular people. Casual music fans in the '70's knew ABBA, Wings, Carly Simon and Bad Company, but they likely never heard of Frank Zappa, Devo, or Little Feat. Radio is even narrower now and record shops are fewer as well. Remarkable artists like Brandy Carlisle, Doves, Travis, Public Service Broadcasting and Guster tour frequently and sell music, but are invisible to casual music fans.
Oh no, I haven’t stepped away from it - I enjoy new bands / artists - at the moment my absolute favourite is Louis Cole / Knower, but I also enjoy Thundercat, Bent Knee, Cory Wong, Vulfpeck, and many others. But when did you ever hear any of these mentioned in casual conversation, featured in one of the ‘big’ concerts (the recent Coronation concert for example) or on the radio?
I have to be thankful that I (as a gen-x'r) grew up in NYC. heard everything, saw everything live (rock, funk, new wave, alternative, jazz). Can't get behind the cassette or LP thing, although I still buy CD's!
My twin brother and me were minted in '63. Because we've been musicians since we were 5 yo, we were keenly aware of music (Dad and uncle were musicians); we lived through the tail-end of Beatle Mania in real-time... and we feel lucky for it. Our baby half-brothers came in '80 and '83, are musicians as well, and by dumb luck are Beatles freaks just like us. My personal musical idols are Miles Davis (and all his disciples), The Beatles (and disciples Elvis Costello, Paul Weller, etc.), Joao Gilberto (and subsequent Tropicalismo and MPB artists: Elis Regina, Milton Nascimento, Djavan, Ivan Lins, Caetano Veloso, Chico Buarque, Gal Costa, and Gilberto Gil), James Brown (+Curtis Mayflield, EWF, Tower of Power), J.S. Bach (+Mozart, Chopin, Beethoven, Debussy). There, that's my worldview.
I was born late 65, so borderline boomer/genx. 12 year old when the Sex Pistols started, followed by ska then new wave. In the mid 80s, tried some illegal substances and then started listening to 60/70 bands as well as new stuff. Does this say anything? This was followed by being involved in the underground electronic dance scene. Now discovering Krautrock thanks to Spotify . It's been quite a journey
Have to say, I feel you are bang on with your interpretations of music history. Found myself saying out loud "yes", I think the same thing. Nice job Andy!
I think the key to enjoying music is to not let whatever era you were born into determine its value. When I was in my 20's (I'm 65 now), I decided I wasn't going to become one of those people who came to believe that hardly anything good has been recorded since about 1980. And you have people like that out there, people who are so embedded in their generational bubbles that they've either lost the desire to learn or struggle to. I've noticed that the 90's have become a cutoff point for many in the comments of other videos I've checked out. So I think it's important to keep your ears and mind open to whatever's happening, because every era has good-to-great music mixed in with a wealth of garbage. You just have to figure out for yourself what constitutes good-to-great. Have fun exploring!
I'm from 1980... and I have realized many years ago now that I'm just not interested in anything after year 2000. The sound goal from then on have just become worse and worse to me. And now we're at the pinnacle of horrible and stupid music with no musical elements in it. About 95% of everything coming out today is so superficial that I can't stand listening to a single note. Whenever my car starts it activates a stupid auto on radio. And it's like some evil entity attacking my ears and soul - and it's absolutely horrid. A compressed angry wave of evil - coming out of the speaks. AAARGH! Stop it....we're in a cultural wasteland - and I will have no part in it. There's so much good stuff from before the internet. There's enough for a whole life time. Thank God ❤
I put the end of the rock era as 2000. There were three things that occurred around this time that pushed it aside. 1. Napster. In the US college students were some of the biggest supporters of rock. They were also the first ones to have access to computers with the bandwidth necessary to simply start stealing music, so rock was the first segment of music to suffer a sales collapse and thus get abandoned by the contracting labels. 2. And this applies to the US only, was the telecommunications act of 1996 which allowed corporations to own more than one radio station in a market. This killed regional variation and led to a complete homogenization of playlists. 3. Antares auto-time plug in. Introduced in 1996, but thrust into the limelight on Cher's Believe.
But then, a few years later you got Franz Ferdinand, the Kaiser Chiefs, Kasabian, Hard Fi, Snow Patrol and Keane into the music charts for the first time as the last hurrah for British rock music.
Two decades later ,John Cale's cover of "Heartbreak Hotel"on his "Slow Burn" LP would do the same for me- the difference being that I'd feel the need to disinfect in the shower after listening to the album.
Expertly analysed as ever Andy, I enjoyed that. I am a boomer, and I have many boomer friends, it seems to me that we are split into two camps; the first are stuck in 1973, we all know them: "There's no good music today, it's all shite, nothing good has been produced after Dark Side of the Moon" and they refuse to listen to anything of today. My one son-in-law's parents are just like that, they'll go and see Genesis, Deep Purple, Uriah Heep etc... (and I'm not saying that's a bad thing) but when I say I'm going to Larkin Poe, they have no idea who I'm talking about, and have not bought any new music for decades, not even new albums by Purple or Heep. The camp is the one I fall into, those of us who appreciate and love our 70's music (the major of my collection is 70's) but are also open to good music being produced now, I have bought so much post millennium music, 26 albums last year and so far 15 this year. This is my story: 1984, I'm Watching Top of Pops, Kid Jensen announces the future of rock and roll and it is the Smiths and on comes this winging, whiney fecker, singing on a minor key monotonous voice to his shoes with a bunch of dead flowers in his back pocket, and I thought: "if that the future of rock and roll, fuck that, I'm off' and I hardly bought any new music for years, some years only two albums, I turned all dad rock in my 20's, listening to Dire Straits, Chris Rea, Gerry Rafferty and Stevie Ray Vaughan, even rock music had gone all hair metal which was shit and Yes were going 90125, prog had floundered too. In 1994 ten years later, I bought Pink Floyd - Division Bell, I love that album, yes, Pink Floyd had bought a new album out, great. Then I stopped and thought: " Wait a minute, I've become 'that" guy, hanging on to past glories, there must be some good new music out there" and I started investigating and discovered Radiohead, The Stereophonics, Manic Street Preachers and Reef and also cross-over bands such as Groove Armada, Faithless and Chemical Brothers. From that point on I have tried to discover something new every year. There are some amazing artists out there, probably my two favourites are War on Drugs and Public Service Broadcasting, I have seen the latter twice, J. Willgoose Esq is an absolute genius, and I'm seeing War on Drugs in a couple of months. I still see legacy artists, I recently saw Steve Hillage and am seeing Steve Hackett this year, however, I am really interested in seeing bands of the now; The Big Moon, The Last Dinner Party, The Mysterines and The Lathums. There is an amazing jazz scene at the moment, Ezra Collective, GoGo Penguin, Nubya Garcia and Khruangbin are producing great music. Yes, I will always love the 70's, that's where I fell in love with music and so much ground work and experimentation was done, it was a great time to be alive, however, I also feel within myself, I need to keep my love of music alive by appreciating what is happening around me now or I will stagnate mentally. Sorry I've gone on for so long, keep up the good work.
It's funny...I was born a year before you (1967 the summer of love) and so like you I grew up listening to Floyd, Zeppelin, Grateful Dead, etc. I have never self identified as a boomer simply because my generation is Gen X. The first time I heard the Ramones and The Clash it hit me like a brick through a plate glass window. This was music that spoke directly to me, later on came heavy metal and techno and shoe gaze, all of which gave me an appreciation for a wide variety of musical genres. All of these years later I get as much joy listening to Vivaldi and the Four Seasons suite as I do from listening to Slayer's Reign in Blood. Unfortunately by the time the 90's were over music had a mass production homogeneous nature that destroyed the variety I grew up with.
Very thought-provoking. A lot of late Boomers have never been current or cared about it. Born in 1961, I was having my mind blown by the Beatles, P-Funk, Brian Eno, Bowie...all in the years after most of their best albums were already released. So, from my teens, I've ALWAYS listened to music that is not of the moment. When the Sex Pistols were current and I was 15, I was reading about them with little interest in Time magazine, and listening to Lightnin' Hopkins and Roxy Music albums. Might have been different if I had been in England....or working class. The emergence of video (we didn't have it until our 20s) has changed things. Movies have usurped the power that Rock once had. Post-Boomer generations sit in their living rooms and watch movies on their surround systems. We sat and listened to LPs on our "stereos." 20-minute sides, with the album covers in our hands, poring over the liner notes, savoring the art, and picking out a cool double LP cover for "deseeding" dope, a thing we had to do if you didn't want those stinky things popping in your bowl, you know. When you don't sit and listen to "albums", music starts to have a different function.
To be fair, there are a lot of younger people who still prefer listening to music the "classic" way. I have a ton of classic records that I still listen to exactly as you described (even down to reading the liner notes!) and I'm a Gen Zer. That method of listening to music isn't dead, it's just not mainstream anymore.
