I received one of those viral e-mails from a friend this past week. Under the subject “Juke Box” was the text, “These are good songs compared to today’s noise …” followed by a long list of musical links, each representing one year, starting in the 1940s and ending with 1979, apparently the year the music died.
I thought to myself, with a grumble, that simply by being chosen to receive this blast-from-the-past e-mail, I’d been musically profiled.
I admit musical taste is generational. My grandparents’ generation latched on to Tin Pan Alley pop songs; my parents’ generation Big Band, The Platters and the roots of rock ‘n’ roll; and my generation the 1970s and, yes, the 1980s.
Are we destined to map our musical preferences to popular culture during the years we come of age? I’d like to think not.
I remember a wish I once had. I was fresh out of college. My new officemates were 20 years my senior and musically frozen in time, unwilling to listen to anything recorded after Elvis and Chuck Berry. I swore I wouldn’t let myself become closed-minded, that I’d keep my ears open to evolving styles, a Renaissance man into my dotage.
I try. At my 25-year college reunion, I chatted about music with my old dorm mate Dave.
“Heard anything new … anything good?” I asked.
His face became sour and his tone adamant; “There hasn’t been any decent music since 1980.”
My mind filled with rebuttal: REM, Peter Gabriel, Tori Amos. But I held my tongue. He’d made up his mind, and besides, by then we were talking about his successful Cleveland liquor distribution company, ironically fitting, given his fondness for the consumer side of that business throughout undergrad.
Maintaining a musical open ear has gotten harder over the years. Rap and hip-hop fell flat for me, but I resist looking down my nose. I tell my kids, while reminding myself, “You can dislike a sound but still respect an artist for doing something original.”
Nirvana grates on my eardrums, but hey, they broke new ground. On the flip side, Ricky Martin and Britney Spears might sing something catchy, but where’s the innovation that deserves respect?
Today’s technology is ending generation-specific musical tastes. The movie “American Graffiti” depicted all the young people of a 1962 community tuned to the same radio station, their defining moments put to the same soundtrack of 45-RPM classics. There is no modern equivalent.
Radio, what’s left of it, is sliced into hundreds of formats and genres, each targeting a demographic. The ultimate example of today’s musical heterogeneity is the “silent rave.” Last year in New York City, thousands gathered with their iPods and danced until their batteries died, each person grooving to his or her own unique selection of music.
Is my preaching about musical open-mindedness getting through to my own kids? Just last night our 7-year-old sang along to a classic, hitting every word from memory: “I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together. See how they run like pigs from a gun, see how they fly.”
Where do these kids pick up this stuff? Not from me. No way. I’m too eclectic in my musical preferences.
