The music of your life

All of us grow up thinking the music we grew up listening to is the best and we’ll listen to it forever.

And in some cases that is true. An earlier generation grew up on big band, Sinatra etc. and to this day some of that era listen only to this style of music or at least they may think it is the only good music.

Others may have been raised on classical music; the Mozarts, Beethovens etc. and have kept with that throughout their lifetimes.

But what about those of us who spent our formative years listening to the popular music of our day? In my case that would be mostly rock. Now this is a broad genre and almost doesn’t work for my coming hypothesis but bear with me on this one.

I’m pretty eclectic in musical tastes and was in my teens. Everything from the Beach Boys, Beatles, James Taylor, Cream, Santana, Chicago, Doobies, Steely Dan, CSN – OK enough of mine. But also remember how very much music changed in the 60s – from sappy easy listening stuff and Kingston trio folk in the early years through the English invasion to the psychedelic years in the late 60s.

Now somewhat 40 years removed and counting, what am I listening to now? A lot of the above still (isn’t XM Radio great?!) and I’ve added new artists that have come along since then – U2, John Mayer, Coldplay, Diana Krall (which adds jazz to my listening repertoire) but I’ve also added various types of country which include people like Alison Kraus and Nickel Creek.

My point though is most of what I listen to now is at least a spin-off of a style or genre I had been listening to 30 years ago. Not necessarily new.

I’m wandering.

I also listened to do-wop, MoTown, silly one-hit-wonders, the Carpenters (sorry), John Denver – but do I listen to any of that today? No, unless I happen to hit an oldies station and wax nostalgic for a few moments. (OK, John Denver maybe but only when my daughter visits – and I have no idea why she took a liking to John Denver’s music.)

What about the kids of the 90s when grunge came along? Will those people still be listening to Nirvana when they are in their 60s?

What about hip-hop - especially rap? Obviously this is hugely popular but will those kids (both black and white) be listening to this stuff in their 50s or 60s? I doubt it.

Some genres are slightly less generational – country for one, jazz another and of course classical and for those, people probably DO tend to stay with their favorite style although even in country tastes change. Country is certainly different now with the more pop sounds of Rascal Flatts and others compared to earlier country of Johnny Cash or even before him with folks like Conway Twitty, Ernest Tubbs, Hank Williams (yes, the original Hank.) But still country tends to be country.

It is so easy for us to be myopic about our music and to think ours is and always will be the best. But I also think some of our time’s (OK the 60s and 70s – but I don’t include disco!) music is timeless.

I have no idea what I’ll be listening to when I cross that six-decade threshold before too very long but it probably won’t be the harder edged stuff.