Born in 62 - Best Strats and Best Saxophones - Saw Punk, Classic Rock, New Wave, Rockabilly, Heavy Metal.... The Classic Acts, Thank God I was born then..... We have now enetered into the Dark Ages - a recurring theme in Human History.....
@@keithparker1346 ...But you HAVE to invest in ever changing tech. to 'click' - unlike the days when you could enjoy & share music of your choice for decades without upgrading!
68 year old here, so prime boomer territory. Definitely authenticity and musician ship is important to me, and since the late 90's when grunge dwindled, pop music bored me to tears. I had drifted to artists that weren't so pop but were still authentic, so Jade Bird, First Aid Kit and other young singer/song writers setting their own path. And then last August I discovered a Japanese band called Band-Maid, guitar driven rock, excellent musicianship, superb song writing, excellent vocals (half the lyrics are Japanese but it just doesn't matter). The drummer will knock your socks off. The guitar player was influenced by Larry Carlton, she's like a tiny female Japanese Oscar Petersen who writes for the whole band, and they produce incredible prog rock to hard rock music that just makes me stupidly happy. As someone put it, they make you feel nostalgic for music that never existed before, but it sounds familiar. They began writing their own music late in 2016 and early 2017, so anything from those dates forward are all them. Band-Maid have a UA-cam channel with most of their releases on it, have a listen and see if your music boomerishness is rekindled. 👍
Such a pleasure listening to you! I'm exactly the same age as you, also born 1968. We've been exposed and to such a vast amount of incredible music in our days, that it's become rather impossible to listen with pleasure to whatever we're being offered today. It's like when you grew up on the finest French cuisine but now have to live on fries and burgers. Music has long seized to be a means of artistic expression, it's merely a way to generate as much money as possible in the shortest amount of time. That's why finding your own creative voice and style seems no longer an objective for young musicians, as they only know music as a commercial and very disposable product. If making lots of money is the objective, you'd employ proven methods rather than create something new that might or might not work on a commercial level.
@@Patbwoy Sometimes yes. I think you overestimate how wonderful things used to be and how awful they are today. There are plenty musicians today who have musical integrity. I am a '62 model so I've been through a similar journey.
@@michaelgoetze2103 I don't necessarily disagree with you, however, musical integrity doesn't equate to good music. If all you know is 4 chords, you can be as musically integer as you want, you will still only be able to create music with 4 chords. If you grow up with, what Rick Beato would call, high-information music, you'll be able to draw from this experience and create music that incorporates all of this. If all you listened to during your childhood is the same 4 chords over and over again, as it is the case with the young'uns today, that will be all that's in your tool kit for creating your own music. If you were a painter growing up in a world that only knows shades of red, your paintings will likely also only consist of shades of red. Only a few will develop the necessary curiosity to find out if there are other colours as well. That's what the old Jazz musicians did: Trying to explore new ways, new harmonies, new everything, as there had to be more. So in times of monochromatic music, the likelihood that we'll hear something new any time soon has diminished drastically. Add the fact that young folks get to know music as a disposable product and not as a form of art for artistic expression, it mostly doesn't even occur to them that music could be so much more. Of course I'm generalising here, and I'm well aware that there are indeed still musicians left, who create music as a form of art, but those seem to be a rarity now rather than the norm.
Another Gen x'r here (born 1974). No one seems to talk about our generation, unlike say the boomers, millenials or gen z's. I don't mind, but it is interesting why this is so. Also, the boomers (through no fault of their own), seem to be a very fortunate generation both culturally and economically. I love my mum dearly, but used to get tired of her talking about how great the 60's were, or the youth of today don't appreciate hard work - she doesn't talk about this much now. She is old enough, that I'm pretty sure she won't read this (although is in great health I'm happy to say). I have enough IT awareness to appreciate you tube, but am far less internet savvy than the millenials or z's... Anyhow, thanks again Andy for your fascinating content. The 2 albums that had a massive impact on me as a child, were my (late) dad playing Dave Brubeck's take 5, and the Cream album "fresh Cream" on a record player. I am lucky...
I was born in ‘67 to parents who were in their mid to late 30’s and didn’t like rock ‘n’ roll , much less rock music. They called any music with distorted guitars “acid rock”. They liked swing music but weren’t big on jazz unless it was Ella, Louis and other middle-the-road performers. They liked some classical but didn’t hear the complexity of progressive rock because of the rock instrumentation. Rock singers weren't "singers" but screamers. They didn’t understand the importance of teen culture because they never had a chance to be teenagers themselves, having needed to grow up overnight during the war. At the age of 14, my mom was raising her baby brother in bombed-out Germany. And my dad escaped his broken family by lying about his age to join the Army after the war. As a result of being raised by them, I gained an appreciation for old music, old movies, etc. I appreciate it to this day, but I regret that I was never able to persuade them that rock music was not just some passing fad. These days, with so few good rock bands around, it seems like they were right.
I'm a 1961. Can't really argue with anything Andy says here. I would say that I think the grunge movement got corporatized and formulized as soon as it got popular, but I haven't really listened to enough of it to really say. It's just that it all sounds the same to me. To me. I have an eight years older sister and a four years older brother, and while they weren't really into music, they were enough that I got exposed to a lot of stuff from about 1969 forward. Growing up in the 70s and graduating from high school in 1979 - I just feel there was no better time for music, even considering disco. I would also add to Andy's analysis that the state of pop music was excellent too. We had moved beyond the bubble gum/Motown predictability of the 1960s. Not only was rock music varied and creative and good, so was most pop.
Andy- Re:"...How old do you think I am?..'you think I'm 70 years old???..." Careful there you young whippersnapper or I'll have to flog you with my cane to odd time signatures.
You are solidly Gen X, Andy!! Haha! My parents and I are all boomers, they are 77 and I am 58. How weird is that? I consider myself Gen X, though. My contemporaries are people like Tom Cruise, Keannu Reeves, Jodie Foster, Ethan Hawke and Wynona Ryder.
I'm 58 too, from '65, and always thought people from that year were Gen X. Ever since the 80's I have not known otherwise. We have always been called that way. At least here in the Netherlands. But even the English Wikipedia page puts the start of Gen X in the mid-60's: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_X
Andy, a couple of ideas for you (from a 'proper' boomer) for a video: 1) The top 10 improvements to the music of a band if a member was replaced by a member from any other band e.g. Noel Redding with John Entwhistle. 2) The top 10 artist post-humous output, if they magically resurrected at the age that they died at, and continued their pre-death trajectory. I know you'd do a great job!
Born in the late 70s, I came of age musically as part of the MTV generation, and the cool thing about that time is that a wide range of people were exposed to and familiar with the same music. Kids from widely different backgrounds and socioeconomic statuses were all familiar with the same pop hits, something it seems to have in common with the 60s now that I think about it. Even though MTV as a medium may have been shallow, music more broadly during that time still had meaning to the people who were playing it and listening to it, and the medium provided a fun, light, shared cultural experience. Overall, I feel extremely lucky to have grown up in an era when music meant something and still had soul. I think that people will still be listening to music from that “rock era” many years from now.
Great video. I agree with you. The basic aesthetic has totally changed. Everything sounds canned and processed. I miss the days when the Grateful Dead would drag a gargantuan home made sound system to my town and everyone went and had a really good time and hardly ever even looked at the stage. It was spontaneous unique and loud. Lots of bandswere like that. There was a certain “we the people” ethic to it all. There wasn’t really a visual element to it except what was in your head. It was all about sound and feeling that’s about the moment and environment we all created together. And yes sticking it to the man.
That rig they used in the early 70's was probably the best sounding outdoor system ever. Designed by Owsley and powered by scores of McIntosh tube amps and banks of speaker arrays.
@@seed_drill7135 yes they called it the Wall of Sound, Macintosh based Hi Fi very loud and clear, nothing like it before or after, you could literally hear it for miles. I remember they played outdoors in Amherst Massachusetts and people way down the valley were reporting “weird thunder” and voices from the sky” etc. . The way it was designed it moved air in a concentrated wave. A Tsunami of sound that seemed to create its own weather. The Dead were the only band with the ways and means to build such an insane thing. They dragged that beast all over for years. They actually had two of these systems that they would leap frog from show to show because it took so long to setup and tear down. Owsley had been doing their sound since the beginning and claimed that he could see the music and apparently he actually could, so this sound system was developed based on Owsley’s LSD hallucinations and it worked. Brilliant creative and crazy. They were clearly all out of their minds ! Of course they went broke doing it but what a testament to the spirit of the thing. The high water mark of the entire movement really.
