How We'll Forget John Lennon

[Mike Rivers]

I ran across this on another forum, and there's an interesting study about how we remember and forget things in popular culture.

 

few years ago a student walked into the office of Cesar A. Hidalgo, director of the Collective Learning group at the MIT Media Lab. Hidalgo was listening to music and asked the student if she recognized the song. She wasn"t sure. 'Is it Coldplay?' she asked. It was 'Imagine' by John Lennon. Hidalgo took it in stride that his student didn"t recognize the song. As he explains in our interview below, he realized the song wasn"t from her generation. What struck Hidalgo, though, was the incident echoed a question that had long intrigued him, which was how music and movies and all the other things that once shone in popular culture faded like evening from public memory.

 

Read the full article here.

[Notes_Norton]

That reminded me of this...

 

When I was a little guy discovering Rock n Roll, every once in a while they would play a song that I thought was invented in MY generation, my mom would say, "Oh they're bringing that song back again." I'm weird, I liked my parent's music almost as much as my own, so when I eventually heard the pre-rock copy, it was both interesting and usually enjoyable for me.

 

We'll remember some for a long time like Al Jolson, Scott Joplin, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley especially thanks to their recordings, but their stars will continue to dim and become not much more than ancient history. Pavarotti is already joining the ranks of Caruso.

 

IMO John Lennon will always be remembered as part of the Beatles more than as a solo artist. Even Paul who has had a nice post Beatles career is still often referred to as an ex-Beatle.

 

I think the human brain doesn't have a great concept of a time line. Glenn Miller to me is ancient history, but The Beatles are still recent history. When our duo plays a "standard" from "the American Songbook" era, it's historic, but when we play anything from the Rock era, it seems recent.

 

When we play something by Adele or Bruno Mars it doesn't seem that much newer than something from Wilson Pickett or Aretha. But to the Bruno Mars and Adele generation, The Beatles are ancient history.

 

Insights and incites by Notes.

[Anderton]

There's already a fairly lengthy thread about this that references the John Lennon article in the first post, so it might make more sense to put additional comments there.

[Mike Rivers]

There's alreadya fairly lengthy thread about this that references the John Lennon article in the first post, so it might make more sense to put additional comments there.

 

Oh! So this is what that article is about. I drifted off after a few paragraphs and didn't notice the reference to the Lennon article. Sorry. Move it over or not as you wish.