Retromania - Pop Culture's Addiction to its Own Past

[Jim R]

Thanks Bev. It occurs to me that "pop culture" must certainly have its regional pockets, and this may cloud things somewhat in terms of being able to make broad generalizations. The thing that surprised me the most was your comment about your students being interested in their parents' music. I'll admit that I've done no serious study here, but from what I've observed in general, I'd say this would be the exception to the rule for young people in our neck of the woods.

[A Lark Ascending]

If you're on a bus with a bunch of UK 14 year olds they can't wait to sing-along to 'Bohemian Rhapsody' or 'Dancing Queen'. I was using some reggae in some lessons in July. One girl sang along with Bob Marley's 'Redemption Song' word perfect.

I had a long chat with one of my 17 year old students after his exams finished. His love of and knowledge of Hendrix was amazing.

As you say, maybe this does vary across countries or regions.

Edited September 2, 2011 by A Lark Ascending

[Hot Ptah]

My experiences are with Jim R here. The young people I meet in my business (in their 20s), and through my daughter (in their teens), have no interest in the music of the past, and no knowledge of it. They barely remember the music of two years ago, and find music from two years ago to be so hopelessly out of date as to be not worth talking about.

When my daughter and her teen friends are at our house, and a clip of a performer from the 1960s comes on TV by chance, they groan loudly and lunge for the remote to turn it off. This happened recently with 1960s clips of the Beatles, and of Sly Stone.

My daughter has a vague sense of who the Beatles are, but resents the fact that she learned that by being exposed to them "too much when you play your awful old music", as she put it. I am sure that none of her teen friends know who the Beatles are. These are honors students at a nationally highly ranked high school.

You mentioned Queen. A Queen hit came on the radio when my daughter and three of her friends were in our car. There was a great clamoring to turn that terrible stuff off. None of them had any idea who Queen was. I think that the love of Queen might be a uniquely British thing.

My daughter has one friend, who has a father who owns a music studio. This friend plays guitar and likes current "indie" music, and knows just a tiny bit about the music of the past--she has read the names of some of the old groups but has not heard their music. This friend is universally thought of as a "music nut", "a real weirdo with that music", by the other kids at high school.

I told an adult friend of mine, who owns a high end stereo store, about this guitar playing teen friend of my daughter. He was very interested, because he did not know any young people who cared about any music other than the current dance/pop hits.

The young people in their 20s who I meet in business know about the music of the past ten years only. Even talking about Nirvana with them draws blank stares.

Bev, I would love to meet young people like your students. I never have, in recent years.

Edited September 2, 2011 by Hot Ptah

[A Lark Ascending]

Intriguing.

Maybe it is a matter of national variation.

Things like Queen and Abba are constantly in the immediate public view through stage shows, films ('Mama Mia') etc. Our 'Stars in their Eyes/Britain's Got Talent' type programmes are built on nostalgia - people pretending to be George Michael, Michael Jackson or Elvis or whoever.

Kids very much want to be 'now' and are pretty impatient with my attempts to explain why history matters. But when it comes to music they seem extraordinarily open to their parents' record collections in a way that I wasn't. There was a massive chasm between my parents' musical world and the one I inhabited from about 1969-76.

[BillF]

Maybe it is a matter of national variation.

In my experience it's also a matter of individual variation. My younger daughter, now 24, is and always was as described by Hot Ptah. My elder daughter, on the other hand, as an older teenager ignored current chart hits and followed indie bands of the time (e.g. Manic Street Preachers)and developed a taste for Manchester bands of a decade earlier, eventually buying CDs from as far back as the Sex Pistols. Now she's 30 and on a recent home visit she went to see Pharoah Sanders with me. Phew!

[A Lark Ascending]

Now she's 30 and on a recent home visit she went to see Pharoah Sanders with me. Phew!

But could you get her to go and see Alan Barnes with you?