Gen X must be one of the more stereotypical diverse generations- musical depending on when you were born (and your personality of course!) you could have been deep with 80s cliche hair metal or into grunge which is completely different and a reaction against hair metal Being born in the late 70s I notice similarities but stark differences between ppl my age and other gen x who’s were born in the late 60s Lots of dramatic changes within that gen x timeframe
Im late Boomer from the most important music year ever, 1959, though my mother was born same day as Bird. We are post rock n roll, Boomers started Rock. But were far more open to various musics. From the LBC we had War, uncles of NWA. Huge range of influences and Funk huge here, ToP, Head Hunters and EWF as musicianship mattered. Heard Stoes, Who and Stevie in early teens. Loved Allman Bros and Traffic, Jeff Beck and all led me through Stanley Clarke to jazz. When Warer Babies came out in 75 at 16 I knew this was it. From Jaco to VSOP I heard them all and was at cheap student nights, Thursdays, at the Lighthouse, Concerts by the Seaa and Parisian Room and later Catalinas. Sold paintings at Ruths Jazz Bakery and got in free during 80s. The mix of music being pre corporate sales niched was truly creative. Cant say that now as cutting of art and music budgets under Reagan has led to musc/art illiteracy and stunted craftsmanship as MTV made it about about presentation, not substance. Met that damn Old English VJ at a party before it began, what an ass.Pure salesmanship. HipHop and grunge get credit for trying, but they corrupted too. Tupac, as .uch a self creation as his mothers movie shows, was the end as 98 with Badu, Hill was the last burst before mechanization. Just listen to UA-cam of my old scratched records now. But many great videos of jazz concerts from 90s,2000s. Herbie, McCoy. Holland etc. Painting sucks with your YBA BS. A very few new but last great is Kiefer. A Boomers view. 22:30
Another Gen-X here. I have 2 teenage kids and I try my best to keep an open mind and I try to remind myself that I probably don't understand. But when I try to imagine growing up without rock music, I can't do it. That kids don't have it now is tragic. I worry for their souls. I scored 2 tickets to see Bruce Springsteen in a corporate box. I gave my son a list of 15 songs to listen to and then took him. I could see the wheels turning. It almost got through. But in the end, I think it was just too alien for him. When they're out in the street, I think they are, unfortunately, taking what they're handing out.
I'm 55. My 18 year old daughter is going to see Alice Cooper with me this Sunday. I never pushed classic rock on her, but being an insane record collector, she was always exposed to it and grew up preferring music of the 60s-80's, with a particular obsession with David Bowie.
Unashamedly a critical Boomer [ 1953 ] and indeed; fortunate to have grown up and experienced an era of originality / authenticity and accomplishment in music; let alone evolving / progressing analog technology that eventually gave us so much through into the digital world of today. Living continually with edgy world politics and where self-endeavour / perseverence gave reward; not by way of demanded gimmee and expected right of entitlement ! The music of the 60's + 70's + 80's ( Non-Corporate ! ) was the foundation of such expression; but NEVER forgetting those who had paid the ultimate price for our freedom in WW 2 ...
I think you hit the nail on thd head whdn you said 'Rock' is about bands and groups....Jazz and even 'Rock & Roll' was generally based around the soloist/artist with a backing group. 'Rock' is more about the band concept...very interesting....obviously there are exceptions, but as a general rule I think that concept holds!
Generation X here born 70. Grew up with an amazing soundtrack 😎. By the 80s as I came of age with new wave ,post punk, electronic, arena Rock it was all so much 😊. In readable time to grow up. Didn't realise how fortunate we were. It's funny when U think queen made a comeback at live aid. But me and my friends liked some of there songs but otherwise they were meh. My daughter just can't comprehend that. I have to laugh 🤣 I say yeah they were great but understand 'tears for fears" were smashing it then.
I think they mean something like "square" from when I was young. I recently heard a teenager say when the 60s were mentioned "Oh the olden days" and I felt my arthritis coming on.
Just outside (January '66) but totally agree with you about so much great old music still to discover. Two of my favourite magazines are Shindig and Electronic Sound. Both have introduced me to things I never knew were out there. To be fair, both champion modern music too and have heard some new stuff but the best new stuff is knowingly standing on the shoulders of giants.
I might be a young dude but you are speaking facts! The two major musicians in my life are extremely distinct and very individualistic players. Compared to young cats I hear who are so afraid to spend time developing their own taste in what they like to play. The advent of all these "learn this lick." and "10 guitar fusion lick packs" is just commercialising music and reducing the individualistic nature
Born in 1952. The dominance of digital tricks, empty lyrics, unceative tunes and lack of roots in certain scenes, or roots in older music, is connected to the neo-liberal, capitalist model of culture, dominated by massive conglomerates.
I am a guitar and instrumental teacher in Canada. The kids I teach want to play AC/DC, Metalica, Guns and Roses, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden etc. There is a smaller segment that likes New Country stuff and pop like Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran and Harry Styles
Dragging cords around was such a big deal, all that, get off my cord ahole you are taking away my light. The blues harp holder was my favorite addition and it changed the way to play the blues and added a better sound and freedom of movement. Magic Dick does not get enough props.
Never underestimate the sound of unalloyed joy ; 1,2,3 o'clock, 4 o'clock rock ! Bill Haley and his Comets are never mentioned these days; yes, he was white and uncool looking, but at that time his sound made you stand up and dance. Listen to his original records from 1954/56 and you'll hear it. "I saw her standing there" has the same feeling of joy to it----we're gonna dance all night!
He was the first rock star. One of, if not the first to merge R&B and country. Hailey was a country swing artist fronting The Saddlemen when they covered Jackie Brenston (Ike Turner)' Rocket 88 all the way back in 1951. His career was derailed by the far more dangerous and sexy Elvis and he released some subpar material, later in the decade, though 1959's "Ooh, Look-a There, Ain't She Pretty" was lascivious enough to feature in John Waters' Pink Flamingos. Bizarrely, he, rather than Chubby Checker, was the popularizer of The Twist in Mexico.
In 1963 John Fitzgerald Kennedy was murdered for his compassionate ideas and works. We grieved, hard. Guess what else happened in 1963? Who brought joy to the world? Because she loves you...
I was born on the cusp 61 - 65 my father was a working jazz guitarist, I had no choice I was always listening to johnny Smith or Jim Hall records it wasn't till 1975 I listen to bands like Piolet, Queen , and the Beatles lol funny how they are all english
keep hitting. I really wonder how people came to be musically so apathetic and ignorant so fast, in 10 years eveerything destroyed, we have low quality audience and low quality musicians conspiring
Andy, you and Steven Wilson need to share a beer and chat about the importance of art-rock records from the 70's. I assume you've checked out his podcast with Tim Bowness? Also, when you were talking about the late 90's and trip hop and all that I flashed on the movie Shaun of the Dead where -- after Phil harangues them for making a bunch of noise with their hip hop -- Nick Frost sheepishly says "It's not hip hop. It's electro." As if that was huge point of fact that mattered deeply, instead of the fact that he and Simon Pegg were being incredibly rude to their flatmate. 😊
You’re generation x Andy! The fact that you know about and have participated in making dance and electronic music despite being a prog rock drummer, disqualifies you from being a boomer!
Im 20 (born in '02) and I've gotta say I very much agree. I'm quite sad to see what is predominantly listened to by my generation. For the most part its all bland, repeatable repetitious garbage. The types of "artists" and music being hailed now cant hold a candle to what was being hailed back then. The artistry, the skill, the love for the craft is just so palpable when you go back and compair it to the modern equivelants. Not to say that good music isnt being produced now, it still very much is, it just isnt being shown to the mainstream audience that popular music was back then. Now if a song isnt extremeley basic or if it exceedes 3 minutes it isnt even considered. It breaks my heart that the truly great music of back then and today isnt getting the reconition it deserves.
Gen X is the best! My path is similar to yours. Couldnt stand 80s music, so I First listened to 60s and 70s rock. The Beatles, Queen, Deep Purple, Rush, then Yes. I'm stuck in Prog now!
Andy, that was a good overview. I’m actually six years older than you I was born in 1962 and one thing. I really appreciate you not saying is that today’s music sucks. No I’m not a big fan of whatever is on the radio today but frankly, I’ve never really been a big fan of radio music. Hi unlike other people, my age actually stay current with all types of new music that comes out every Friday and really enjoy that I’ve enjoyed discovering current new music, my entire life, but I do be moan the slow death of rock ‘n’ roll over the last 20 years, and but there’s still plenty of good rock ‘n’ roll and jazz rock on boutique and independent labels coming out every Friday That said, I totally appreciate where you are coming from and if you prefer to spend your time with older music. Because that is damn great music I just also really I’m glad you did it without saying today’s music sucks because that’s a real problem with my generation, thinking that somehow their music is the best that is an old man’s perspective. And I find music has always kept me with a young man’s perspective.
Today I listened to Magical Mystery Tour, which I think was close to their best album, especially for prog fans. That probably says a fair bit about where I stand :) Zen CD and Deep Forest are about as electronic as I get, or maybe ambiance by Eno or Stomu Yamashta. As for modern acts, I really enjoy Dirty Loops with Cory Wong (or most things with Cory Wong) and Louis Cole. These are all monster players playing their own brand of music. I challenge any old boomer prog and fusion fan to listen to the whole performance of Dirty Loops playing "Work Sh*t Out" and not come away smiling. The good stuff is still happening, but you have to actively search for it.
