Thanks everybody for the comments! The generation theme continues, an encore for the back seats. Johnny Yen's take got me to thinking (very close hit on age, by the way): that music and its specifics may play a more important role for ours than for some other age cohorts. I was born during a brief interlude of relative peace during the long Cold War. I grew up during and after the American-Vietnam War, with the draft ending years before I was eligible -- though it was indirectly resurrected as Selective Service when I was eligible, during the Soviet-Afghanistan War. Through all of it, music and its attendant details was important, and it remains so.
My tastes are eclectic, but I've got a particular fondness for a rougher raggedy kind of sound like the New York City-heavy "Blank Generation" bands put forth, along with miscellaneous stuff from before and after. Usually, but not always, stuff with a hard edge and strong rhythms, and tinged with a multiplicity of acerbic attitudes. One more thing to add: I also absorbed a variety of music genres via my parents and older sisters, which pushed me into realms as diverse as country and jazz as well as pop. Weirdly, though, my younger brother's tastes in music were not for me, starting with Kiss. The other way around, I got him to listen to some Black Sabbath and The Pretenders -- small triumphs during the great music wars, I suppose.
As far as "The Blank Generation" goes, there were two movies with that idea (The Blank Generation, 1976, pictured directly above, and Blank Generation, 1980, video clip at the top), and Richard Hell & the Voidoids' anthemic "Blank Generation," released in 1977.
Today's Rune: Strength.
11 comments:
I'm particularly fond of The Replacements and their song, "Bastards of Young." The lyrics that strike me the most are:
I'm one helluva a function
Just an income tax deduction
They go on to sing about not have a war to claim them.
That clip looks very familiar and so is the song. But I don't think I've seen it before.
And my dog is a part hound dog part....something else, but yes you're right, apparently not a water dog. lol.
All I can say is I have not found a music of any type that I haven't found some worth in. From primal drum circles to the hip-hop pop music of the current generation it's all good beating out the rhythms of the generations dreams and desires.
owo Good Collection
good one ....
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I've long related to Paul Westerberg and his music. He and I are almost exactly the same age, having both been born just on the 50's side of the 50's/60's divide. The lyric fragment from the song "Valentine" that goes "..but if tonight belongs to you, tomorrow's mine" resonated strongly with me in my 20's as something that seemed somehow a generation-defining statement.
-JC
I think you're right about music and the generations. My generation may be the last for which music was not that big a deal. Lana, who is younger, and my son's generation, and yours, seem to find in music a tremendously important and vital element of their life, while for me it's almost always been take it or leave it. Perhaps the advent of constant radio exposure lead to this?
Erik, my tastes-and I use the world loosely--run the gamut. I tend to replay the songs that remind me of happy times. I have a tough time embracing new material, but my son works tirelessly in that department to open up my tastes. P.S. Tom Jones is coming to Freeddom Hill. Whoo Hoo!
This reminds me of a line from a reading I heard Saturday night. The performance featured a rant by a gen-x, lamenting the fact that his progress had been stymied by baby boomers, and now he felt he was getting passed up by gen-y. At one point he's addressing gen-y and upbraiding them for thinking they've done anything original, and he yells "YOUR PUNK ROCK IS A CRAP-FILLED LIE".
To which my eldest said, "well, if he's gen x and grew up in the 80's his punk rock is probably a crap-filled lie as well."
MY HIGH SCHOOL YEARS.... MUSIC TO DO THE JITTERBUG OR THE TWIST. POST HIGH SCHOOL WAS JOHNNY MATHIS, PERRY COMO, EDDIE FISHER, NAT KING COLE, DORIS DAY THAT I HUMMED TO. I DO LOVE MOST ALL KINDS OF MUSIC, FROM SHOW TUNES TO DYLAN, SIMON AND GARFUNKEL, BILLY JOEL. I AM NOT FOND OF NOISE OR RAP, LOVE GOOD COUNTRY MUSIC ESPECIALLY BEFORE IT WENT GLITZY.
My tastes are eclectic as well-- I'd have to call my love of punk, country and folk music about equal.
I got Kim that DVD for our first Christmas together-- we'd been dating just a few weeks. I'd discovered that we were both Patti Smith fans. When we chose a date for our wedding in 2005, we chose December 30, because it was Patti Smith's birthday.
Thanks all, for the comments. Great stuff, fascinating. Salud and cheers!
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