End of an Era

[mate stubb]

I think it has to do with the huge generational break in musical taste between the boomer generation and their parents.

 

We would not be caught dead listening to the square stuff that our parents did, like Liberace and Lawrence Welk.

 

Starting in the 50s and moving forward, generations were more or less united by rock and roll, and its underpinnings in rhythm and blues.

 

While I can't stand most of the stuff that my youngest daughter listens to, I would subject myself to 100 hours of it if it got me out of 10 hours of listening to my parent's favorite music.

 

As to the Top 40 - that is a recent development, and post date's Liberace's popularity. Although when I was a kid, it was the Top 100. These days, it's more like the top 10, over and over. and over. and over... but that's another rant.

[Moonglow]

.......While I can't stand most of the stuff that my youngest daughter listens to, I would subject myself to 100 hours of it if it got me out of 10 hours of listening to my parent's favorite music.....

I actually enjoy some of that schmaltzy music. I especially like the early 60's stuff.....like the Mancini tunes from the Peter Gunn series. Very confusing period, musically....bands using electric guitars, yet with horns and upright basses.....sort of bridged big band to rock and roll.

[mate stubb]

I like Mancini too, so I suppose I do have that in common with my parents. But they had some odd tastes, at least to me.

 

They went to a Basie concert and were dead bored. Then they used to put that gospel Gaither stuff on which I can't stand.

[SMcD]

Bored at a Basie concert! Unthinkable!

 

The funny thing is that I actually enjoy my grandparent's music (Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, various other big band/dixieland music) more than my parent's (...80's crap).

[7notemode]

Hey, I went to the Liberace Museum last time I was in Vegas. It was a $12 cab ride from the strip, so off the beaten path. I had though it would be all kitsch and irony. I could not have been more wrong. For me, it was quite touching and melancholy. He had such a clear and consistent vision of his beauty ideal -- costumes, dancing fountains, cars, and of course his music. He lived in an alternative world of his own making and was so sincere in his dedication to his vision.

[Cygnus64]

I like Mancini too, so I suppose I do have that in common with my parents.

Mancini conducted one of the orchestras I was in. We're going through the charts in rehearsal, and the second half there is one by................................... Pink Floyd. Freaked me out. Most of the program was the typical Moon River/Days of Wine and Roses stuff, and then he programs Pink Floyd. The song was "On the Turning Away".

 

At the break, I got up the nerve to go talk to him. I asked him if there was any special significance or reason that we were playing this Pink Floyd tune. His response: " I just like it".