@@marknewbold2583 Yes, it was a throw together but it is still brilliant, one of their best The title track ... I am the Walrus ... Hello Goodbye ... Penny Lane ... Strawberry Fields .... All You Need is Love. That is a seriously strong collection of songs.
Most things new are not good. Only time will sort wheat from chaff. Duration will be added to its resume if it is good, and its newness will be a small fraction of its lifespan. This is why Pirsig, in "zen & the art of motorcycle maintenance" questioned why people would ask: "What's new?" instead of "What's good?" Rarely, as in the case of Boomers, is the new also the good. Welcome to Boomerdom! Good fit! Great show!
Loved the "ramble" as a fellow Boome...I mean Xer. I still listen to modern music but the artists I'm listening to tend to reflect the stuff I loved when I was younger. The diffraction of music that's happened and the lack of gate keepers in how music is distributed and heard is why there's no shared experience of time with music anymore. Maybe there is but it's just a completely different way than I know it which was with radio mostly. With the disintegration of all the pillars of society these days it's not surprising music is also disintegrated. There is great music being made by extraordinarily talented players. Sheezus the level of talent out there is way way higher than it was when I was coming up but the platforms to introduce, develop and sell an artist as important are gone. I remember me and my friends would get all snobby and talk trash about how record companies were too controlling over artists and how they took advantage of them and they did. The thing that was hard to appreciate when I was younger is that they did do a good job of gatekeeping and curating music that the public heard so we had a relatively shared view of culture and society. Missing that now makes sense as another part of how it's all falling apart. Something new will happen that will bring people together some time I'm sure. Might be awhile.
Looks like the Jon Riley book "The art of bop drumming" (or maybe "Beyond bop drumming) on your music stand :D Anyway if that's the case - great book(s)!
Great video. Very insightful view of how we see music compared to how our kids see music. But when you say boomers... "Boomers" are not "Baby Boomers". Kids would call boomers anyone over 40 who doesn't understand tic-tok and snapchat. Baby boomers are people born in the 15 years after WWII. I was born in 1974. I'm not a baby boomer. My mom is a baby-boomer born in 1946. My kids call me a boomer when they explain hopw I don't understand anything. My wife sometimes calls me boomer because I listen to old music from the 50s-70s. And as much as I love prog, jazz, classic and blues.....it's Little Richard that really kicks-ass. You are so right. I agree rock started in 1962-1963 but it ended in 1995 after the grunge era. I don't agree with the notion that rock died in 1985. We're probably all boomers. Don't change the channel's name just yet....😄
English Gen-X-er (1969) here. I never write comments on youtube, but will make an exception for this, simply to say what a pleasure it is to hear someone talk so intelligently and energetically about anything (let alone about a subject as close to my heart as music)! You joke about rambling, but these 20-minute lectures of yours are impressively coherent and engaging. I look forward to watching many more - but right now I am signing off to go rediscover a name I haven't heard for 40+ years - my own early favourite, B. A. Robertson!
Is Andy doing his impersonation of the Archie Bell and the Drells classic? Well played, Andy.
I am from 1957, by the time my ears were fully developped the Beatles started, these guys are in my blood/dna/stomach/brain. Its really extreme, I even get emotional by listening to Helter Skelter. I should thank my parents for the timing, could not being born in a better time.
Me too. My first LP was George Formby Souvenir. My second was Revolver. I was relieved many years later to learn that The Fabs were also big fans of George.
Great analysis
I’m from 1956-get out of my head!
You are six years older than I am. Sometimes, that gap between '57 and '63 seems like what Evel Knievel faced at the cliffs edge overlooking the Snake River.
Youngboy is easily better than the Beetles
Another proud Gen Xer here! Also born in 1968! We inherited a love of the 60s and 70s from our parents, survived high school in the 80s, and came of age in the 90s when grunge made its statement and electronica really took off. By 2000 we were no longer hip. In the end, the 70s were my favorite decade for music.
The way you're able to talk at length, off the cuff, with focused passion, tells me you're a good teacher. It's not rambling. It's a coherent viewpoint put across with enough supporting detail to make it convincing. I'd say the kids over at Kidderminster are lucky.
I'm a Boomer. My son, a Millenial, asked me this exact question on a recent road trip to Kanasas. My short answer was that, to us, music really mattered, in a way that it just didn't to his generation. He said he understood exactly what I meant.
Nowadays, it's all about style, about fashion, about being "cool" or enjoying "cool" things in a superficial way. I call it superficial, because they enjoy only the "cool" image, the "cool" sound, the "cool" look of the video. Even the resurgence of vinyl records and turntables can be traced back to their "cool" image.
Haha, he understands logically 😁
I think we all get our worldimages from what comes into the world, newborn fashion hypes, that fit the needs of the spirit of that time around, around 10 to 30 in age. And the music we like when we search for what is cool and touches us to cheer. This then gets encoded in our memory and is stored to become a trigger we hold, getting us back in time later on. Not just feelings, it gives us power even later. Thats why we love to hold on this memories. The nature of music is wonderful 😇 for us using this imprints.
The same happens to my sons, but they can not share it the same way, coz there is an overflow now, too diverse attractions. Commonly shared spirits are rushing, less time to share, talk off and ride the spirits in this floods. Though there still is a strong spirit in time.
This actually came up the other day. I said Nirvana was the last band to define a generation. When you say Nirvana, you think Gen X. I said, if you don't think so, name the band that defined the Millenials. Someone said the Strokes. Another said the White Stripes. Another said My Chemical Romance, and then an argument ensued. Which proves my point. Gen X is much closer to Boomers in the sense that they were the last generation of cigarettes, rock n roll and the cold war. For Millenials, music was more a choice among many choices than a defining thing.
Funny thing about legacy artist, just got to see Jon Anderson and the Band Geeks a bit ago. I'm in my early 20s and got around to Yes pretty recently. They were great.
Anderson is eternal.
Lucky you!
Brilliant précis! Parents survived war as older teens to return to freedom dance floors and swing. But unlike their previous world this new one kept changing and the tight jeans and effeminacy of Plant shocked them. They were forced to suffer or embrace it which they did and even agreed The Beatles had some talents. Because they were musicians, real ones, self taught but ordinary people getting a chance and producing good stuff. The hierarchy of classical had been cracked and for me it was them, Hendrix and modern music like ELP who were sticking it to the man. ‘Look WE can play that and actually be even more imaginative with my guitar/moog. So lucky to have lived in the most exciting developments in music AND to have experienced it live!
I am twelve years older but I prefer to have physical product because stuff can disappear from streaming services. keep up the great work
Just save that streamed music...it ain't rocket science
Andy, you are Gen X and should claim it! My husband is a Boomer (1960) and we were watching this last night together. This monologue was just spot on and made me think more about how music has changed so dramatically since the 80's in how it is produced and marketed. Music was so exciting and new because there was innovation and creativity.
Music has been sidelined by more interactive pursuits like video games since the 80s and more recently UA-cam/TikTok creation. I would say streaming is the new rock n roll
“…when they do come along, I’ll be too old to recognize it.” Nailed it.
I’ve only recently discovered your channel and absolutely marvel at how you can do a one-take in-depth essay on a given topic. I am just a few years younger than you and am also a musician (but not a professional one) and I agree with most of your observations - particularly related to jazz and culture. Loved your series on the English aesthetic. I’m a yank, but have a true fondness and affinity for the English ways, particularly around understatement and dark, satirical humor. All the best!
Thank you...that is my concept, so it's like Jazz.
As a boomer I'd have to admit that I was spoiled during my youth with all the amazing music I was exposed to.
