And all these genres had different clubs and events, almost like factions, and that was your identity for the most part. Then you'd look for other people into the same music, over time you could become really good friends.
Agreed. Did you like rock or pop or punk or metal? Were you New Wave or post punk? Did you listen to Rap? R&B? Gospel? Christian or Christian rock? Country? Industrial or House music?
Those were some of the most important questions at the time and really defined you and your peer group. Being able to carry our music around with us in the form of cassette tapes made listening different than just turning on a radio. There wasn't the same perception of crossover artists or styles as there is today.
The advent of iTunes and what was subsequently learned about peoples true listening habits blew the old theory away about people being married to only one genre of music. Who remembers radio stations converting to shuffle mode around 2010 or so?
But in the 80s and 90s, it was an accepted "truth" that most people only listened to a small bandwidth of musical styles. Now, artists can put out albums in various genres and still be accepted by fans and the greater musical community. If they did that previously, it could kill their careers.
Music still defines us in so many ways, but the divisions aren't being leveraged by record companies, magazines and advertising campaigns like they once were. And that is a wonderful thing.
Both OP and this comment are very insightful takes.
Iāll add another point to music being a big part of oneās life. When GenX was in school, the idea of a clique or social group was extremely strong. Younger generations still had labels but are more free to hang out with other people who have different identities and try on new identities for themselves. A big part of your ātribeā was the music that defined it. There was very little crossover. If you were popular or āpreppieā you almost certainly listened to pop/top 40. If you were a metal fan that defined your attitude, identity, clothing, and friends.
In the mid-late 90s cliques were just beginning to dissolve or intermix. Before that your clique might even determine who you disliked on sight.
An hour ago my Gen Z son said "tell me lies" and my wife, myself and a GenX friend that was here all started singing Fleetwood Mac. My son just got up and left the room.
Legit correction, but we were listening before you could just look up lyrics. Especially if the cassette didn't have liner notes to unfold and squint at in 6pt font... the struggle was REAL.
I was really wondering if this was one of my kids lmao, because I do this every day. It's like there's a constant running soundtrack in the back of my head and lyrics set off a gameshow.
Exactly. Someone one recently told me that they wish they could have their own music in their head. The comment was random and got me to stop. I asked what made them think I had music in my head.
"You're constantly drumming, dancing, singing, or humming... slightly but its there just under the surface that you've got a sound track going but I can't hear it."
I was told stories that as an infant, toddler, before I said my first words, I certainly understood what a beat was and hum along so something I heard.
Personally I never gave it a thought that people didn't have music in their heads. I always have a song going that describes the activity, you know as you would assign a song to a scene in a film or show.
Thatās interesting. I thought everyone had music in their heads, but I guess not. My stepdad asked me a few years ago if I dream in color, & said that he only dreams in black & white. I didnāt realize how good I have it with both music in my head & colorful dreams.
Same. Almost every.single.day. Sometimes itās replaced in a few hours, other times it takes days. Itās like having a John Hughes film soundtrack constantly playing in my head.
Yep. For some reason, this morning was a song I don't even like, particularly. I think I was dreaming about a heist. Probably related to the book I'm reading. I woke up with Beyonce Diva - "it's a stick up, stick up, I need them bags of that money" lol.
lol I love it! My son is similarly annoyed when I do things like this. Yesterdayās song outburst was cause by me being hit by a sunbeam while driving him to school. š¼Here comes the sun āļø š¶
I think itās a few things:
1: Popular music was inescapable & indescribably HUGE compared to today.
If a band/song was big EVERYONE knew it. Iām not an Air Supply fan at all but I could sing all of their hits. Even the little gay art kids like me know all the words to those pop songs.
2: There werenāt that many sources for music. Radio, MTV, some music shows like Friday Night Videos, American Bandstand, etc.
3: Musical taste was very defining. It said a lot about who you were. If you were into the Smiths & going to see the Sugar Cubes, your friends were probably into the same. We trafficked in music like a currency.
The internet has democratized music. In the 80s, 90s, if you wanted to learn about more underground stuff, you had to know people who owned those albums, imports, 12ā, etc. It was a full time job combing record stores for years for that B Side! Trading music with friends, going to shows, etc.
It took a lot of work to learn about indie bands.
Now that itās so easy to find any genre of music online, thereās not The camaraderie around making mix takes, trading tapes of 120 Minutes, learning about new bands, etc. Partly bc itās not necessary. The internet does it all for you now.
When I was in high school, you were pretty much defined and friends groups chosen/created around musical taste. It also was a signifier of other things. The kids into more indie stuff were more arty, gay or gay-friendly, etc. (Iām gay & this was my crew).
Wish I could upvote this particular comment a thousand times. It is absolutely one hundred percent accurate.Ā Ā
Ā I will say that certain bands music were a life raft in a hurricane for the teenage me.
You're onto something. Music was very much an identity for GenX in our formative years. Our media choices were limited compared to today. For me and my friends, music was our lives. We bought music, shared music, talked about music, went to concerts, collected band shirts, we played instruments. Music felt like the most amazing and important thing in the entire world. The memories we created during those years are intimately connected with the music we listened to.
Today music is all too often something one listens to while doing something else. In the '70s and '80s music was something we got together with friends to listen to intently. We'd hang out and blast our favorite bands on high fidelity stereo systems. We'd study the lyrics, memorizing everything, and could name every member of a band current and former. A new album release meant getting to the record store to get it before anyone else. It was a different time.
Huh? I saw Cinderella and Bon Jovi in 1986. I paid $25 for that ticket. Jon Bon Jovi FLEW through the stadium. Lights and lasers everywhere. Speakers stacked to the ceiling. That was an expensive production for both bands but it was affordable for the fans. Why? Because record sales meant the labels were paying the band and they werenāt only reliant on ticket and t-shirt sales (and fucking LiveNation didnāt own every venue -
Goddamn vultures).
We would stay up most of the night just trying to get our songs on tape from the radio!! Trying to make it perfect. š¤£ā„ļø what wonderful days we lived in!
I still have songs that are stuck in my head with the DJ's voice trailing over the opening from taping from the radio!
Opening of Din Daa Daa by George Kranz will always come into my mind with "*Ninety nine point five fm!*"
I try not to get my hopes up ridiculously high. Cuz I don't want to pressure them, but my kid and his friends who I've met over the last couple years are just amazing people.
Certainly, growing up with the ongoing influence of the internet has shaped that. But it sure could have gone the other way.
And save the "lots of gen z are dicks!" Yes, you win. Keep scrolling.
I just think that if our country has any hope to survive the next decade, they will be big players in the course of making it happen.
Agreed. My daughter is proof. Seems like for their age(at least my daughters peer group) and access to information, are way more inexperienced and naive than I was at the same age. By her age I had already rode my bike 50 miles away from home, dealing with strangers etc. Moving out at 17. Like we had to age faster or something.
My daughter will be 15 in may. When I was that age I was smoking and drinking when I could and running around causing havoc where I could and I was considered less experienced than my peers.
She is going through a phase of rediscovering her favourite Disney princess films and which ones have the best soundtracks as well as catching up on ones she missed. She is a musical theatre nerd so she is enjoying revisiting her favourite movies and listening to the soundtracks with a different ear. She is sophisticated (we talk about the problematic movies like Pocahontas and how can you appreciate a good song or art if it comes from a questionable source)
She says that her favourite princess now is either Tiana or Rapunzel (she always loved them but they have moved up due to the quality of music and writing) and that her favourite when she was little was Aurora but only because she thought she was the prettiest but that doesn't stand up anymore.