[BillF]

Now she's 30 and on a recent home visit she went to see Pharoah Sanders with me. Phew!

But could you get her to go and see Alan Barnes with you?

That would be the real test!

[rdavenport]

One of the amusing things reading it is that Reynolds pines for the excitement and the new of the 80s. Now in my emotional memory the good-old-days were already well past by then!

Maybe we all see our own youthful years between 15-25 as the Last Days of cultural excitement.

I agree wholeheartedly.

[Jim R]

Intriguing.

Maybe it is a matter of national variation.

Things like Queen and Abba are constantly in the immediate public view through stage shows, films ('Mama Mia') etc. Our 'Stars in their Eyes/Britain's Got Talent' type programmes are built on nostalgia - people pretending to be George Michael, Michael Jackson or Elvis or whoever.

I have to admit, I've always avoided "American Idol" and all other contemporary "talent" shows to the fullest extent possible, but I've found it impossible to go completely without hearing references to them or seeing clips and ads. From what I've seen and heard, it's all about the idea of being contemporary and in tune with the latest sounds and fads. So, apparently it is indeed true that things are very different in the UK, and probably in other places as well. Increasingly, the stars and idols being emulated on the U.S. shows are still the talentless kids that the media have hyped to the point of brainwashing. It seems to me that as kids here are getting into their late teens and early twenties, many of them begin to realize that there's no substance in pop "music", and they go looking for whatever is seen as cool among their friends (and probably their friends' older brothers)... indie rock, etc. That's fine, and it's nothing new. This has been going on for decades. The problem is, the era of music with some sophistication (melodic, harmonic, rhythmic) is fading so far into the past that most kids are completely unaware of it, let alone seeing it as outdated and unhip. Fortunately for me, my son (although, as I said, doesn't seem to seek out much of anything from the past on his own) seems very receptive thus far to the things I've been showing him (jazz, blues, vintage pop and rock, bossa, etc), and I'm looking forward to the possibility of being able to sit down and play guitar duets with him for many years to come. He has a pretty good ear and some natural talent, so that's a blessing.

Kids very much want to be 'now' and are pretty impatient with my attempts to explain why history matters. But when it comes to music they seem extraordinarily open to their parents' record collections in a way that I wasn't. There was a massive chasm between my parents' musical world and the one I inhabited from about 1969-76.

Well, personal bias is probably unavoidable here, but I wonder, when looking at the "big picture", if some of this can be explained with logic. The more time that passes, the more difficult it gets for me to try to compare my experience and behaviors as a youth with those of my kids. The music recorded in the 1960's is going on 50 years old (if not there already), so I do have some understanding of why 20 year olds are not listening to it. When I was 20 (in 1976), I wasn't listening to music from the 1920's, but then again (and here's where the big picture logic kicks in), what sort of quantity and quality- and variety of popular music existed in the 1920's? I'd say it's pretty clear that the 50's to the 70's really was something of a golden era in terms of quality and quantity.

When I was growing up in the 60's, I was definitely more interested in contemporary music than what was in my parents' collection, but I did listen (voluntarily) to their music, and I did not turn up my nose to good quality "adult" pop of the day. It was all music to me, and I was curious about and open to as much as I could get my ears on. The supply seemed overwhelming and never-ending, whether I was getting it from the radio, or from tv, or from listening to records. My kids just do not have that curiosity, nor do they have the benefit of that much exposure to that quantity of musical common ground. As popular music declined in the late 20th Century, and as music video and video gaming came along, I think a greater percentage of young people gradually began to lose interest (at least as compared to what went on in the 50's, 60's and 70's) in exploring.

Edited September 2, 2011 by Jim R

[A Lark Ascending]

I was chatting to two of my colleagues today - both women in their late 20s. One spent last weekend at the Leeds Festival (a huge UK rock festival), both are very enthusiastic about contemporary rock. Yet the one who went to Leeds is also a huge Dylan and Springsteen fan - goes to see the latter every time he's here. I recall a conversation a while back with the other expressing her admiration for Frank Zappa.

