Chronology of Music

Over the past 5 years, I can honestly say that much of my musical tastes have not changed. I believe you reach a certain point in your life where it is very difficult to continue to listen to your long time favorites while introducing new artists to your rotation. Every generation of music lovers, I believe, follows a similar path during their musical life spans and for us 30 somethings, it went a little like this:

1. Pre-self-awareness/Elementary School: Welcome youngling! Now that you have left those wonderful nursery rhyme jingles back with your night-light and footy pajamas, it is now time for you to discovery what Mommy and Daddy listen to. Your introduction to main stream pop was what most 40 year-olds spin on turn-tables, classics like: Michael Jackson, Abba, Simon & Garfunkel, the Bee Gees, Dolly Parton, and Alabama.
1. Nowadays, I’m pretty sure kids are introduced to hip-hop, tween pop, country, rap, and metal through some kind of in vitro, bluetooth ear-bud music system.

2. Self-awareness/Middle School: Finally! A boombox in your room, complete with dual tape deck (ideal for making mix-tapes!) and a big ol’ antenna that would get you Casey Kasem’s top 40 with all those chart toppin’ bands like: Duran Duran, Pet Shop Boys, Phil Collins, Motley Crue, White Snake, Wham!, The Cars, and Men at Work. Timely and poignantly wonderful tunes with all the lyrics a rebellious, prepubescent boy or girl could desire. “We can dance if we want / we can leave your friends behind / ‘cause your friends don’t dance / if they don’t dance / then they’re no friends of mine”
1. Modern-day middle schoolers could make up lyrics that would put 1980’s Madonna to shame

3. Formable Years/High School: Alright, the music that you will listen to for the rest of your life you will first listen to during this age. You will combine the classics with the new rebellion, the anti-establishment of all generations with the anti-establishment of the new generation. “School’s out for summer / school’s out forever” ‘cause “Jeremy spoke in class today” Start collecting those Compact-Discs by picking them up in their long-box displays, ultimately to be trimmed down to just the case. But be careful not to scratch that CD or you’ll be stuck listening to the beginning riff of “Hard to Handle” over and over. Widen your musical (and mental) horizons with artists like: Led Zeppelin, the Stones, the Doors, Metallica, Black Crowes, R.E.M. & U2 (their early shit, not their new crap), Dave Matthews, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, SoundGarden, Smashing Pumpkins, Alice in Chains, Guns N’ Roses, Green Day, Counting Crows, and Live. At least if you were a middle to upper-middle class, suburban, white kid. Rage Against the Machine young man, rage!
1. Today’s high schoolers listen to the new anti-establishment, whatever-is-popular-on-youtube / American Idol winners, and/or anything that has a really heavy kick-drum beat. I’m not even sure there are any other instruments.

4. Suggestive Years/College: Here you are, you made it! On your own…well except for the thousands of other 18-22 year olds who are also ‘on their own’. And with them come a wide plethora of musical suggestions. How can you not hear new music when your roommate feels like blasting Bone Thugs-N-Harmony on their stereo at 1 a.m. the night before your big midterm exam! “Meet you at the crossroads”, damn right, when I put you under with my 100lb psych101 textbook. This is a time for sharing…stories, music, uncomfortable conversations in the communal showers. It’s the underlying root of the college experience. It’s when you discovered Biggie, 2-Pac, P.Diddy (sorry, Puff Daddy), ungodly loud club dance music blaring at every frat party on campus. Others you may have been unwillingly exposed to but ended up liking: Phish, No Doubt, O.A.R., Muse, Radiohead, Ben Folds Five, Third Eye Blind, Vertical Horizon, The Wallflowers, Weezer, Wilco, Coolio, Blues Travelers, Oasis, any jam-band in a big amphitheater.
1. Again, not that much different in the modern era, anything that goes good with pot, drinking, and/or house parties.

5. The Doldrums/Income Years: Well, if you are listening to music during your mid-20s, its probably overly loud background music at some trendy, newly-opened bar that keeps you from hearing the annoying drunk girl talking about how much she hates her job and just wants to find a guy and live at the beach and drink cocktails on weeknights and some other bullshit you can’t hear nor care about. Typically it is the crappy follow-up albums of bands that hit it big with one or two songs on their first album then over-produce their sophomore release in the name of expanding and experimenting with their ‘talents’. I’m looking at you Train/Creed/John Mayer. Fortunately in your quiet times you are discovering artists who appreciate writing good music, the folksy, singer-songwriters. No, not those, you know, the good ones: Norah Jones, Iron & Wine, Patty Griffin, Ryan Adams, David Gray, and Elliott Smith. Which also leads you to the more eclectic bands, like: Cake, Drive-By Trucks, Death Cab, and others. And just like many of your favorite bands that last more than 2 albums, are begin re-invent your musical style and tastes…without giving up your roots of your formative years.
1. The 20-somethings of today continue to follow this pattern, naming many bands I’ve never heard of, surmising the age of “I know music that you don’t know” attitude.