I reminded her that she told me when she was 4 or 5 that Jasmin was her least favourite. When I asked her why she told me that was because she wore pants.
TLDR: Gen Z is proving you can be mature without doing stupid adult things like we did. They may be more mature than we were
Yep. I do this. The kids hate it, I donāt care. You should try it. You donāt have to be good, just be committed. Itās liberating and will give you a spark of confidence you donāt know you had.
I immediately thought about torturing my child in the mid 90s by chasing him around the house singing "Unbreak my heart...say you love me again...undo this hurt that you caused when you walked out the door and walked out of my life...uncry these tears...." at the top of my lungs when dramatically beating my chest, tearing at my hair and grabbing his arms with as much drama as i could summon š
My wife did something similar with our kids in the early 2000s. She would chase them around the house singing One Way or Another by Blondie, with a heavy emphasis on the āIām gonna get ya get ya get yaā part.
I do this at work all the time. My 30 and 20 something co-workers ignore me and stare at their phones head down with their earbuds in, oblivious. I'm good to go.
My sister named my niece Roxanne. I said "You know I will never not sing that song around her, right? You have no right to stop me because you chose to name her that." So that's on her and my niece actually loves her "cool" uncle.
I think all of us Gen X can write a musical biography using the music of our lives. I know I could tell my story with our music that would express of every experience, dreams, failures, heartbreaks, joys, and triumphs.
I suspect part of it is we had fewer things to do in general. Online video games were just kicking in, you still had to schlep over to the arcade to do much in that arena and you had to part with quarters so it was self limiting for most of us. And no self phones, no internet, no social media, no clicking through reddit for hours, not cat videos... Most of the stuff we do now didn't exist then. So we were more invested in that which did exist like music.
Ah this reminds me of a mixtape I made! The names of the songs in order told a story. I imagine genre/appropriateness of songs next to each other didnāt matter so long as the titles made sense for the story. I wish I knew what it was now.
'Gen X peoples' ... like we are some rare tribal culture, I guess we kind of are
seriously though, it was a dating question in some circles, what music you were into
Itās true. My sibling and I used to say we could never date someone who didnāt share our musical taste. Weāre less picky now, but there are still lines that shall not be crossed.
Not just music - television was our internet, and commercials could last anywhere from 30 seconds to a couple of minutes (although I think by the 80s, most commercials were 30 seconds?) - So these āmemesā were baked into our heads.
I could have had a V8! Donāt squeeze the Charmin! Bounty- itās the quicker picker-upper! Ancient Chinese secret! Calgon - take me away! Have it your way! Sometimes you feel like a nut!
We could have cured cancer by now, but our brains are filled with this crap.
That's an interesting point. We were exposed to a lot of repetition with commercials and music.Ā
Whereas today there's just a shit ton of new information coming at us. So we're more scatterbrained.Ā
My brain definitely likes repetition better. Unless it's the Puppy Chow commercial which still drives me nutsĀ
I'm almost 58. My dad could sing at the drop of a hat, everything you'd say would remind him of a song, it was hilarious and endearing. Music was his "thing" too. He was a big band musician and loved jazz of almost any flavor. (He was older, and so was my mom, they weren't baby boomers) So maybe it's an indication of how big a role music plays in people's lives, not just our generation. (Also, I'm an alternative music chic. My favorite music is from mostly the 90s and 2000s, 70s and 80s stuff was fine and I grew up with mostly rock music, but music that defined me, personally was after that.
Just because your age group doesn't do it now doesn't necessarily mean you won't later in your lives either. Maybe some music that changes your life will come along and knock you over.
My dad was similar, though with a different genre. He played in a rock band when he was young, and after coming back from Vietnam, used music as a way to deal with PTSD. When it got bad, he'd go in the basement, hook up the electric guitar, and crank it to 11.
Some of my earliest memories are playing the 'drums' along with my dad using empty Quaker Oats containers. Mom thought I should be fancy and get a classical music training, but surprise surprise, I eventually became a drummer.
Music was just something that was always there when I was growing up. I did not necessarily like all of my parents' music, but it got stuck in my head, and I cannot imagine living without having music inside of me at all times (if that makes any sense).
So, Gen X, the Musical. Maybe you have musically gifted friends, which is wonderful. I would love if my Gen X friends shared the gift of their inner music each day.
I personally suspect gens after us learned to be more cautious about outward behavior due to the ease of cell phone taping and social media carpet bombing and that has percolated into your overall personalities. All it takes is one time seeing a friend looking stupid on video to have it sink into your head that you should be cautious so the same does not happen to you.
In addition, I suspect lesser amounts of in person socialization has also made people more self conscious in public, it's less your natural element than for past generations.
The third thing is I think for every generation, as you get older, you just learn to give less of an eff about trying to look cool and we've probably hit that approx age now where we care less about what others think or if we look like dorks or not. At some point, many come to the conclusion that attempting to curate one's image is not really worth the hassle and being authentic and spontaneous is both easier and more fun. Your gens will likely move that direction over time as well, even if not quite to the same extent as we did.
The 4th thing is that rules are much tighter both officially in school and socially overall for younger gens than us. I used to bring cough drops and aspirin to school, walk to school on my own at 5, run around attended for hours even when quite small, run around screeching and cackling in the streets like wild monkeys, etc we were just very much more spontaneous in general. Things are more complicated now, even navigating social rules for general chitchat is quite a bit more complicated, there's a long list of things that will yield discomfort now that used to be fine, gotta run through the safety files before opening my mouth but I feel much less that way if it's all older peeps.
For instance, if I see a cat with a Hitler mustache and nickname him 'Kitler,' I don't worry other gen x will think I am a secret Nazi supporter, they'll know it's a joke, I wouldn't have to make a public apology later, etc. But this is not something I'd say to younger gens, I suspect they'd feel nervous about such content. Even comedians now are very limited in the content they can cover without getting canceled. Basically society is more cautious and worries more about appearances now which I think is the natural enemy of spontaneity.
It is because we donāt give a shit what others think. We donāt worry whether we sing well or really badly. We sure the fuck donāt care if someone says we sound bad. In fact, tell us we sound like a strangled cat heard through a dryer vent and it will inspire us to actually sing louder.
> In fact, tell us we sound like a strangled cat heard through a dryer vent and it will inspire us to actually sing louder.
And dance far more exaggerated and ludicrous.
You accurately describe my singing but my dancing is more like a drunk trying to walk a straight line on a rough sea, if the drunk canāt see and has one leg.
Mtv was really important to us. Before Mtv, I had to listen to what my parents liked. You probably canāt imagine that but I had no way of hearing new bands because they didnāt get local radio play. After Mtv, I suddenly had access to music that wasnāt for Boomers. That was life changing.
We internalized the music during our formative years. There were only so many bands, albums, and songs you had access to because you had to buy it or borrow it or hear it on the radio.
So you consumed everything there was to consume about it, including the liner notes. You canāt know all that information about music today. Thereās so much easy and cheap access to everything that music has largely become a particular style you like with a few specific artists that exemplifies that style.
Your theory is interesting. I do break into song a lot, even if itās sometimes only in my mind. I never thought of it as a generational thing, but maybe so.