You make some very interesting points. I was born in 1972 (does that make me Gen X or Gen Z - I don’t know), and I was brought up in a household where my dad played mainly modern jazz (not fusion - he’s never really got into that), and my mom played The Beatles, and rock music - Cream, Jethro Tull. Their middle ground was singer songwriters - Paul Simon, Carole King and so on. When I started to get into my own music, I wasn’t really interested in the charts (although up until the mid 80s I listened every Sunday, tape recorder cued to record my favourite songs), and a lot of popular music of my teen years passed me by. However, I learned of new and interesting bands from friends - especially at art college and university - Zappa, Steely Dan, Weather Report, Little Feat and so on. The best thing that happened to me was Stourbridge library - they had an brilliant record and tape lending library (later CDs), and I’d go every weekend and come home with a stack of new albums - Squeeze, The Stranglers, The Police, Talk Talk, Dire Straits and so on. I also borrowed more progressive jazz albums - I got In A Silent Way for instance, out of the library. The point I’m trying to make (badly) is that the music I listened to as a kid set the groundwork for music I was about to discover and grow to love. It was (and is) an eclectic mix - I get as much joy from listening to Billie Holliday as I do listening to Led Zepplin, or early Louis Armstrong vs Erykah Badu. The strand linking all of the musicians I love, is MUSIC. These guys, no matter how hyped by the labels, were never portrayed as pretty people in shiny suits doing a nice dance routine. Even the really poppy stuff I like has to have music behind it. Now, this is the Boomer’s lament. The only time for instance I’ve really enjoyed Harry Styles (who has made one or two decent records), Billie Eilish (who can really sing - a great voice when she’s not mumbling), Lady Gaga (another immense talent, when she’s not tying to be controversial) or Taylor Swift, is when they’ve been covering more musical older songs. Maybe that’s my boomer musical education - but we were privileged to have been brought up in an era where musicianship and songwriting was revered and promoted. I see the shift in music now as being as radical as in the mid 50s - parents used to big bands and crooners simply hated rock’n’roll - I’m sure many a teen during the 60s was told to ‘turn that racket down - it sounds like someone building a shed!’, or ‘call that music - it’s just shouting and banging’ - and so it goes on and on. Doesn’t mean that I like a lot of modern mainstream music - I’m saddened that it has become so commoditised, and that it feels like the artistry has gone. But, times, and tastes move on, just as they did in the 1950s (rock n roll), 1960s (rhythm and blues, and the British Invasion), 1970s (prog, then punk), and so on. The biggest difference now though is the technology - you no longer have to be a musician to make a hit song. And in the case of the ‘Cowel’ years - as long as you had something to be exploited, then the record label would do just that…….anyway, boomer rant over!
Gen X. Millenials came after gen X and before gen Z
I think your perception of the music scene is the result of your stepping away from it. I see current music as a firehose with a great many talented artists appearing during any particular decade in the 21st century. If you are on the periphery of the stream, all you see are the most popular people. Casual music fans in the '70's knew ABBA, Wings, Carly Simon and Bad Company, but they likely never heard of Frank Zappa, Devo, or Little Feat. Radio is even narrower now and record shops are fewer as well. Remarkable artists like Brandy Carlisle, Doves, Travis, Public Service Broadcasting and Guster tour frequently and sell music, but are invisible to casual music fans.
Oh no, I haven’t stepped away from it - I enjoy new bands / artists - at the moment my absolute favourite is Louis Cole / Knower, but I also enjoy Thundercat, Bent Knee, Cory Wong, Vulfpeck, and many others. But when did you ever hear any of these mentioned in casual conversation, featured in one of the ‘big’ concerts (the recent Coronation concert for example) or on the radio?
I have to be thankful that I (as a gen-x'r) grew up in NYC. heard everything, saw everything live (rock, funk, new wave, alternative, jazz). Can't get behind the cassette or LP thing, although I still buy CD's!
My twin brother and me were minted in '63. Because we've been musicians since we were 5 yo, we were keenly aware of music (Dad and uncle were musicians); we lived through the tail-end of Beatle Mania in real-time... and we feel lucky for it. Our baby half-brothers came in '80 and '83, are musicians as well, and by dumb luck are Beatles freaks just like us. My personal musical idols are Miles Davis (and all his disciples), The Beatles (and disciples Elvis Costello, Paul Weller, etc.), Joao Gilberto (and subsequent Tropicalismo and MPB artists: Elis Regina, Milton Nascimento, Djavan, Ivan Lins, Caetano Veloso, Chico Buarque, Gal Costa, and Gilberto Gil), James Brown (+Curtis Mayflield, EWF, Tower of Power), J.S. Bach (+Mozart, Chopin, Beethoven, Debussy). There, that's my worldview.
I was born late 65, so borderline boomer/genx. 12 year old when the Sex Pistols started, followed by ska then new wave. In the mid 80s, tried some illegal substances and then started listening to 60/70 bands as well as new stuff. Does this say anything? This was followed by being involved in the underground electronic dance scene. Now discovering Krautrock thanks to Spotify . It's been quite a journey
You need to write a book Andy. Great work!
Have to say, I feel you are bang on with your interpretations of music history. Found myself saying out loud "yes", I think the same thing. Nice job Andy!
I think the key to enjoying music is to not let whatever era you were born into determine its value. When I was in my 20's (I'm 65 now), I decided I wasn't going to become one of those people who came to believe that hardly anything good has been recorded since about 1980. And you have people like that out there, people who are so embedded in their generational bubbles that they've either lost the desire to learn or struggle to. I've noticed that the 90's have become a cutoff point for many in the comments of other videos I've checked out. So I think it's important to keep your ears and mind open to whatever's happening, because every era has good-to-great music mixed in with a wealth of garbage. You just have to figure out for yourself what constitutes good-to-great. Have fun exploring!
I'm from 1980... and I have realized many years ago now that I'm just not interested in anything after year 2000. The sound goal from then on have just become worse and worse to me. And now we're at the pinnacle of horrible and stupid music with no musical elements in it. About 95% of everything coming out today is so superficial that I can't stand listening to a single note. Whenever my car starts it activates a stupid auto on radio. And it's like some evil entity attacking my ears and soul - and it's absolutely horrid. A compressed angry wave of evil - coming out of the speaks. AAARGH! Stop it....we're in a cultural wasteland - and I will have no part in it.
There's so much good stuff from before the internet. There's enough for a whole life time. Thank God ❤
Not only that nowadays we have far more access to music than ever before
I put the end of the rock era as 2000. There were three things that occurred around this time that pushed it aside. 1. Napster. In the US college students were some of the biggest supporters of rock. They were also the first ones to have access to computers with the bandwidth necessary to simply start stealing music, so rock was the first segment of music to suffer a sales collapse and thus get abandoned by the contracting labels. 2. And this applies to the US only, was the telecommunications act of 1996 which allowed corporations to own more than one radio station in a market. This killed regional variation and led to a complete homogenization of playlists. 3. Antares auto-time plug in. Introduced in 1996, but thrust into the limelight on Cher's Believe.
But then, a few years later you got Franz Ferdinand, the Kaiser Chiefs, Kasabian, Hard Fi, Snow Patrol and Keane into the music charts for the first time as the last hurrah for British rock music.
That sounds about right. There was still good rock being made but the 90's was the last breath of cultural relevance.
When I was 3 years old I heard Heartbreak Hotel on the radio (1956) and it chilled me to the bone. Blues. In 1966 we thought Stevie Winwood was black.
Two decades later ,John Cale's cover of "Heartbreak Hotel"on his "Slow Burn" LP would do the same for me- the difference being that I'd feel the need to disinfect in the shower after listening to the album.
@@kenlyon8285 - Imma tell John you said that but maybe he's dead! Some days I don't want to research.
Expertly analysed as ever Andy, I enjoyed that.
I am a boomer, and I have many boomer friends, it seems to me that we are split into two camps; the first are stuck in 1973, we all know them: "There's no good music today, it's all shite, nothing good has been produced after Dark Side of the Moon" and they refuse to listen to anything of today. My one son-in-law's parents are just like that, they'll go and see Genesis, Deep Purple, Uriah Heep etc... (and I'm not saying that's a bad thing) but when I say I'm going to Larkin Poe, they have no idea who I'm talking about, and have not bought any new music for decades, not even new albums by Purple or Heep.
The camp is the one I fall into, those of us who appreciate and love our 70's music (the major of my collection is 70's) but are also open to good music being produced now, I have bought so much post millennium music, 26 albums last year and so far 15 this year.
This is my story: 1984, I'm Watching Top of Pops, Kid Jensen announces the future of rock and roll and it is the Smiths and on comes this winging, whiney fecker, singing on a minor key monotonous voice to his shoes with a bunch of dead flowers in his back pocket, and I thought: "if that the future of rock and roll, fuck that, I'm off' and I hardly bought any new music for years, some years only two albums, I turned all dad rock in my 20's, listening to Dire Straits, Chris Rea, Gerry Rafferty and Stevie Ray Vaughan, even rock music had gone all hair metal which was shit and Yes were going 90125, prog had floundered too.
In 1994 ten years later, I bought Pink Floyd - Division Bell, I love that album, yes, Pink Floyd had bought a new album out, great. Then I stopped and thought: " Wait a minute, I've become 'that" guy, hanging on to past glories, there must be some good new music out there" and I started investigating and discovered Radiohead, The Stereophonics, Manic Street Preachers and Reef and also cross-over bands such as Groove Armada, Faithless and Chemical Brothers. From that point on I have tried to discover something new every year. There are some amazing artists out there, probably my two favourites are War on Drugs and Public Service Broadcasting, I have seen the latter twice, J. Willgoose Esq is an absolute genius, and I'm seeing War on Drugs in a couple of months. I still see legacy artists, I recently saw Steve Hillage and am seeing Steve Hackett this year, however, I am really interested in seeing bands of the now; The Big Moon, The Last Dinner Party, The Mysterines and The Lathums. There is an amazing jazz scene at the moment, Ezra Collective, GoGo Penguin, Nubya Garcia and Khruangbin are producing great music.
