Age and cultural memory.
 

Right, so, the 'first CDs' thread got me thinking. A lot of bands that, to me, are new-ish are actually now quite old. I read an article about Bloc Party saying they're part of the 'old guard' of indie now. While, in my cultural memory, they're still pretty new. And only on their 2nd album. This isn't a 'young people's culture isn't like in my day' because, to be honest, it's not that different. I just have better things to worry about than the latest hairstyle of my favourite lead singer.

BUT.

It is quite disturbing how some of the posters round here make me feel like 'youth culture' is a distant world from me when, in fact, I'm only 25.

So I suppose this thread is an appeal to the genuinely old posters (I'm looking in your direction, Messrs L and 'racist' Marras) as to how one deals with this without becoming a belligerent old twat whinging about how young people don't understand things properly (I'm sure I don't have to name names there).

You young 'uns can keep playing with your bloody gameboxes and intercubes in the meantime.

Im 22 but every day i feel older and older. In actuality i dont think ive ever felt part of any youth culture whatsoever because i dont think ive ever identified well with the vast majority of people my age. Thats my defence when people day "oh youre such a miserable old sod" - to be old you have to have been young at one time, and people have been calling me a grumpy old git as long as i can remember. So really, i havent aged at all, so when i rant against people younger than me, i feel the same as i do when i rant against people older than me.

I'm a 33 year old, you ageist, racist twat! Anyway, I've never particularly acted my age (whatever it was at whatever time), so I've never really been conscious of what you're supposed to say, think or do when you are in your teens, 20's or 30's. Growing old is not something that worries me in the slightest, because I've always felt older than my age anyway, but I still get as enthusiastic about certain things the same way that I did as a kiddie. I'm timeless, me. Me. Me. Me. Me.

ditto, but i tend to think the people under 21 are just getting stupider (not all of them, but the majority). seriously, i'm 27 and some of the people who were on my course at university (who are only about 6 years yonger than me), when i hang out with them individually it's fine, but if i'm with a group of them i feel a bit out of place. and i'm not agist either. but then maybe if some who was 6 years older than me hung out with me and my friends, maybe they'd feel the same way.

<--- belligerent old whinging twat


actually, not really. I don't care so much what you young'uns think is cool these days.

I had a conversation with my friend a few weeks back about how we just accept that most "new music scenes" will sound like crap to us. that's just how it goes.

BACK IN THE DAY I'm sure it was the same. people 10+ years older most likely thought that MY music was crap. the only difference between now and then is, I had more of a compulsion to argue it.

also, now that I've had more experience, I know that people in bands are just that....people. more often than not, they are undeserving of any kind of hero status.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, as I put less value into the bands that I like (and have liked), I don't care about being oppositional about the bands I hate.

yes, I may be behind in what's freshly cool, but that doesn't really bother me.

ahh, sweet apathy.

To answer your question more in detail, if you are one of those young people who are ultra self-conscious of being young while you are growing up, you are most certainly bound to have problems when the age on your passport doesn't show that you are in your 20's anymore. I have a real problem relating to two sets of people here, and there's plenty of proof that both types exist:

1- Ageing musician/listener who starts whinging about this and that and directs their bitterness at the young and fresh, regularly culminating in the reminisce of how better things were or how there is not QUALITY anymore. Said person was too often pretty uninteresting even at a young age, but they still attach themselves to memories that were, perhaps, more often just average or below that level.

2 - Self-conscious young person who gets into this and that because that's what a young person is meant to do, but ultimately enjoys little of it, and regularly defends himself/herself for continuous crapness with the excuse that 'I'm young!'. This type gets on my tits only when this continuous reminding older people that they are young is just an excuse for shortcomings, but said shortcomings are presented with unmitigated arrogance.

So, in a way, I feel like I've always shaped my own cultural landscape, and nothing old or new particularly affects the way I might approach a record that is made by youngsters who feel like a 2 years period of time in music is meant to be a long while.

by the way, I'm already regretting posting an actual opinion of mine versus general nonsense.

please forget my above post and replace it with:

The only thing that ever bothers me about younger music fans (I am almost 34 years old) is their general failure to notice or care about where the music they love comes from. They , and I lump myself when I was 16-23 into this, have a hard time hearing something and assimilating it into the overall continuum of music and musacl exploration and innovation. This is not due to stupidity but purely due to lack of exposure to older music.

most music fans I know that really like MUSIC as opposed to specific bands or scenes, see this in themselves and get curious as to why people refer to an older band when talking about a new band, or why bands that sound a certain way name-drop the same older bands. This starts a musical exploration which is very fulfilling, and never ending.

this all can be said about anything YOUTH CULTURE. Youth culture thinks everything that is a part of it is brand new, never before seen, never befor heard, and all important!