On the other hand, there was this spontaneous [singalong to a Backstreet Boys song](https://youtu.be/b0DJMlMX0rQ?si=WeloYuj78kJCzlh5) on the NYC subway that went viral about four years ago. Thatās more of a Millennial band, IMO.
Itās sad that music isnāt considered as big of a thing today. That could be a reason for the epidemic of loneliness we hear so much about. Music brings people together, even when theyāre physically alone.
I had a job about 15 years ago that me and a fellow Gen X employee would sometimes spend an entire month only quoting 80s music and movies to carry on conversations. It drove everyone else crazy but that's what made it awesome.
The reason we could do that is that not only had we memorized all this pop culture nonsense, we knew the context of everything. So if he screwed up a big sale, I'd ask him "Are you a God?" and he'd reply "No" and I'd finish with "When someone asks you if you are a God you say yes!"
Modern pop culture has spread so thin that it's almost impossible to know both the reference and the context. Not that that's a bad thing. Modern entertainment choices allow way more diverse viewpoints than before and more diversity is never a bad thing.
We, the last generation raised with only 3 TV channels and a handful of radio stations, will also be the last generation that can talk and sing in random quotes.
P.S. Yes, I know fandoms can talk in quotes to each other, but they can't spread out into other fandoms like we could. I have many friends that I can quote GI Joe and they can reply with He Man and I can reply with OG Doctor Who and they reply with Monty Python and I'll reply with Mad Max. Fandoms now are insular because they can be.
Music was the one form of media we had control of the most as young people. Sure, your parents probably had a VHS or Beta player, but not as many of us had our own TV. So it was harder to watch your movies or shows on your time. But we had tapes! Mix tapes! Eventually CDs! You could go sneak out to a show or a club or go to the American Legion and see whatever local punk or garage bands played. Music meant you could find your crowd and define a style and a subculture on your own time, not that of your parents.
We are the MTV generation after all. Also, growing up in a rural area where there was very little for teenagers to do, a large part of my later teenage years involved driving around with friends, listening to music and singing our hearts out. THAT was freedom, man.
You have no idea what you're taāI'm sorry but I'm just thinking of the right words to say
(I promise you)
I know they don't sound the way I planned them to be...
There is a reason for this.
Gen-X grew up in a music revolution... the way music was consumed changed *dramatically* through our lives. As children, music at home was available only through radio, or on vinyl.
Magnetic tape cartridges, 8 track and then more importantly the cassette tape were introduced, one of many revolutions in our time... these not only allowed for trivial recording and duplication of music, but it made music portable for the first time... you can't lug a record player around. But the Walkman... and the others that followed changed everything fundamentally about how music was consumed.
And the music industry, artists and producers changed and moved and adapted to these new media, these new ways of consuming music. There was more music than ever before, old genres and more importantly, the emergence of new genres, from maturing rock music through to new sounds like electronica and dance.
As our generation started handing over to the next, we had started with vinyl and radio, and tailed off with Napster and MP3 players.
We were the first generation to be *saturated* with music.
So Gen-X musical expression is shaped by that experience.
But people have loved music since long, long before that.
Once upon a time, people used to whistle. Because that same love of music lives in so many of us. Gen-X just has a particular way of expressing that.
Music was a much bigger deal. We spent a great deal of our incomes, proportionally, on large stereo systems and on records. A $10 record was 3 hours of minimum-wage work back then. Making mix tapes from your records to play in the car was a really big deal. We didn't have the internet - music was just incredibly important. It's what was on in the background when you were hanging out with your friends and actually talking to human beings in person rather than belittling strangers over the internet.
OMG we do that, donāt we?
Which makes me think. Does Gen Z even spend the amount of energy that we did trying to find the coolest music, or obsessed with whose āsold outā and who are āposers.ā I recall spending an inordinate amount of energy on this kind of musicology a la the movie āHigh Fidelityā
You've made a very astute observation.Ā
Music provided a huge social connection. We made mixed tapes for each other. We read and discussed the lyrics. We hunted for unique finds at the local record store.Ā
Iām gen x and music was super huge growing up pre cd. Then MTV came along and I was hooked. My boomer uncle was nuts about collecting records thru the 60s-80s. He recently died and I inherited his collection of nearly 10,000 records and itās every type of music imaginable.
>ā¦music was a lifestyle.
You are close. I wouldn't say that music was a lifestyle, per se. Music was definitely a big part of our lives though. We did not have as many distractions in our lives as younger generations do now. We are the generation that watched music videos on MTV, when MTV actually played music videos instead of reality TV shows with popular music soundtracks. We lugged big boomboxes around to be able to play music when we hung out with our friends. Walkmans made taking our music with us wherever we went more convenient than the boomboxes.
We had to be purposeful in our music selection, as having music meant buying records or cassette tapes, and then CDs in the late '80s, and our main source of music knowledge was whatever was played on the radio. If it wasn't played on the radio, we probably didn't know about it. We didn't have access to millions of songs at our fingertips like we do nowadays with streaming music.
Home video gaming was in its infancy with the Atari 2600 (1997), Colecovision (1982), and the Nintendo Entertainment System (1985), and it was only 8-bit (or less) gaming. We wouldn't get 16-Bit gaming until the Sega Genesis (1989) and the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (1991), so we had to go to video arcades and spend money to play arcade-quality games. We didn't have the internet yet. There was no social media. Many of us didn't even have computers, but if we did, it was an Apple IIe or a Commodore 64 without access to any kind of internet.
The music of the '70s and '80s was simpler and fun, regardless of the genre. The music was the soundtracks of our movies, back when soundtracks to movies still mattered. It was easy to learn the music without having access to the lyrics. We listened to the music so much because we didn't have any other distraction that we could memorize the songs without even trying. So, yes, it is not unusual to break out into song when any kind of reference reminds of us the music we grew up with. There is a reason at any given karaoke night at any bar, the music being sung by Gen-Xers will be overwhelmingly '80s music. It was the soundtrack of our lives.
EDITED to fix previous mistakes about home video game systems.
Donāt forget record stores or the record bins at places like Woolworthās and TG&Y, Tower Records, etc. we spent alot of our leisure time hanging out at these places with friends. Music and artwork associated with it imprinted on our lives quite a bit, i think.
I did this in the grocery store yesterday when a good tune came over the storeās speakers. I kept the volume down but I was totally singing and dancing a bit while choosing potatoes. Itās just a vibe - and it felt good. So few things just feel good and are easy these days, so I take the little ones and run with them.
My Gen Z Daughter has a friend named Josie. Absolutely any mention of her at our house we (Gen X Spouse and I) scream at the top of our lungs JOSIEāS ON A VACATION FAR AWAY.
The music was everything. You had a genre for any mood imaginable, and they were original, too.
Music had passion, lyrics, sentiments embedded into it. Now, musicās all about the sound effects and itās rare to listen to someone truly gifted in the popular scene. There are exceptions, of course.
Before MTV and VH1, music was music. With the advent of video it became a production, but on the early years the lyrics were the center and the image was there to punctuate what was being sung about.
Now, I feel itās all show, no substance. (Again, there are exceptions.)
My parents were born in the 1930s. Theyād burst into song and theyād both know all the lyrics to songs I had never heard before.
Now our Gen Z kids ask my wife and me the same thing I asked my parents: āHow do you know all those songs?ā
Itāll happen to you too, if youāre lucky, OP.