Yes, I will always love the 70's, that's where I fell in love with music and so much ground work and experimentation was done, it was a great time to be alive, however, I also feel within myself, I need to keep my love of music alive by appreciating what is happening around me now or I will stagnate mentally.
Sorry I've gone on for so long, keep up the good work.
You're doing great work here, Andy. Keep going, I hope you more viewers!
Great speech. Im also waiting for something revolutionary to come along. Its been a long wait since the 90s
It's funny...I was born a year before you (1967 the summer of love) and so like you I grew up listening to Floyd, Zeppelin, Grateful Dead, etc. I have never self identified as a boomer simply because my generation is Gen X. The first time I heard the Ramones and The Clash it hit me like a brick through a plate glass window. This was music that spoke directly to me, later on came heavy metal and techno and shoe gaze, all of which gave me an appreciation for a wide variety of musical genres. All of these years later I get as much joy listening to Vivaldi and the Four Seasons suite as I do from listening to Slayer's Reign in Blood. Unfortunately by the time the 90's were over music had a mass production homogeneous nature that destroyed the variety I grew up with.
Very thought-provoking. A lot of late Boomers have never been current or cared about it. Born in 1961, I was having my mind blown by the Beatles, P-Funk, Brian Eno, Bowie...all in the years after most of their best albums were already released. So, from my teens, I've ALWAYS listened to music that is not of the moment. When the Sex Pistols were current and I was 15, I was reading about them with little interest in Time magazine, and listening to Lightnin' Hopkins and Roxy Music albums. Might have been different if I had been in England....or working class.
The emergence of video (we didn't have it until our 20s) has changed things. Movies have usurped the power that Rock once had. Post-Boomer generations sit in their living rooms and watch movies on their surround systems. We sat and listened to LPs on our "stereos." 20-minute sides, with the album covers in our hands, poring over the liner notes, savoring the art, and picking out a cool double LP cover for "deseeding" dope, a thing we had to do if you didn't want those stinky things popping in your bowl, you know. When you don't sit and listen to "albums", music starts to have a different function.
To be fair, there are a lot of younger people who still prefer listening to music the "classic" way.
I have a ton of classic records that I still listen to exactly as you described (even down to reading the liner notes!) and I'm a Gen Zer. That method of listening to music isn't dead, it's just not mainstream anymore.
@@LandonAPerson Yes, I know I was using broad strokes, and there are a lot of younger people who love it just like we did. Good on you.
Born in 62 - Best Strats and Best Saxophones - Saw Punk, Classic Rock, New Wave, Rockabilly, Heavy Metal.... The Classic Acts, Thank God I was born then..... We have now enetered into the Dark Ages - a recurring theme in Human History.....
Nonsense. This era is the best for music as millions of tracks are available to listen to free at a click
@@keithparker1346 ...But you HAVE to invest in ever changing tech. to 'click' - unlike the days when you could enjoy & share music of your choice for decades without upgrading!
68 year old here, so prime boomer territory. Definitely authenticity and musician ship is important to me, and since the late 90's when grunge dwindled, pop music bored me to tears. I had drifted to artists that weren't so pop but were still authentic, so Jade Bird, First Aid Kit and other young singer/song writers setting their own path. And then last August I discovered a Japanese band called Band-Maid, guitar driven rock, excellent musicianship, superb song writing, excellent vocals (half the lyrics are Japanese but it just doesn't matter). The drummer will knock your socks off. The guitar player was influenced by Larry Carlton, she's like a tiny female Japanese Oscar Petersen who writes for the whole band, and they produce incredible prog rock to hard rock music that just makes me stupidly happy. As someone put it, they make you feel nostalgic for music that never existed before, but it sounds familiar. They began writing their own music late in 2016 and early 2017, so anything from those dates forward are all them. Band-Maid have a UA-cam channel with most of their releases on it, have a listen and see if your music boomerishness is rekindled. 👍
Asia is an area where rock really did not go out of fashion so you do have successful groups like Band Maid
Such a pleasure listening to you! I'm exactly the same age as you, also born 1968. We've been exposed and to such a vast amount of incredible music in our days, that it's become rather impossible to listen with pleasure to whatever we're being offered today. It's like when you grew up on the finest French cuisine but now have to live on fries and burgers.
Music has long seized to be a means of artistic expression, it's merely a way to generate as much money as possible in the shortest amount of time. That's why finding your own creative voice and style seems no longer an objective for young musicians, as they only know music as a commercial and very disposable product. If making lots of money is the objective, you'd employ proven methods rather than create something new that might or might not work on a commercial level.
Making music was always about making money.
@@michaelgoetze2103 But never ONLY about making money.
@@Patbwoy Sometimes yes. I think you overestimate how wonderful things used to be and how awful they are today. There are plenty musicians today who have musical integrity. I am a '62 model so I've been through a similar journey.
@@michaelgoetze2103 I don't necessarily disagree with you, however, musical integrity doesn't equate to good music. If all you know is 4 chords, you can be as musically integer as you want, you will still only be able to create music with 4 chords. If you grow up with, what Rick Beato would call, high-information music, you'll be able to draw from this experience and create music that incorporates all of this. If all you listened to during your childhood is the same 4 chords over and over again, as it is the case with the young'uns today, that will be all that's in your tool kit for creating your own music. If you were a painter growing up in a world that only knows shades of red, your paintings will likely also only consist of shades of red. Only a few will develop the necessary curiosity to find out if there are other colours as well. That's what the old Jazz musicians did: Trying to explore new ways, new harmonies, new everything, as there had to be more.
So in times of monochromatic music, the likelihood that we'll hear something new any time soon has diminished drastically. Add the fact that young folks get to know music as a disposable product and not as a form of art for artistic expression, it mostly doesn't even occur to them that music could be so much more.
Of course I'm generalising here, and I'm well aware that there are indeed still musicians left, who create music as a form of art, but those seem to be a rarity now rather than the norm.
@@Patbwoy Thanks for your thoughtful response.
Another Gen x'r here (born 1974). No one seems to talk about our generation, unlike say the boomers, millenials or gen z's. I don't mind, but it is interesting why this is so. Also, the boomers (through no fault of their own), seem to be a very fortunate generation both culturally and economically. I love my mum dearly, but used to get tired of her talking about how great the 60's were, or the youth of today don't appreciate hard work - she doesn't talk about this much now. She is old enough, that I'm pretty sure she won't read this (although is in great health I'm happy to say). I have enough IT awareness to appreciate you tube, but am far less internet savvy than the millenials or z's... Anyhow, thanks again Andy for your fascinating content. The 2 albums that had a massive impact on me as a child, were my (late) dad playing Dave Brubeck's take 5, and the Cream album "fresh Cream" on a record player. I am lucky...
Andy, brilliant!!
This helps explain why every time I get excited over my latest "musical discovery", I later find that the group disbanded 30+ years ago.
😮😊
I was born in ‘67 to parents who were in their mid to late 30’s and didn’t like rock ‘n’ roll , much less rock music. They called any music with distorted guitars “acid rock”. They liked swing music but weren’t big on jazz unless it was Ella, Louis and other middle-the-road performers. They liked some classical but didn’t hear the complexity of progressive rock because of the rock instrumentation. Rock singers weren't "singers" but screamers. They didn’t understand the importance of teen culture because they never had a chance to be teenagers themselves, having needed to grow up overnight during the war. At the age of 14, my mom was raising her baby brother in bombed-out Germany. And my dad escaped his broken family by lying about his age to join the Army after the war. As a result of being raised by them, I gained an appreciation for old music, old movies, etc. I appreciate it to this day, but I regret that I was never able to persuade them that rock music was not just some passing fad. These days, with so few good rock bands around, it seems like they were right.
Boomer (1955). Met Little Richard years ago in the Atlanta Airport. Not only the inventor of rock n' roll, but a really nice guy.
wow...like meeting God
@@AndyEdwardsDrummer Yes, complete with enormous bouffant hair and wearing purple pajamas..just like I always pictured Him.
I'm a 1961. Can't really argue with anything Andy says here. I would say that I think the grunge movement got corporatized and formulized as soon as it got popular, but I haven't really listened to enough of it to really say. It's just that it all sounds the same to me. To me. I have an eight years older sister and a four years older brother, and while they weren't really into music, they were enough that I got exposed to a lot of stuff from about 1969 forward. Growing up in the 70s and graduating from high school in 1979 - I just feel there was no better time for music, even considering disco. I would also add to Andy's analysis that the state of pop music was excellent too. We had moved beyond the bubble gum/Motown predictability of the 1960s. Not only was rock music varied and creative and good, so was most pop.
The Delmore Brothers “Freight Train Boogie” 1946. It’s rock and roll. As soon as the war ended rock and roll started popping up all over the place.
I'm definitely a proud Boomer.... Grew up during a time of the best popular music ever....