You're only twenty five years old!? I thought you were like, forty!

I don't agree with that at all. It may have been the case in the sixties, or during punk, but currently, youth culture seems obsessed with the past. Certainly more than when I was in my late teens, early 20s. This new generation have information on tap. The rise of CDs has led to a massive process of reissueing old 'classics.' Old records when I was a teen was largely the preserve of dusty old vinyl collectors. Now anyone with a few quid/bucks/yen can get the complete works of Robert Johnson, ffs - delivered to their door. I wonder how many people in their teens and early 20s had even HEARD of Robert Johnson, let alone listened to him, in the 80s.

With all due deference to yourself, Mr Instigator - and I think you can take a bit of banter, unlike a lot of people here I disagree with - It's this sort of attitude that I want to avoid. I quite often want strangle people with their own intestines when I hear them saying, "Oh, they ripped off band x" or try and tell kiddies half their age that new band x were influenced by old band y. It's annoying and patronising. People listen to music, and they should, and although some people are receptive to influence lists, the overwhelming majority of people genuinely don't care where the music comes from, they just like to listen to it.

In response to other responses - I'm not self-conscious of getting old. Men are at their sexiest between my age and about 40-45 or so, provided I don't get bloated. I've always been a miserable cunt, and I quite enjoy it. My concern is more that bands The Cribs, the Libertines and Bloc Party are all great bands, or at least have great songs, and it takes me so fucking long to figure that out. The Libertines had been split up years by the time I realised they had some brilliant tunes. It's only because I don't keep my ears to the floor any more, or at least keep my ears on different floors. Culture: it's getting broader.

I didn't intend a 'I'm getting older, help!' thread (that would make me gay, in a bad way) but more of a 'hey guys, hows about some reflections on the encroaching grey hand of death, eh?'

You know, you're not the first person on this forum to say that? I'm taking it as a compliment, ta.

I didn't mean it in any detrimental way, you're just that sort of 'wise' character.

It's true, I am wise. And I have an enormous cock. If I wasn't such an overbearing cunt all the time I'd be dripping with fanny.

Everyone experiences their actual age in a different way. A 25 year old with a family and a mortgage is probably gonna feel a lot 'older' than a 35 year old with a minimum of commitments. Fuckin hell, all the blokes in my dad's generation looked like Fred Astaire by the time they hit 30.

I'm not totally sure about what you're getting at. I think all the bands that you've mentioned above aren't that great, but that has nothing to do with the fact that there's youngsters in they're ranks, even if some of your Pete Dohertys etc are at an age closer to their 30's now. Still, there are at least 4 songs by The Libertines that I quite like, a couple of them by Bloc Party, and I don't recall ever hearing a song by The Cribs, so therefore I wouldn't know. That's nothing to do with anything, just a general lack of talent, they could have been in their 500's and I'd still think the same. The whole fast-ageing thing comes from weekly publications like the NME, where bands have been generally discarded very, very quickly and the turnover has been very,very fast for quite some time. This started happening from the early 90's onwards, I suppose, creating a culture where a 29 year old is made to feel like a rock dinosaur because by the time they reached the third album, another 5 scenes appeared more quickly than you can say New Grave or New Rave. That sort of pressure created a culture of bullying that destroyed a lot of bands, even some of those ones that, perhaps, could have turned into something more durable.

Was it the same size when you were a 7 year old? It must have been a real burden and all that, little twat.

Remember a few years ago when The Alarm released a single and pretended that rather than an ageing 80s indie band they were young kids wearing leather jackets? Whatever obsession people have with youth being "vibrant", it does leave the door open for alot of cultural mischief such as this.

everything "new" is connected to the past in some way, but youth culture, true youth culture, not the bullshit marketed youth culture the corporations wish to foist on the kids so they spend their allowances, is only obsessed with the past in order to destroy it.

that is what youth does.

just because music is available does not mean that it is accepted by the youth culture.