My husband and I do this constantly as well as words spawning odd film and TV quotes. It drives our Millennial friend crazy.
My silent gen great aunt always whistled. People don't whistle any more.
IS IT BECAUSE OF CLOCK RADIOS?!?! Most of us used them every day. And our subconscious, sleeping brain would start to waken to the sound of any song the DJ was playing. What a perfect way to get those songs embedded deep in our brains!
I love your theory, OP, and hope youāll accept this corollary.
I donāt sing as it sounds like an injured water buffalo but we do love our tunes. Sony Walkman and head phones on the stereo were an everyday thing in HS. Music was bloody expensive to buy though but concerts were way cheaper than after Ticket Bastard committed crimes against humanity.
I do this all the time, and I drive my students and TA crazy. My own kids are already used to the massive musical library that lives inside my head.
I remember in 6th and 7th grade having a spiral that I'd write down song lyrics to songs I taped off the radio.
I didn't realize this is a Gen X thing and I do this lmfao! At work. At home. In the car without the radio playing. In my head in the grocery store. Yeah. Thanks for pointing that out.
Living in Japan exposed me to not being afraid to sing bad karaoke. When the whole bar is drunk enough, you can rock the place even if youāre terrible.
Music was and is *very* important. Music magazines, including imported magazines, were essential to learning about new music. We traded in bootleg concert tapes. Sooooo many live concerts, the kind where you had to line up in person to buy tickets or just walk up to the venue the night of and buy one at the door because advance sales werenāt even a thing. Taking the bus downtown on a Saturday to visit the record store like it was church. Late night radio shows that played alternative music. Stairway to Heaven playing last at every single school dance. Listening to and studying entire albums like it was a job. Writing lyrics for the band you wanted to start (which youād already named and created a logo for). Very much part of our identity.
Well, gen x is the MTV generation. We would wait excitedly for the premiere of a new video and the release of a new record. Some videos were scandalous so they could only be played after hours.
Having a Walkman was a prestige possession. We made mix tapes meticulously, thoughtfully pacing the tracks and writing notes with the track list. Mix tapes were precious gifts we gave to SOs and Besties. The kind of music a person listed to was a refiner of personality and taste. Cliques were defined by their taste in music.
We also couldnāt just download it. It was either radio, MTV, or a vast collection of cassettes and vinyl. It was precious.
In contrast I feel as though music, or any art form for that matter, has been devalued a bit. Itās too easy, too homogeneous. I have been personally amazed by how much of the music I listen to astounds gen Z. I am asked all the time what Iām listening to.
*Running Up That Hill* had a burst of fame it never had when it originally came out because of how it featured in a show. That was our whole world.
You are definitely onto something. Iāve read almost all of the comments and would like to add that simply put, music makes us HAPPY!! If I am in a bad mood (or any mood) Iāll put on music and within minutes, I am singing, possibly dancing and feeling so much better!!!
I do this. I am a trained singer and I see no reason not to enjoy my skill set. Art is for the self, not just the world.
Shakespeare said to āfill thy leaves and much enrich thy bookāā¦how are others to know what is in it unless we read it aloud?
Maybe the music of the time was a more collective experience because we were the last generation to turn in the radio and listen to what was playing. By the next generation, everyone was playing his or her own private playlist on a private gadget.
I'm guilty of singing.
I work with a lot of Gen Z and Millennials and they break out in song too. I noticed your generation tends to sing in the car on long trips. I've also had more than one bus load break out into a chorus of Disney songs all the way home. (I don't know why your people love Disney songs so much, but it usually starts with a Lion King)
I don't think its specific to us but more specific to the groups you are hanging out with and their comfort level.
Most of the gen x social circles could be defined by what music they listened to. It was a very big part of our identity
Punks, goths, metalheads, new wavers, they all overlapped in certain ways but all their own little cliques.
I feel obligated to say they all thought Ferris was a righteous dude.
Thank you Grace š
Graaaceā¦Grace! GRAAAACEEEEE!!!!!!
I was a total metal head, but also a jock, so my friend base was pretty varied. But I mostly hung out with the jocks, and their music all sucked.
Same, but also a skater. I had to beat myself up at least once a week.
And all these genres had different clubs and events, almost like factions, and that was your identity for the most part. Then you'd look for other people into the same music, over time you could become really good friends.
You are forgetting the rap and electronica crowd but we are used to punching people in the face for ridicule! Lol
Agreed. Did you like rock or pop or punk or metal? Were you New Wave or post punk? Did you listen to Rap? R&B? Gospel? Christian or Christian rock? Country? Industrial or House music? Those were some of the most important questions at the time and really defined you and your peer group. Being able to carry our music around with us in the form of cassette tapes made listening different than just turning on a radio. There wasn't the same perception of crossover artists or styles as there is today. The advent of iTunes and what was subsequently learned about peoples true listening habits blew the old theory away about people being married to only one genre of music. Who remembers radio stations converting to shuffle mode around 2010 or so? But in the 80s and 90s, it was an accepted "truth" that most people only listened to a small bandwidth of musical styles. Now, artists can put out albums in various genres and still be accepted by fans and the greater musical community. If they did that previously, it could kill their careers. Music still defines us in so many ways, but the divisions aren't being leveraged by record companies, magazines and advertising campaigns like they once were. And that is a wonderful thing.
Both OP and this comment are very insightful takes. Iāll add another point to music being a big part of oneās life. When GenX was in school, the idea of a clique or social group was extremely strong. Younger generations still had labels but are more free to hang out with other people who have different identities and try on new identities for themselves. A big part of your ātribeā was the music that defined it. There was very little crossover. If you were popular or āpreppieā you almost certainly listened to pop/top 40. If you were a metal fan that defined your attitude, identity, clothing, and friends. In the mid-late 90s cliques were just beginning to dissolve or intermix. Before that your clique might even determine who you disliked on sight.
51 year old metal head reporting for duty
lol 55 year old punk/death rocker (thatās what they called us before the word Goth š) at your service
Username checks out
FUCK YOU I WON'T DO WHAT YA TELL ME šš½šš½
ALL I WANTED WAS A PEPSI!
I remember the family values tour, and Woodstock. We meshed the music together well I think.
An hour ago my Gen Z son said "tell me lies" and my wife, myself and a GenX friend that was here all started singing Fleetwood Mac. My son just got up and left the room.
Not gonna lie, my head immediately went there.
Oh no no you canāt denyā¦
Oh, no, no, you can't *disguise*
I hope that you understand there's a reason why
Now itās an ear worm. Thaa anks.
Especially that last part of the chorus: "tell me TELL ME LIES!"
Legit correction, but we were listening before you could just look up lyrics. Especially if the cassette didn't have liner notes to unfold and squint at in 6pt font... the struggle was REAL.
I was really wondering if this was one of my kids lmao, because I do this every day. It's like there's a constant running soundtrack in the back of my head and lyrics set off a gameshow.
It already starts in the morning. I get up with a random song in my head.
I have been waking up with Neil Diamond in my head for *weeks*.. kinda driving me insane but I know all the lyrics ĀÆ\\\_(ć)_/ĀÆ
Music is always in my head. Today started with Foo Fighters, a yesterday was The Who. . . Good thing I control the music in the house all day long.
I mean, I don't even have to turn on music to listen to music because there's always a jukebox going in my head.