6. Who Cares/Settling Period: Currently you find yourself with less time to listen to music – the job, family, chores, arrands, meetings, meeting about the meetings. However, you look at it, you find yourself wanting to just listen to music you like. Who has time to scour the internet, music stores (the ones that still exist), open-mics, or opening acts for new discoveries? It is about this time that you acknowledge the fact that your musical tastes are static and dated. But who cares? Many of the bands you loved in high school can still rock, and even if they can’t, you’ve got their original works to listen and re-listen to for years to come. Of course, you do come across new stuff…usually on a commercial or TV show (good thing that in the modern era, you get music a la carte). Then, from time to time, you experience new artist just by the shear inundation of praise, exposure, and recommendations. So welcome to the world of: Mumford & Sons, Andrew Bird, Josh Ritter, Matt & Kim, Coldplay, Amy Winehouse, Flo Rida, Adele, The Killers, and Black Eyed Peas.

Now your bands and individual experiences may vary but the patterns should emerge relatively the same. And by no means is this a comprehensive or entirely accurate representation of my own music catalog but do apply to the appropriate time periods. If I am way off base, let me know, and if you have any suggestions for some new music I have to check out, remember, time is limited so it’d better be good or I’m gonna beat your ass.

Generation Gap

I’m calling this my old man rant. I’m far from old, but I am beginning to see the gap between myself and next generation. I have reached a point in my life that I am now twice the age of many graduating seniors. And now that I work in an environment surrounded by the aforementioned youths, I am finding some alarming trends. Yet, I’ve been pondering this one for a while…see, I started back in 2008 when I was attempting to get back into writing (this does not bode well for this to be a continuous venture, if history says anything about my dedication to the medium of writing). So bare with me as I take you back to my first attempt and try to pick it up 4 ½ years later, although much of it still applies…

I know, I know, it has been a while…a long while. Hey, it’s me, you know me. I haven’t changed much, same venue - different room. I’ve been thinking lately, that’s what abnormal amounts of quiet will do to you (that’s why you need to turn the music up loud kids). I’ve got a lot of things on my mind and I needed to reach in there and scoop it out like ice cream - I’ll let you add your own toppings

I figured all my ramblings couldn’t be encapsulated into a single, all-encompassing blog, but I think I might have come up with a theme, it might be a stretch, hang in there with me, hope you are flexible.

So here we are, still in the 0’s but almost out into those fun teen years,’08 to be more precise (at least I hope to be done with thing before the end of the year). Life and technology are moving faster than anyone can keep up with (yes, even you). No amount of doping or HGH will help you keep pace. I have come to observe that even the separation of a few years can greatly characterize where we are in our social interactions. Using myself as an example, and I always assume that I am the norm, deal, I graduated high school in the mid-90’s, attended college thereafter. During that time, the interwebs was coming of age to the general public, beginning in the academic arena. I had access to Netscape, newsgroups, and the beginning of what we called the world wide web (the www for those of you who didn’t know why we have to type that in front of our web address). My major form of communication in college was e-mail (see here for more info). Upon graduation I got my first cell phone (still have the same # I was first issued amazingly enough) and used it sparingly to call friends and family (again, see above link).

…so its now 2012, see much of the above still does applies, sadly. And yes, I still have the same phone number…hit me up! (the end of that sentence just shows you how out of touch I am with the new breed of teenagers) Obviously I did not finish that train of thought at the time, thus is sat on the shelf, collecting dust, allowing time pass, allowing more technology to be invented, and widening the gap between past and present. With technology developing at such an exponential rate, a lot has changed in that time. But with any advances in technology, and far too often, societal changes are not considered for the sake of greater laziness. I’m this has been believed since our grandfathers’ grandfathers experienced life with electricity for the first time, “these elevators are going to make these kids all fat and lazy.” If they only knew how right they were. Thus the reason why I am calling this my old man rant. Now, picking up where my ’08 self left off…

‘12, not yet a teen but in that awkward stage of development when you start noticing “those changes”. I can’t even imagine what life must be like for the youth of today, and I interact with them on a daily basis. One thing is for sure, their cell phones are firmly implanted to their person. If desire is the aspiration of progress, then you’ll be seeing Bluetooth contacts with a heads-up displace of cell phone screens in the not too distant future. (helps that I have already implanted suggested that idea to my student) I crossed out implanted because in the future they are going to implant microchips into our brains so can remember things. Which is a good thing because I read some where that access to all these search engines, looking up information instantaneously, is causing our long term memories to shrink. Until that is accomplished there’s a chance that my students won’t remember my suggestion and we’ll remain left with young, distracted danger-mobiles on our American roads. Let’s hope we all make it out of our teen years.

Don’t get me wrong, many of these advances have provided our population with improved quality of life, longer lives, easier lives, allowing us to do other things with our lives. However, much to the detriment to society, some of these technological advances can create unintended side effects. And if you don’t see the rise in popularity of zombie-themed pop-culture productions as a metaphor for our mindless dependence on technology, then maybe you are one yourself. And that’s today’s word.