They both think my musical taste is weird! But however foreign the music they prefer seems to me I can tell their interest is deep and genuine. And there are roots there.

As has been said several times, it's hard to generalise. I know lots of other people for whom music is peripheral. They come from all age groups.

[side thought: if there's one area of music where retromania runs rampant it's classical music. There's not just a lionisation of dead composers but of interpretations of those dead composers by dead performers. Watch classical buffs squabbling over which version of Humperdinkers 3rd Piano Concerto is 'finest'. It's usually the OOP mono 78 version recorded in Berlin during an air raid in 1943 ('The performance is so sublime you just don't notice the bombs falling.')

Edited September 2, 2011 by A Lark Ascending

[JSngry]

Increasingly, the stars and idols being emulated on the U.S. shows are still the talentless kids that the media have hyped to the point of brainwashing.

Oh, there's talent there. It's just that the possessors are Tania and Corporate Culture is Cinque and they've been hooking up since birth.

[kenny weir]

Britain, perhaps France and other parts of Europe, too, seem to have some sort of (genetic?) pre-disposition to reverence for the past.

Think about the teddy boy/rockabilly thing, for instance.

Whether it is reverence, respect, plain ol' nostalgia or something else, I know not.

No matter how many tacky TV shows, talentless celebs and kids who don't care about music there may seem to be, and no matter how dominant such may be, seems to me there's there's always things bubbling along that're funky, righteous and adventurous - including checking out years gone by.

[Shawn]

Interesting. I'm not really sure where I fall in this discussion, though I must admit to being "stuck in the past" to a large degree.

I've been listening to music constantly since the mid 70's, really got passionate about it in the 80's. By the time the mid-90's rolled around I was REALLY burnt out on anything pop/rock, so the intense study of jazz began. After spending almost a decade listening to mostly jazz I realized I was getting tired of that as my only musical diet...so I started to both check out newer bands in the pop/rock world and also revisit some of my favorites that I had neglected for a very long time.

Now? Most of the newer music I listen to is very much inspired by the stuff I was listening to in the 70's and 80's, so much so that many of the artists could fool someone into thinking they are listening to a "lost band". Why? Because the musical vocabulary from that era still resonates with me very deeply, I don't want to hear samplers...I want to hear mellotrons and Hammond organs and vintage tube guitar amplifiers. It's the most "real" to me. Thus I tend to gravitate toward musicians that feel the same way as I do.

I've also found that the music I listened to as a "pre-teen" sounds more fresh to me now than the stuff I was playing around my teenage years. Probably because I neglected that music the longest.

[Quincy]

Maybe it is a matter of national variation.

In my experience it's also a matter of individual variation.

Indeed. My 15 year old nephew is into rock guitar gods of the '60s & '70s. But I also know people that age through their 30s who have scarcely listened to The Beatles or anything "classic.". Indie all the way. Just as in our time (whenever that was) there's variation.

[kenny weir]

Indie all the way.

Far as I can tell/hear, this very definitely means they ARE listening to the Beatles. And the Byrds. And the Velvet Underground. And ... well, you know ...

[Shawn]

Indie all the way.

Far as I can tell/hear, this very definitely means they ARE listening to the Beatles. And the Byrds. And the Velvet Underground. And ... well, you know ...

They just don't realize it.

[Hot Ptah]

Indie all the way.

Far as I can tell/hear, this very definitely means they ARE listening to the Beatles. And the Byrds. And the Velvet Underground. And ... well, you know ...

The indie kids I know listen only to today's young artists.

[Quincy]

Indie all the way.

Far as I can tell/hear, this very definitely means they ARE listening to the Beatles. And the Byrds. And the Velvet Underground. And ... well, you know ...

The indie kids I know listen only to today's young artists.