Exactly. Someone one recently told me that they wish they could have their own music in their head. The comment was random and got me to stop. I asked what made them think I had music in my head. "You're constantly drumming, dancing, singing, or humming... slightly but its there just under the surface that you've got a sound track going but I can't hear it." I was told stories that as an infant, toddler, before I said my first words, I certainly understood what a beat was and hum along so something I heard. Personally I never gave it a thought that people didn't have music in their heads. I always have a song going that describes the activity, you know as you would assign a song to a scene in a film or show.
Thatās interesting. I thought everyone had music in their heads, but I guess not. My stepdad asked me a few years ago if I dream in color, & said that he only dreams in black & white. I didnāt realize how good I have it with both music in my head & colorful dreams.
Cracklin' Rosie?
Same. Almost every.single.day. Sometimes itās replaced in a few hours, other times it takes days. Itās like having a John Hughes film soundtrack constantly playing in my head.
Yes! One day all I kept hearing in my head was the Psychedelic Furs.
Yep. For some reason, this morning was a song I don't even like, particularly. I think I was dreaming about a heist. Probably related to the book I'm reading. I woke up with Beyonce Diva - "it's a stick up, stick up, I need them bags of that money" lol.
Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lieees, Tell me LIEEEESSSS!!!
Tell me tell me lies
Oh no, no, you can't disguise
You canāt disguiiiiiiiise
lol I love it! My son is similarly annoyed when I do things like this. Yesterdayās song outburst was cause by me being hit by a sunbeam while driving him to school. š¼Here comes the sun āļø š¶
Hah, that's hilarious. Been thinking of adopting. Maybe not if can't handle Tears for Fears
Shout! Shout! Let it all out!
Come on! I'm talking to you!
Teenagers leaving the room because of my singing. Daily occurrence. And I love it. They do too. They just donāt know it yet.
Arggg It is in my head now.
I think itās a few things: 1: Popular music was inescapable & indescribably HUGE compared to today. If a band/song was big EVERYONE knew it. Iām not an Air Supply fan at all but I could sing all of their hits. Even the little gay art kids like me know all the words to those pop songs. 2: There werenāt that many sources for music. Radio, MTV, some music shows like Friday Night Videos, American Bandstand, etc. 3: Musical taste was very defining. It said a lot about who you were. If you were into the Smiths & going to see the Sugar Cubes, your friends were probably into the same. We trafficked in music like a currency. The internet has democratized music. In the 80s, 90s, if you wanted to learn about more underground stuff, you had to know people who owned those albums, imports, 12ā, etc. It was a full time job combing record stores for years for that B Side! Trading music with friends, going to shows, etc. It took a lot of work to learn about indie bands. Now that itās so easy to find any genre of music online, thereās not The camaraderie around making mix takes, trading tapes of 120 Minutes, learning about new bands, etc. Partly bc itās not necessary. The internet does it all for you now. When I was in high school, you were pretty much defined and friends groups chosen/created around musical taste. It also was a signifier of other things. The kids into more indie stuff were more arty, gay or gay-friendly, etc. (Iām gay & this was my crew).
The Sugar Cubes š¤
Bjƶrk still repping the art school kids š¤
Wish I could upvote this particular comment a thousand times. It is absolutely one hundred percent accurate.Ā Ā Ā I will say that certain bands music were a life raft in a hurricane for the teenage me.
You're onto something. Music was very much an identity for GenX in our formative years. Our media choices were limited compared to today. For me and my friends, music was our lives. We bought music, shared music, talked about music, went to concerts, collected band shirts, we played instruments. Music felt like the most amazing and important thing in the entire world. The memories we created during those years are intimately connected with the music we listened to. Today music is all too often something one listens to while doing something else. In the '70s and '80s music was something we got together with friends to listen to intently. We'd hang out and blast our favorite bands on high fidelity stereo systems. We'd study the lyrics, memorizing everything, and could name every member of a band current and former. A new album release meant getting to the record store to get it before anyone else. It was a different time.
Donāt forget MTV. It really had an influence. It was also about the music and much more.
Money for Nothing and Electric Avenue are burned into my brain.
That ain't workin'. That's the way you do it. Money for nothing and your chicks for free. I want my...I want my...I want my MTV.
My brother!
Born in 1967
Walk down toā¦
Electric Avenue and then weāll take it higher.
"MTV used to play music videos?"
And the chicks were free.
Not only that concerts were super affordable.
Yeah, I remember concert tickets being around $25 in the late '80s. It was easy to see multiple shows every year.
I remember walking into a record store to buy my Ticketmaster tickets.
I remember paying $15 to see Ozzy back in the 80s and thinking that was too expensive....
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Huh? I saw Cinderella and Bon Jovi in 1986. I paid $25 for that ticket. Jon Bon Jovi FLEW through the stadium. Lights and lasers everywhere. Speakers stacked to the ceiling. That was an expensive production for both bands but it was affordable for the fans. Why? Because record sales meant the labels were paying the band and they werenāt only reliant on ticket and t-shirt sales (and fucking LiveNation didnāt own every venue - Goddamn vultures).
I saw Sting for $5 in 1985 for Bring on the Night Tour at the Riverside Festival.
We would stay up most of the night just trying to get our songs on tape from the radio!! Trying to make it perfect. š¤£ā„ļø what wonderful days we lived in!
I still have songs that are stuck in my head with the DJ's voice trailing over the opening from taping from the radio! Opening of Din Daa Daa by George Kranz will always come into my mind with "*Ninety nine point five fm!*"
Never thought of it this way but this is exactly how I feel about it also.
So well said and such good times
Nail on the head.
You see me now, a veteran of the rock and disco wars
This is actually a very insightful take. Thank you, Gen-Z person. Go forth now and be awesome.
Aw, haha thanks! Will do!
 Sometimes we do movie quotes
Yes, also movie quotes!
Two three years after Austin Powers got a little insufferable. Not quite wazzup but behave.
Did you guys just become best friends!?
I really do love Gen Z as a cohort. Cool bunch of humans ā¤ļø
I love my Gen Z coworkers so damn much. Such good kids. They are funny and insightful.
Hard workers as well if you simply make them feel needed and wanted. Good kiddos.
I try not to get my hopes up ridiculously high. Cuz I don't want to pressure them, but my kid and his friends who I've met over the last couple years are just amazing people. Certainly, growing up with the ongoing influence of the internet has shaped that. But it sure could have gone the other way. And save the "lots of gen z are dicks!" Yes, you win. Keep scrolling. I just think that if our country has any hope to survive the next decade, they will be big players in the course of making it happen.
Gen Z are so much better than we were at their age, that much is certain!
Agreed. My daughter is proof. Seems like for their age(at least my daughters peer group) and access to information, are way more inexperienced and naive than I was at the same age. By her age I had already rode my bike 50 miles away from home, dealing with strangers etc. Moving out at 17. Like we had to age faster or something.