You’ll be happy to know I’m 40 Andy. Just a wee pup?!
Andy-
Re:"...How old do you think I am?..'you think I'm 70 years old???..."
Careful there you young whippersnapper or I'll have to flog you with my cane to odd time signatures.
You are solidly Gen X, Andy!! Haha! My parents and I are all boomers, they are 77 and I am 58. How weird is that? I consider myself Gen X, though. My contemporaries are people like Tom Cruise, Keannu Reeves, Jodie Foster, Ethan Hawke and Wynona Ryder.
I'm 58 too, from '65, and always thought people from that year were Gen X. Ever since the 80's I have not known otherwise. We have always been called that way. At least here in the Netherlands. But even the English Wikipedia page puts the start of Gen X in the mid-60's: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_X
@@provocase Yeah, they even made a movie about Gen X called Reality Bites, starring Wynona Ryder and Ethan Hawke, who are both our age.
Andy, a couple of ideas for you (from a 'proper' boomer) for a video: 1) The top 10 improvements to the music of a band if a member was replaced by a member from any other band e.g. Noel Redding with John Entwhistle. 2) The top 10 artist post-humous output, if they magically resurrected at the age that they died at, and continued their pre-death trajectory. I know you'd do a great job!
Born in the late 70s, I came of age musically as part of the MTV generation, and the cool thing about that time is that a wide range of people were exposed to and familiar with the same music. Kids from widely different backgrounds and socioeconomic statuses were all familiar with the same pop hits, something it seems to have in common with the 60s now that I think about it. Even though MTV as a medium may have been shallow, music more broadly during that time still had meaning to the people who were playing it and listening to it, and the medium provided a fun, light, shared cultural experience. Overall, I feel extremely lucky to have grown up in an era when music meant something and still had soul. I think that people will still be listening to music from that “rock era” many years from now.
Great video. Although I can't help thinking the importance of Culture Club may have been overplayed here...
Great video. I agree with you. The basic aesthetic has totally changed. Everything sounds canned and processed. I miss the days when the Grateful Dead would drag a gargantuan home made sound system to my town and everyone went and had a really good time and hardly ever even looked at the stage. It was spontaneous unique and loud. Lots of bandswere like that. There was a certain “we the people” ethic to it all. There wasn’t really a visual element to it except what was in your head. It was all about sound and feeling that’s about the moment and environment we all created together. And yes sticking it to the man.
That rig they used in the early 70's was probably the best sounding outdoor system ever. Designed by Owsley and powered by scores of McIntosh tube amps and banks of speaker arrays.
@@seed_drill7135 yes they called it the Wall of Sound, Macintosh based Hi Fi very loud and clear, nothing like it before or after, you could literally hear it for miles. I remember they played outdoors in Amherst Massachusetts and people way down the valley were reporting “weird thunder” and voices from the sky” etc. . The way it was designed it moved air in a concentrated wave. A Tsunami of sound that seemed to create its own weather. The Dead were the only band with the ways and means to build such an insane thing. They dragged that beast all over for years. They actually had two of these systems that they would leap frog from show to show because it took so long to setup and tear down. Owsley had been doing their sound since the beginning and claimed that he could see the music and apparently he actually could, so this sound system was developed based on Owsley’s LSD hallucinations and it worked. Brilliant creative and crazy. They were clearly all out of their minds ! Of course they went broke doing it but what a testament to the spirit of the thing. The high water mark of the entire movement really.
I’m 1969 and I recently realized I’m just another grey haired boomer to the youth. So much for all those years being an Xer.
You have clearly described my music history and the cultures that evoked it. Thanks mate.
Gen X must be one of the more stereotypical diverse generations- musical depending on when you were born (and your personality of course!) you could have been deep with 80s cliche hair metal or into grunge which is completely different and a reaction against hair metal
Being born in the late 70s I notice similarities but stark differences between ppl my age and other gen x who’s were born in the late 60s
Lots of dramatic changes within that gen x timeframe
Im late Boomer from the most important music year ever, 1959, though my mother was born same day as Bird.
We are post rock n roll, Boomers started Rock. But were far more open to various musics. From the LBC we had War, uncles of NWA. Huge range of influences and Funk huge here, ToP, Head Hunters and EWF as musicianship mattered. Heard Stoes, Who and Stevie in early teens. Loved Allman Bros and Traffic, Jeff Beck and all led me through Stanley Clarke to jazz. When Warer Babies came out in 75 at 16 I knew this was it. From Jaco to VSOP I heard them all and was at cheap student nights, Thursdays, at the Lighthouse, Concerts by the Seaa and Parisian Room and later Catalinas. Sold paintings at Ruths Jazz Bakery and got in free during 80s.
The mix of music being pre corporate sales niched was truly creative.
Cant say that now as cutting of art and music budgets under Reagan has led to musc/art illiteracy and stunted craftsmanship as MTV made it about about presentation, not substance. Met that damn Old English VJ at a party before it began, what an ass.Pure salesmanship. HipHop and grunge get credit for trying, but they corrupted too.
Tupac, as .uch a self creation as his mothers movie shows, was the end as 98 with Badu, Hill was the last burst before mechanization.
Just listen to UA-cam of my old scratched records now. But many great videos of jazz concerts from 90s,2000s. Herbie, McCoy. Holland etc.
Painting sucks with your YBA BS. A very few new but last great is Kiefer.
A Boomers view. 22:30
Another Gen-X here. I have 2 teenage kids and I try my best to keep an open mind and I try to remind myself that I probably don't understand. But when I try to imagine growing up without rock music, I can't do it. That kids don't have it now is tragic. I worry for their souls. I scored 2 tickets to see Bruce Springsteen in a corporate box. I gave my son a list of 15 songs to listen to and then took him. I could see the wheels turning. It almost got through. But in the end, I think it was just too alien for him. When they're out in the street, I think they are, unfortunately, taking what they're handing out.
I'm 55. My 18 year old daughter is going to see Alice Cooper with me this Sunday. I never pushed classic rock on her, but being an insane record collector, she was always exposed to it and grew up preferring music of the 60s-80's, with a particular obsession with David Bowie.
Unashamedly a critical Boomer [ 1953 ] and indeed; fortunate to have grown up and experienced an era of originality / authenticity and accomplishment in music; let alone evolving / progressing analog technology that eventually gave us so much through into the digital world of today. Living continually with edgy world politics and where self-endeavour / perseverence gave reward; not by way of demanded gimmee and expected right of entitlement ! The music of the 60's + 70's + 80's ( Non-Corporate ! ) was the foundation of such expression; but NEVER forgetting those who had paid the ultimate price for our freedom in WW 2 ...
You're fooling yourself if you really think music in the 60s etc was not corporate
I think you hit the nail on thd head whdn you said 'Rock' is about bands and groups....Jazz and even 'Rock & Roll' was generally based around the soloist/artist with a backing group. 'Rock' is more about the band concept...very interesting....obviously there are exceptions, but as a general rule I think that concept holds!
Generation X here born 70. Grew up with an amazing soundtrack 😎. By the 80s as I came of age with new wave ,post punk, electronic, arena Rock it was all so much 😊. In readable time to grow up. Didn't realise how fortunate we were. It's funny when U think queen made a comeback at live aid. But me and my friends liked some of there songs but otherwise they were meh. My daughter just can't comprehend that. I have to laugh 🤣 I say yeah they were great but understand 'tears for fears" were smashing it then.
I think they mean something like "square" from when I was young. I recently heard a teenager say when the 60s were mentioned "Oh the olden days" and I felt my arthritis coming on.
Just outside (January '66) but totally agree with you about so much great old music still to discover. Two of my favourite magazines are Shindig and Electronic Sound. Both have introduced me to things I never knew were out there.
To be fair, both champion modern music too and have heard some new stuff but the best new stuff is knowingly standing on the shoulders of giants.
I might be a young dude but you are speaking facts! The two major musicians in my life are extremely distinct and very individualistic players. Compared to young cats I hear who are so afraid to spend time developing their own taste in what they like to play. The advent of all these "learn this lick." and "10 guitar fusion lick packs" is just commercialising music and reducing the individualistic nature
Born in 1952. The dominance of digital tricks, empty lyrics, unceative tunes and lack of roots in certain scenes, or roots in older music, is connected to the neo-liberal, capitalist model of culture, dominated by massive conglomerates.
I am a guitar and instrumental teacher in Canada. The kids I teach want to play AC/DC, Metalica, Guns and Roses, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden etc. There is a smaller segment that likes New Country stuff and pop like Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran and Harry Styles
I feel like I with an old friend when I come here.
Active listening was what my parents, born before 1920, were most baffled about.
Ah I see Gurdjieff up on your shelf.
IMHO nobody came out and shook the audience by the lapels like Little Richard . Absolute no-care vital energy !
I agree wholeheartedly
hmmm.....