I think what they're getting at is that the young artists were influenced by the bands before and thus the young listeners are hearing it. Perhaps with some, but with there are quite a few indie bands that have questionable taste. Either that or they just can't play. I'll grant over the past couple of years the hairy folky-rock thing is big as the overly earnest Avett Bros., Fleet Foxes have all deeply inhaled CSN (they're skipping the Y) style and at least The Band's beard styles. Laurel Canyon recycling too with Dawes and others.

Apologies for even posting the above, but I'm staring down an OS reinstall countdown (30 min down, 11 to go! Friday night wildness!)

[A Lark Ascending]

Also worth remembering how often older pop music is used in film soundtracks, TV programmes and adverts (think of those adds in the 90s that used blues/depression era imagery to sell jeans and whiskey with John Lee Hooker etc on top - they got me to check out Dr. John, for example). The soundtrack album of a highly successful film, littered with musical snippets, can be very popular.

I'd stress that the interest I regularly see in young people for older music is largely confined to pop/rock. When it comes to classical, jazz etc then there's rarely any connection unless they grow up in homes where that is played or are studying as musicians and come into contact that way. There are quite a few swing bands in the UK educational system - a very good one operating out of Derby.

I've just been reminded of another acquaintance. Mid-20s, sings solo and in bands on a local level, fully immersed in the contemporary scene, is obsessed with Van Morrison.

Edited September 3, 2011 by A Lark Ascending

[A Lark Ascending]

'Retro' could also be simply a packaging concept.

Send a group of not particularly well known jazz musicians on a tour as the John Smith Sextet and it'll be hard to get people to take notice. Send them out as a 'A Tribute to...' and suddenly there's something for an audience to catch onto. I notice a lot of these on the main UK jazz circuit at present. Miles, Monk, Mingus or whatever themed performances/discs. You could even suggest the San Francisco Jazz Collective has taken this route - a theme around a past great with original music within that mix.

I'm not knocking the music - in the best hands the music is re-imagined if only in the soloing. Alan Barnes has virtually made a career out of Ellington, Mulligan, Goodman, Silver etc reconstructions and is a delight to listen too.

But it seems that to get music out there to a broader audience, it often needs something familiar to hang on.

Oh! Look what is about to hit the news stands in the UK:

Now if that isn't retro...

Edited September 3, 2011 by A Lark Ascending

[Jazzjet]

Also worth remembering how often older pop music is used in film soundtracks, TV programmes and adverts (think of those adds in the 90s that used blues/depression era imagery to sell jeans and whiskey with John Lee Hooker etc on top - they got me to check out Dr. John, for example). The soundtrack album of a highly successful film, littered with musical snippets, can be very popular.

I'd stress that the interest I regularly see in young people for older music is largely confined to pop/rock. When it comes to classical, jazz etc then there's rarely any connection unless they grow up in homes where that is played or are studying as musicians and come into contact that way. There are quite a few swing bands in the UK educational system - a very good one operating out of Derby.

I've just been reminded of another acquaintance. Mid-20s, sings solo and in bands on a local level, fully immersed in the contemporary scene, is obsessed with Van Morrison.

Apart from the seemingly bottomless access to music from the past - I only had my Dad's Spike Jones and Charlie Barnet 78s plus Two Way Family Favourites - I suggest that young people today are far more open to past music than we were. For me, at least, it was almost a rite of passage to challenge my parents' somewhat conventional music tastes because the new music coming through was so totally different. The post-war period musically was dominated by the coming of rock and roll and the birth of the teenager. For today's youth there is a clear pathway from, say 60s music, to the music of modern bands. This was not the case for baby boomers.

[BillF]

'Retro' could also be simply a packaging concept.

Send a group of not particularly well known jazz musicians on a tour as the John Smith Sextet and it'll be hard to get people to take notice. Send them out as a 'A Tribute to...' and suddenly there's something for an audience to catch onto. I notice a lot of these on the main UK jazz circuit at present. Miles, Monk, Mingus or whatever themed performances/discs. You could even suggest the San Francisco Jazz Collective has taken this route - a theme around a past great with original music within that mix.