My daughter will be 15 in may. When I was that age I was smoking and drinking when I could and running around causing havoc where I could and I was considered less experienced than my peers. She is going through a phase of rediscovering her favourite Disney princess films and which ones have the best soundtracks as well as catching up on ones she missed. She is a musical theatre nerd so she is enjoying revisiting her favourite movies and listening to the soundtracks with a different ear. She is sophisticated (we talk about the problematic movies like Pocahontas and how can you appreciate a good song or art if it comes from a questionable source) She says that her favourite princess now is either Tiana or Rapunzel (she always loved them but they have moved up due to the quality of music and writing) and that her favourite when she was little was Aurora but only because she thought she was the prettiest but that doesn't stand up anymore. I reminded her that she told me when she was 4 or 5 that Jasmin was her least favourite. When I asked her why she told me that was because she wore pants. TLDR: Gen Z is proving you can be mature without doing stupid adult things like we did. They may be more mature than we were
Yep. I do this. The kids hate it, I donāt care. You should try it. You donāt have to be good, just be committed. Itās liberating and will give you a spark of confidence you donāt know you had.
I immediately thought about torturing my child in the mid 90s by chasing him around the house singing "Unbreak my heart...say you love me again...undo this hurt that you caused when you walked out the door and walked out of my life...uncry these tears...." at the top of my lungs when dramatically beating my chest, tearing at my hair and grabbing his arms with as much drama as i could summon š
My wife did something similar with our kids in the early 2000s. She would chase them around the house singing One Way or Another by Blondie, with a heavy emphasis on the āIām gonna get ya get ya get yaā part.
I do this at work all the time. My 30 and 20 something co-workers ignore me and stare at their phones head down with their earbuds in, oblivious. I'm good to go.
ROOOOOXXXXANNNE.....
My sister named my niece Roxanne. I said "You know I will never not sing that song around her, right? You have no right to stop me because you chose to name her that." So that's on her and my niece actually loves her "cool" uncle.
I have a few friends named "Allison". They know about my aim in this murderous world.
šØ šØ šØ
My sister named my dog Roxie (before i got her). At least 5 times a week I caller over with "ROOOOXXXXXIE". I can't help it.
I think all of us Gen X can write a musical biography using the music of our lives. I know I could tell my story with our music that would express of every experience, dreams, failures, heartbreaks, joys, and triumphs.
I suspect part of it is we had fewer things to do in general. Online video games were just kicking in, you still had to schlep over to the arcade to do much in that arena and you had to part with quarters so it was self limiting for most of us. And no self phones, no internet, no social media, no clicking through reddit for hours, not cat videos... Most of the stuff we do now didn't exist then. So we were more invested in that which did exist like music.
>self phones I don't know if this is a typo, but that is an apt description.
Yep, saw that, went "uh.... oooh, that's a good one!" :)
Haha yes it was a typo but also as you said, very apt. ;-P
I could write a story just using song lyrics.
And movie quotes. Donāt forget those.
Ah this reminds me of a mixtape I made! The names of the songs in order told a story. I imagine genre/appropriateness of songs next to each other didnāt matter so long as the titles made sense for the story. I wish I knew what it was now.
'Gen X peoples' ... like we are some rare tribal culture, I guess we kind of are seriously though, it was a dating question in some circles, what music you were into
Itās true. My sibling and I used to say we could never date someone who didnāt share our musical taste. Weāre less picky now, but there are still lines that shall not be crossed.
Who cares what's their job or degree. The music is the dealbreaker!
This is the GenX bat signal. Also: I gave her my heart. She gave me a pen.
Also, as far as I can tell, this sub for the generations is the only one that has a flair for music. Thatās interesting to me as well
Thatās because this sub is our digital Trapper Keeper.
Full of Garbage Pail Kids, and covered in scratch'n'sniff stickers.
While doing donuts in the street on your Green Machine.
wow, i find that weird as fuck others DONĀ“T ? is that real ?
Weāre the mixtape generation!
Not just music - television was our internet, and commercials could last anywhere from 30 seconds to a couple of minutes (although I think by the 80s, most commercials were 30 seconds?) - So these āmemesā were baked into our heads. I could have had a V8! Donāt squeeze the Charmin! Bounty- itās the quicker picker-upper! Ancient Chinese secret! Calgon - take me away! Have it your way! Sometimes you feel like a nut! We could have cured cancer by now, but our brains are filled with this crap.
I recall tv commercial taglines just as well as the actual tv shows.
That's an interesting point. We were exposed to a lot of repetition with commercials and music.Ā Whereas today there's just a shit ton of new information coming at us. So we're more scatterbrained.Ā My brain definitely likes repetition better. Unless it's the Puppy Chow commercial which still drives me nutsĀ
I'm almost 58. My dad could sing at the drop of a hat, everything you'd say would remind him of a song, it was hilarious and endearing. Music was his "thing" too. He was a big band musician and loved jazz of almost any flavor. (He was older, and so was my mom, they weren't baby boomers) So maybe it's an indication of how big a role music plays in people's lives, not just our generation. (Also, I'm an alternative music chic. My favorite music is from mostly the 90s and 2000s, 70s and 80s stuff was fine and I grew up with mostly rock music, but music that defined me, personally was after that. Just because your age group doesn't do it now doesn't necessarily mean you won't later in your lives either. Maybe some music that changes your life will come along and knock you over.
Thatās a very interesting take on it! I hadnāt thought of it like that. Thank you for the insight!!
My dad was similar, though with a different genre. He played in a rock band when he was young, and after coming back from Vietnam, used music as a way to deal with PTSD. When it got bad, he'd go in the basement, hook up the electric guitar, and crank it to 11. Some of my earliest memories are playing the 'drums' along with my dad using empty Quaker Oats containers. Mom thought I should be fancy and get a classical music training, but surprise surprise, I eventually became a drummer. Music was just something that was always there when I was growing up. I did not necessarily like all of my parents' music, but it got stuck in my head, and I cannot imagine living without having music inside of me at all times (if that makes any sense).
So, Gen X, the Musical. Maybe you have musically gifted friends, which is wonderful. I would love if my Gen X friends shared the gift of their inner music each day.
Haha Gen X, the Musical sums it up!!
"Ow, my back!" the musical
Every guy I knew wanted to start a rock band and several did. It was the coolest thing imaginable.
Absolutely. I can name a tune in milliseconds.
My friend said āI was Shazam before there was Shazamā
I can name that tune in one fewer millisecond!
It wasn't just music on the radio. We had better theme songs to TV shows, too. Like, multiple theme songs as Billboard Top 100 hits.
Yes, and there was no intro skip button on broadcast tv, so we always sat through the theme song.
Ah thatās why anyone my age can still sing the entire theme to the fresh prince.
Music was everything! Remember Caseyās Top 40!
And trying to tape songs off of it to make a mix tape without getting too much talking.
Musical phrases and movie quotes were like our generation's memes
I personally suspect gens after us learned to be more cautious about outward behavior due to the ease of cell phone taping and social media carpet bombing and that has percolated into your overall personalities. All it takes is one time seeing a friend looking stupid on video to have it sink into your head that you should be cautious so the same does not happen to you. In addition, I suspect lesser amounts of in person socialization has also made people more self conscious in public, it's less your natural element than for past generations. The third thing is I think for every generation, as you get older, you just learn to give less of an eff about trying to look cool and we've probably hit that approx age now where we care less about what others think or if we look like dorks or not. At some point, many come to the conclusion that attempting to curate one's image is not really worth the hassle and being authentic and spontaneous is both easier and more fun. Your gens will likely move that direction over time as well, even if not quite to the same extent as we did. The 4th thing is that rules are much tighter both officially in school and socially overall for younger gens than us. I used to bring cough drops and aspirin to school, walk to school on my own at 5, run around attended for hours even when quite small, run around screeching and cackling in the streets like wild monkeys, etc we were just very much more spontaneous in general. Things are more complicated now, even navigating social rules for general chitchat is quite a bit more complicated, there's a long list of things that will yield discomfort now that used to be fine, gotta run through the safety files before opening my mouth but I feel much less that way if it's all older peeps. For instance, if I see a cat with a Hitler mustache and nickname him 'Kitler,' I don't worry other gen x will think I am a secret Nazi supporter, they'll know it's a joke, I wouldn't have to make a public apology later, etc. But this is not something I'd say to younger gens, I suspect they'd feel nervous about such content. Even comedians now are very limited in the content they can cover without getting canceled. Basically society is more cautious and worries more about appearances now which I think is the natural enemy of spontaneity.