...inspired by recent comments/reaction to 1973 Yes double LP vid, perhaps?😉
Dragging cords around was such a big deal, all that, get off my cord ahole you are taking away my light. The blues harp holder was my favorite addition and it changed the way to play the blues and added a better sound and freedom of movement. Magic Dick does not get enough props.
do a video about NUCLEUS . I saw them twice in Peru in the 80's.... you look as you knew them in person...
Eno is galactical soul music.
Great video Andy, you do make me chuckle
Never underestimate the sound of unalloyed joy ; 1,2,3 o'clock, 4 o'clock rock ! Bill Haley and his Comets are never mentioned these days; yes, he was white and uncool looking, but at that time his sound made you stand up and dance. Listen to his original records from 1954/56 and you'll hear it. "I saw her standing there" has the same feeling of joy to it----we're gonna dance all night!
He was the first rock star. One of, if not the first to merge R&B and country. Hailey was a country swing artist fronting The Saddlemen when they covered Jackie Brenston (Ike Turner)' Rocket 88 all the way back in 1951. His career was derailed by the far more dangerous and sexy Elvis and he released some subpar material, later in the decade, though 1959's "Ooh, Look-a There, Ain't She Pretty" was lascivious enough to feature in John Waters' Pink Flamingos. Bizarrely, he, rather than Chubby Checker, was the popularizer of The Twist in Mexico.
In 1963 John Fitzgerald Kennedy was murdered for his compassionate ideas and works. We grieved, hard. Guess what else happened in 1963? Who brought joy to the world? Because she loves you...
Oswald did the world a favour
Fantastic video. You're a music history philosopher.
Awesome historical context/connections and analysis.
Boomer music is much better than modern music. Creativity has been petering out since the 1980s.
Nope it's just not in chart music really. To find better music you need to look elsewhere
I was born on the cusp 61 - 65 my father was a working jazz guitarist, I had no choice I was always listening to johnny Smith or Jim Hall records it wasn't till 1975 I listen to bands like Piolet, Queen , and the Beatles lol funny how they are all english
keep hitting. I really wonder how people came to be musically so apathetic and ignorant so fast, in 10 years eveerything destroyed, we have low quality audience and low quality musicians conspiring
elvis is the man that added country elements to rock and roll, at Sun Studios, a year before Chuck Berry was signed!
Andy, you and Steven Wilson need to share a beer and chat about the importance of art-rock records from the 70's. I assume you've checked out his podcast with Tim Bowness? Also, when you were talking about the late 90's and trip hop and all that I flashed on the movie Shaun of the Dead where -- after Phil harangues them for making a bunch of noise with their hip hop -- Nick Frost sheepishly says "It's not hip hop. It's electro." As if that was huge point of fact that mattered deeply, instead of the fact that he and Simon Pegg were being incredibly rude to their flatmate. 😊
You’re generation x Andy! The fact that you know about and have participated in making dance and electronic music despite being a prog rock drummer, disqualifies you from being a boomer!
New channel name for you - Boomeranger Banger!
A+ Andy!
Im 20 (born in '02) and I've gotta say I very much agree. I'm quite sad to see what is predominantly listened to by my generation. For the most part its all bland, repeatable repetitious garbage. The types of "artists" and music being hailed now cant hold a candle to what was being hailed back then. The artistry, the skill, the love for the craft is just so palpable when you go back and compair it to the modern equivelants. Not to say that good music isnt being produced now, it still very much is, it just isnt being shown to the mainstream audience that popular music was back then. Now if a song isnt extremeley basic or if it exceedes 3 minutes it isnt even considered. It breaks my heart that the truly great music of back then and today isnt getting the reconition it deserves.
Gen X is the best! My path is similar to yours. Couldnt stand 80s music, so I First listened to 60s and 70s rock. The Beatles, Queen, Deep Purple, Rush, then Yes. I'm stuck in Prog now!
1955 birther and you have the set of attributes consistent with our gen gener generation we have room in the boomer tent for you - free of charge -
Andy, that was a good overview. I’m actually six years older than you I was born in 1962 and one thing. I really appreciate you not saying is that today’s music sucks. No I’m not a big fan of whatever is on the radio today but frankly, I’ve never really been a big fan of radio music. Hi unlike other people, my age actually stay current with all types of new music that comes out every Friday and really enjoy that I’ve enjoyed discovering current new music, my entire life, but I do be moan the slow death of rock ‘n’ roll over the last 20 years, and but there’s still plenty of good rock ‘n’ roll and jazz rock on boutique and independent labels coming out every Friday
That said, I totally appreciate where you are coming from and if you prefer to spend your time with older music. Because that is damn great music I just also really I’m glad you did it without saying today’s music sucks because that’s a real problem with my generation, thinking that somehow their music is the best that is an old man’s perspective. And I find music has always kept me with a young man’s perspective.
This current young generation needs more cowbell!!
Boomer? I don't care for that designation. I prefer to think of myself as a renaissance man.
Today I listened to Magical Mystery Tour, which I think was close to their best album, especially for prog fans. That probably says a fair bit about where I stand :)
Zen CD and Deep Forest are about as electronic as I get, or maybe ambiance by Eno or Stomu Yamashta. As for modern acts, I really enjoy Dirty Loops with Cory Wong (or most things with Cory Wong) and Louis Cole. These are all monster players playing their own brand of music.
I challenge any old boomer prog and fusion fan to listen to the whole performance of Dirty Loops playing "Work Sh*t Out" and not come away smiling. The good stuff is still happening, but you have to actively search for it.
It's the Beatles worst album, in fact it's not really an album
@@marknewbold2583 Yes, it was a throw together but it is still brilliant, one of their best
The title track ... I am the Walrus ... Hello Goodbye ... Penny Lane ... Strawberry Fields .... All You Need is Love. That is a seriously strong collection of songs.
This video should be shown in classrooms.
You are a treasure Andy, so says this 66 year old.
I’m 53 and still hate Steely Dan.
How? They were near perfect.
Andy if you want to track the move from rock / prog to dance electronic you could interview Steve Hillage
Anyone with UFIP hi-hats deserves to be listened to.
Ahhhh...I'm no longer endorsed to them. I play DREAM CYMBALS now which are wonderful
This looks good 😂
You have a very refreshing and entertaining opinion Andy. I reckon I would love a pint or jam with you. Even better both 😁
Baby Boom 1946-1964: The Slinet generation 1928-1945
Spot on Andy (from a boomer)
Gnarly Video Andrew
If I were king of the boomers I’d give you the key to boomer village !
But we don’t have kings here so there is that.
Most things new are not good. Only time will sort wheat from chaff. Duration will be added to its resume if it is good, and its newness will be a small fraction of its lifespan. This is why Pirsig, in "zen & the art of motorcycle maintenance" questioned why people would ask: "What's new?" instead of "What's good?" Rarely, as in the case of Boomers, is the new also the good. Welcome to Boomerdom! Good fit! Great show!
This hit me like a boomerang.🤕
You’re Generation X!!!! Everyone has forgotten about us…
Yep....
Loved the "ramble" as a fellow Boome...I mean Xer. I still listen to modern music but the artists I'm listening to tend to reflect the stuff I loved when I was younger. The diffraction of music that's happened and the lack of gate keepers in how music is distributed and heard is why there's no shared experience of time with music anymore. Maybe there is but it's just a completely different way than I know it which was with radio mostly. With the disintegration of all the pillars of society these days it's not surprising music is also disintegrated. There is great music being made by extraordinarily talented players. Sheezus the level of talent out there is way way higher than it was when I was coming up but the platforms to introduce, develop and sell an artist as important are gone. I remember me and my friends would get all snobby and talk trash about how record companies were too controlling over artists and how they took advantage of them and they did. The thing that was hard to appreciate when I was younger is that they did do a good job of gatekeeping and curating music that the public heard so we had a relatively shared view of culture and society. Missing that now makes sense as another part of how it's all falling apart. Something new will happen that will bring people together some time I'm sure. Might be awhile.
Looks like the Jon Riley book "The art of bop drumming" (or maybe "Beyond bop drumming) on your music stand :D Anyway if that's the case - great book(s)!
well spotted!
When you're 70 everybody looks 55.
Great video. Very insightful view of how we see music compared to how our kids see music. But when you say boomers... "Boomers" are not "Baby Boomers". Kids would call boomers anyone over 40 who doesn't understand tic-tok and snapchat. Baby boomers are people born in the 15 years after WWII. I was born in 1974. I'm not a baby boomer. My mom is a baby-boomer born in 1946. My kids call me a boomer when they explain hopw I don't understand anything. My wife sometimes calls me boomer because I listen to old music from the 50s-70s. And as much as I love prog, jazz, classic and blues.....it's Little Richard that really kicks-ass. You are so right. I agree rock started in 1962-1963 but it ended in 1995 after the grunge era. I don't agree with the notion that rock died in 1985. We're probably all boomers. Don't change the channel's name just yet....😄