I'm not knocking the music - in the best hands the music is re-imagined if only in the soloing. Alan Barnes has virtually made a career out of Ellington, Mulligan, Goodman, Silver etc reconstructions and is a delight to listen too.

But it seems that to get music out there to a broader audience, it often needs something familiar to hang on.

Oh! Look what is about to hit the news stands in the UK:

Now if that isn't retro...

I think that expressing themselves in the music of the past is now a natural thing for many jazz musicians - it's not just a marketing ploy. This applies both here and in the US: Alan Barnes and Mark Nightingale on this side; Eric Alexander and the Small's guys on the other. A very relevant factor is that the music of the past was instilled into these musicians in their youth in university or college jazz courses or in youth jazz orchestras. This hadn't happened to musicians who were big names 60 years ago.

[A Lark Ascending]

I think that expressing themselves in the music of the past is now a natural thing for many jazz musicians - it's not just a marketing ploy.

Oh, I'm not suggesting these musicians are choosing the style of music for commercial reasons; the love is clearly genuine.

Just that often the way it's assembled has a clear marketing angle. Which is understandable - like anyone else making a living you have to get your wares noticed.

What seems to have changed in the last 30-40 years, however - and I think this is where Reynolds is coming from - is that it used to be easier to market things as new and breaking with the past. Whether the music of the 60s/early 70s really was iconoclastic or not all the time, the idea of breaking new ground was one of a number of marketable concepts at that time.

It still has a hold on niche listeners but I don't see that desire to tear it up as being anywhere near as attractive an ideal as it was once.

But I'm sure it will return. Its too exciting an idea to be abandoned in favour of constant recycling or re-assembly of past styles.

[A Lark Ascending]

Apart from the seemingly bottomless access to music from the past - I only had my Dad's Spike Jones and Charlie Barnet 78s plus Two Way Family Favourites - I suggest that young people today are far more open to past music than we were. For me, at least, it was almost a rite of passage to challenge my parents' somewhat conventional music tastes because the new music coming through was so totally different. The post-war period musically was dominated by the coming of rock and roll and the birth of the teenager. For today's youth there is a clear pathway from, say 60s music, to the music of modern bands. This was not the case for baby boomers.

The biggest gulf I noticed in the UK was response to black music.

My parents constantly grimaced at soul/gospel-like singing. Whereas growing up during the 60s it was part of my aural landscape either via the top twenty or filtered through blues based rock groups.

Whatever differences there might be between contemporary pop/rock and the record collections of older people, I don't think there is anything like that cultural divide. We've all grown up with the background of black music. With my parents generation (born in the 20s, before widespread immigration) the jazz, rhythm'n blues or blues enthusiasts were few and far between.

Edited September 3, 2011 by A Lark Ascending

[BillF]

I think that expressing themselves in the music of the past is now a natural thing for many jazz musicians - it's not just a marketing ploy.

Oh, I'm not suggesting these musicians are choosing the style of music for commercial reasons; the love is clearly genuine.

Just that often the way it's assembled has a clear marketing angle. Which is understandable - like anyone else making a living you have to get your wares noticed.

What seems to have changed in the last 30-40 years, however - and I think this is where Reynolds is coming from - is that it used to be easier to market things as new and breaking with the past. Whether the music of the 60s/early 70s really was iconoclastic or not all the time, the idea of breaking new ground was one of a number of marketable concepts at that time.

It still has a hold on niche listeners but I don't see that desire to tear it up as being anywhere near as attractive an ideal as it was once.

This is a general feature of the arts in our times and is characteristic of the move from modernism to postmodernism. Where jazz is concerned, I recall reading a very meaningful chapter on this in Alyn Shipton's New History of Jazz.

Edited September 3, 2011 by BillF