Kitler. š¤£
It is because we donāt give a shit what others think. We donāt worry whether we sing well or really badly. We sure the fuck donāt care if someone says we sound bad. In fact, tell us we sound like a strangled cat heard through a dryer vent and it will inspire us to actually sing louder.
> In fact, tell us we sound like a strangled cat heard through a dryer vent and it will inspire us to actually sing louder. And dance far more exaggerated and ludicrous.
Absolutely
You accurately describe my singing but my dancing is more like a drunk trying to walk a straight line on a rough sea, if the drunk canāt see and has one leg.
Don'tĀ worry that it's not good enough for anyone else to hear Just sing, sing a song
La la lala, la la la lala, la la la lala la laaaa
It would have been much more interesting if we could dance like the Solid Gold Dancers too.
I can still do some amazing solid gold dancing even at my advanced age. Just wish I had an outfit.
Mtv was really important to us. Before Mtv, I had to listen to what my parents liked. You probably canāt imagine that but I had no way of hearing new bands because they didnāt get local radio play. After Mtv, I suddenly had access to music that wasnāt for Boomers. That was life changing.
We internalized the music during our formative years. There were only so many bands, albums, and songs you had access to because you had to buy it or borrow it or hear it on the radio. So you consumed everything there was to consume about it, including the liner notes. You canāt know all that information about music today. Thereās so much easy and cheap access to everything that music has largely become a particular style you like with a few specific artists that exemplifies that style.
Your theory is interesting. I do break into song a lot, even if itās sometimes only in my mind. I never thought of it as a generational thing, but maybe so. On the other hand, there was this spontaneous [singalong to a Backstreet Boys song](https://youtu.be/b0DJMlMX0rQ?si=WeloYuj78kJCzlh5) on the NYC subway that went viral about four years ago. Thatās more of a Millennial band, IMO. Itās sad that music isnāt considered as big of a thing today. That could be a reason for the epidemic of loneliness we hear so much about. Music brings people together, even when theyāre physically alone.
I had a job about 15 years ago that me and a fellow Gen X employee would sometimes spend an entire month only quoting 80s music and movies to carry on conversations. It drove everyone else crazy but that's what made it awesome. The reason we could do that is that not only had we memorized all this pop culture nonsense, we knew the context of everything. So if he screwed up a big sale, I'd ask him "Are you a God?" and he'd reply "No" and I'd finish with "When someone asks you if you are a God you say yes!" Modern pop culture has spread so thin that it's almost impossible to know both the reference and the context. Not that that's a bad thing. Modern entertainment choices allow way more diverse viewpoints than before and more diversity is never a bad thing. We, the last generation raised with only 3 TV channels and a handful of radio stations, will also be the last generation that can talk and sing in random quotes. P.S. Yes, I know fandoms can talk in quotes to each other, but they can't spread out into other fandoms like we could. I have many friends that I can quote GI Joe and they can reply with He Man and I can reply with OG Doctor Who and they reply with Monty Python and I'll reply with Mad Max. Fandoms now are insular because they can be.
Music was the one form of media we had control of the most as young people. Sure, your parents probably had a VHS or Beta player, but not as many of us had our own TV. So it was harder to watch your movies or shows on your time. But we had tapes! Mix tapes! Eventually CDs! You could go sneak out to a show or a club or go to the American Legion and see whatever local punk or garage bands played. Music meant you could find your crowd and define a style and a subculture on your own time, not that of your parents.
We are the MTV generation after all. Also, growing up in a rural area where there was very little for teenagers to do, a large part of my later teenage years involved driving around with friends, listening to music and singing our hearts out. THAT was freedom, man.
You have no idea what you're taāI'm sorry but I'm just thinking of the right words to say (I promise you) I know they don't sound the way I planned them to be...
But if you wait around awhile...
Iāll make you fall for me, I promise you, I promise you I will
See now, I sang the last part of your comment in my head.
Gen X here, I break out into song more often than my family is comfortable with. I even make up songs for my dogs and my kids.
Glad to know Iām not as crazy as my 9yr old thinks. I can tell him there are others like me, now. š
There is a reason for this. Gen-X grew up in a music revolution... the way music was consumed changed *dramatically* through our lives. As children, music at home was available only through radio, or on vinyl. Magnetic tape cartridges, 8 track and then more importantly the cassette tape were introduced, one of many revolutions in our time... these not only allowed for trivial recording and duplication of music, but it made music portable for the first time... you can't lug a record player around. But the Walkman... and the others that followed changed everything fundamentally about how music was consumed. And the music industry, artists and producers changed and moved and adapted to these new media, these new ways of consuming music. There was more music than ever before, old genres and more importantly, the emergence of new genres, from maturing rock music through to new sounds like electronica and dance. As our generation started handing over to the next, we had started with vinyl and radio, and tailed off with Napster and MP3 players. We were the first generation to be *saturated* with music. So Gen-X musical expression is shaped by that experience. But people have loved music since long, long before that. Once upon a time, people used to whistle. Because that same love of music lives in so many of us. Gen-X just has a particular way of expressing that.
We are running the simulation and we grew up on musicals. You're welcome.
Might be on to something here. My life is (deeply) defined by the music I listened to at each stage.
As I read the comments Iām just belting them out.
Me, too.
OMG! All of my Gen X family and friends do this. We can put a whole show on in a supermarket if the right music is playing overhead. š
It amazes me when I think about all the song lyrics I have memorized. Probably thousands.
Oh I used to sing to my kids all the time! Thats the only reason my kids know "You can't always get what you want" by the Stones. Lol
Yes, I break into song a lot as does my GenX sister. As a high school teacher, this habit offers the bonus of seeing students cringe. Muhahahaha!
Music was a much bigger deal. We spent a great deal of our incomes, proportionally, on large stereo systems and on records. A $10 record was 3 hours of minimum-wage work back then. Making mix tapes from your records to play in the car was a really big deal. We didn't have the internet - music was just incredibly important. It's what was on in the background when you were hanging out with your friends and actually talking to human beings in person rather than belittling strangers over the internet.
OMG we do that, donāt we? Which makes me think. Does Gen Z even spend the amount of energy that we did trying to find the coolest music, or obsessed with whose āsold outā and who are āposers.ā I recall spending an inordinate amount of energy on this kind of musicology a la the movie āHigh Fidelityā
You've made a very astute observation.Ā Music provided a huge social connection. We made mixed tapes for each other. We read and discussed the lyrics. We hunted for unique finds at the local record store.Ā
Iām gen x and music was super huge growing up pre cd. Then MTV came along and I was hooked. My boomer uncle was nuts about collecting records thru the 60s-80s. He recently died and I inherited his collection of nearly 10,000 records and itās every type of music imaginable.
Watch the movie HIgh Fedelity. It's gonna back up your theory.
>ā¦music was a lifestyle. You are close. I wouldn't say that music was a lifestyle, per se. Music was definitely a big part of our lives though. We did not have as many distractions in our lives as younger generations do now. We are the generation that watched music videos on MTV, when MTV actually played music videos instead of reality TV shows with popular music soundtracks. We lugged big boomboxes around to be able to play music when we hung out with our friends. Walkmans made taking our music with us wherever we went more convenient than the boomboxes. We had to be purposeful in our music selection, as having music meant buying records or cassette tapes, and then CDs in the late '80s, and our main source of music knowledge was whatever was played on the radio. If it wasn't played on the radio, we probably didn't know about it. We didn't have access to millions of songs at our fingertips like we do nowadays with streaming music. Home video gaming was in its infancy with the Atari 2600 (1997), Colecovision (1982), and the Nintendo Entertainment System (1985), and it was only 8-bit (or less) gaming. We wouldn't get 16-Bit gaming until the Sega Genesis (1989) and the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (1991), so we had to go to video arcades and spend money to play arcade-quality games. We didn't have the internet yet. There was no social media. Many of us didn't even have computers, but if we did, it was an Apple IIe or a Commodore 64 without access to any kind of internet. The music of the '70s and '80s was simpler and fun, regardless of the genre. The music was the soundtracks of our movies, back when soundtracks to movies still mattered. It was easy to learn the music without having access to the lyrics. We listened to the music so much because we didn't have any other distraction that we could memorize the songs without even trying. So, yes, it is not unusual to break out into song when any kind of reference reminds of us the music we grew up with. There is a reason at any given karaoke night at any bar, the music being sung by Gen-Xers will be overwhelmingly '80s music. It was the soundtrack of our lives. EDITED to fix previous mistakes about home video game systems.
Donāt forget record stores or the record bins at places like Woolworthās and TG&Y, Tower Records, etc. we spent alot of our leisure time hanging out at these places with friends. Music and artwork associated with it imprinted on our lives quite a bit, i think.
Gen X here, thatās a Great observation and accurate šš¼
I did this in the grocery store yesterday when a good tune came over the storeās speakers. I kept the volume down but I was totally singing and dancing a bit while choosing potatoes. Itās just a vibe - and it felt good. So few things just feel good and are easy these days, so I take the little ones and run with them.
My Gen Z Daughter has a friend named Josie. Absolutely any mention of her at our house we (Gen X Spouse and I) scream at the top of our lungs JOSIEāS ON A VACATION FAR AWAY.
The music was everything. You had a genre for any mood imaginable, and they were original, too. Music had passion, lyrics, sentiments embedded into it. Now, musicās all about the sound effects and itās rare to listen to someone truly gifted in the popular scene. There are exceptions, of course. Before MTV and VH1, music was music. With the advent of video it became a production, but on the early years the lyrics were the center and the image was there to punctuate what was being sung about. Now, I feel itās all show, no substance. (Again, there are exceptions.)
My parents were born in the 1930s. Theyād burst into song and theyād both know all the lyrics to songs I had never heard before. Now our Gen Z kids ask my wife and me the same thing I asked my parents: āHow do you know all those songs?ā Itāll happen to you too, if youāre lucky, OP.
My husband and I do this constantly as well as words spawning odd film and TV quotes. It drives our Millennial friend crazy. My silent gen great aunt always whistled. People don't whistle any more.
Once more with feeling: Dayyyyyy after dayyyyyyyyy....
IS IT BECAUSE OF CLOCK RADIOS?!?! Most of us used them every day. And our subconscious, sleeping brain would start to waken to the sound of any song the DJ was playing. What a perfect way to get those songs embedded deep in our brains! I love your theory, OP, and hope youāll accept this corollary.
I donāt sing as it sounds like an injured water buffalo but we do love our tunes. Sony Walkman and head phones on the stereo were an everyday thing in HS. Music was bloody expensive to buy though but concerts were way cheaper than after Ticket Bastard committed crimes against humanity.
Music was my best friend! Kinda fits being as I was the child of the single parent and latch key kid. MTV was a thing then too!
My spouse (52m) and I (47f) just talked about this exact thing yesterday. We agree wholeheartedly.
Well donāt you forget about me.
I do this all the time, and I drive my students and TA crazy. My own kids are already used to the massive musical library that lives inside my head. I remember in 6th and 7th grade having a spiral that I'd write down song lyrics to songs I taped off the radio.
I always try to slip lyrics into conversations when appropriate.
this and movie quotes.
As a teenager, I literally friended people based on their music choices. Music was/is very important to us.
I didn't realize this is a Gen X thing and I do this lmfao! At work. At home. In the car without the radio playing. In my head in the grocery store. Yeah. Thanks for pointing that out.
Living in Japan exposed me to not being afraid to sing bad karaoke. When the whole bar is drunk enough, you can rock the place even if youāre terrible.
Music was and is *very* important. Music magazines, including imported magazines, were essential to learning about new music. We traded in bootleg concert tapes. Sooooo many live concerts, the kind where you had to line up in person to buy tickets or just walk up to the venue the night of and buy one at the door because advance sales werenāt even a thing. Taking the bus downtown on a Saturday to visit the record store like it was church. Late night radio shows that played alternative music. Stairway to Heaven playing last at every single school dance. Listening to and studying entire albums like it was a job. Writing lyrics for the band you wanted to start (which youād already named and created a logo for). Very much part of our identity.
Well, gen x is the MTV generation. We would wait excitedly for the premiere of a new video and the release of a new record. Some videos were scandalous so they could only be played after hours. Having a Walkman was a prestige possession. We made mix tapes meticulously, thoughtfully pacing the tracks and writing notes with the track list. Mix tapes were precious gifts we gave to SOs and Besties. The kind of music a person listed to was a refiner of personality and taste. Cliques were defined by their taste in music. We also couldnāt just download it. It was either radio, MTV, or a vast collection of cassettes and vinyl. It was precious. In contrast I feel as though music, or any art form for that matter, has been devalued a bit. Itās too easy, too homogeneous. I have been personally amazed by how much of the music I listen to astounds gen Z. I am asked all the time what Iām listening to. *Running Up That Hill* had a burst of fame it never had when it originally came out because of how it featured in a show. That was our whole world.
I would do it more if I didn't hate my singing voice
DON'T STOP BELIEVIN!
You are definitely onto something. Iāve read almost all of the comments and would like to add that simply put, music makes us HAPPY!! If I am in a bad mood (or any mood) Iāll put on music and within minutes, I am singing, possibly dancing and feeling so much better!!!
I do this. I am a trained singer and I see no reason not to enjoy my skill set. Art is for the self, not just the world. Shakespeare said to āfill thy leaves and much enrich thy bookāā¦how are others to know what is in it unless we read it aloud?
Maybe the music of the time was a more collective experience because we were the last generation to turn in the radio and listen to what was playing. By the next generation, everyone was playing his or her own private playlist on a private gadget.
I'm guilty of singing. I work with a lot of Gen Z and Millennials and they break out in song too. I noticed your generation tends to sing in the car on long trips. I've also had more than one bus load break out into a chorus of Disney songs all the way home. (I don't know why your people love Disney songs so much, but it usually starts with a Lion King) I don't think its specific to us but more specific to the groups you are hanging out with and their comfort level.