Who cares about 'My Generation' anymore?

The 1960s: We just can't get away from them.

As the muddy dust of Woodstock nostalgia settles -- taking with it the whining protests of sensitive little-sibling Gen Xers -- the baby boom is immediately reasserting its pop cultural might, this time in a much more effective way. The marketing campaign for "The Beatles: Rock Band" game moves forward hour by hour, with today's song list announcement stoking an appetite already primed by major media attention, and the already unveiled chart allowing users to check that their fake instruments will work with the highly compatible game. (Sorry, would-be Ringos in possession of "Rock Revolution" drums, you will be purchasing a new set.)

Between the attention given rock's most fondly remembered musical gathering and the careful campaign to remind everyone of what Fab Four still matters the most, any hope non-boomers had that they'd finally moved to pop's center seemed dashed.

Yet the truth is, it's getting hard to argue that any generation dominates pop. A nationwide telephone survey by the Pew Research Center's Demographic and Social Trends project, timed to coincide with the Woodstock birthday, found that while some differences remain between elders and youth, in general they're not a source of antagonism. Furthermore, rock was found to be the dominant music of both generations. President Obama may symbolize the rise of the hip hop nation -- a view that Hua Hsu effectively put forth in his Atlantic magazine piece, The End of White America?, earlier this year -- but it's well known that Obama has Springsteen and Bob Dylan on his iPod.

So what does it mean that 24-year-old New Jersey police Officer Kristie Buble didn't recognize Dylan when she picked him up as a possible vagrant during a pre-show stroll in the rain last month? Nothing, perhaps, beyond the fact that even iconic faces age and change. But that small incident also raises a thought about the changing relevance of the generational ideal.

Throughout the rock era, each new school of fans has chosen its mirror images: Elvis in the 1950s, the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix and Dylan in the 1960s, Johnny Rotten and Bruce Springsteen repping for punk and blockbuster arena rock, respectively, Kurt Cobain when Gen X crowned its grunge king. Those artists have gained legendary status through widespread interest in their images and life stories, not just their music. Buble's comment about Dylan was telling: She said that she'd seen pictures of the bard, and he didn't look like that anymore. He was more real to her, as he is to many, as a mechanical reproduction than as a person.

It seems obvious to also note that these icons of generational rock are nearly all white and all male. Stars like Aretha Franklin, Bob Marley, Loretta Lynn, Fela Kuti and Tupac Shakur are incredibly important historically, but the markers of nation, region, gender and race make them harder to sell as universals. The two huge exceptions -- Madonna and Michael Jackson-- marked an era in which the monolithically assertive power of rock slipped. 

In the 1980s, pop was long scorned by many as a time of superficiality and crass commercialism; only in recent years have its champions found room to argue for its importance, and most still applaud that era of giant hair and sequins in fun. But that plastic moment was also a time of great diversity in pop, when Prince and Public Enemy rose alongside Guns 'N' Roses and U2. It's harder to contain the 1980s within a single word like "Woodstock," though the millions mourning Jackson have been trying with "Thriller."

In fact, the 1980s looked a lot like now: a time when no one presumed that a particular musical statement or style spoke for all, and when the generational ideal felt a little hollow. Sure, there were songs of youth, like Kim Wilde's "Kids in America," but older dudes like Paul Simon and Peter Gabriel also renewed their careers to help define the zeitgeist. Personal style, ethnic and racial loyalties and an expanding sense of what was possible (typified then by interest in African music and New Wave's fascination with technology) mattered more than the power of an age-appropriate peer group. 

A look at this summer's Billboard Top 200 reveals more similarities to those "Rainbow Connection" years than to the Woodstock era. (Or rather, what we remember as the Woodstock era; plenty of folks are now arguing for a broader view of that era, too.)

Excluding the hits compilations "Kidz Bop 16" and "Now 31" -- themselves total hodgepodges -- the top 10 albums include three that qualify as country, two rootsy rockers, two hip hop hits, two by mature soul men and one by a huge teen star. But that kiddie queen, Miley Cyrus, is also a country hitmaker, and her friend Taylor Swift is a Nashville princess and a high school sensation.

One roots rock band, Kings of Leon, could be called "alternative," while the other, Daughtry, has a Christian streak. The Black Eyed Peas are both hip hop and kiddie pop, and if leader will.i.am has anything to do with the defining, they also count as rock.

With artists so hard to pin down stylistically, it's not surprising that they're equally squirrelly when it comes to identifying with a generation. Kids are kids, sure, but Swift is as comfortable serenading country grandpa George Strait as she is dressing down her ex, Joe Jonas. Chris Daughtry and will.i.am both found superstardom a few years after they stopped seeming particularly young; same with chart-topping duo Sugarland.

The moment's breakthrough sensation, Detroit singer K'Jon, has been looking for his big break for nearly a decade. At No. 25, there's even a Woodstock relic: a Creedence Clearwater Revival collection that's given that long-defunct band its highest chart debut in decades.

Most music fans don't seem to be looking for a mirror these days, or at least not for one that accurately reflects their age. This is partly because we've entered a new renaissance of family-oriented music. Country's return to the pop forefront is all about families singing along to the radio together -- just as they will enjoy teaming up to compete in "Beatles: Rock Band." The same appeal holds true with the Disney and "American Idol" house artists who move so many units these days. They're making music that's clean enough for children, but is cool enough for parents who grew up on rock.

Music still gives expression to cultural divides, they're just not often generational now. The next great pop icon might be primarily Spanish-speaking; considering that the biggest conflict responders to the Pew Center survey noted was between "immigrants and people born in the United States," such a star could really shake things up, the way Dylan did back in the day.

Until that happens -- or as it's happening, if Shakira's career continues on an upswing -- we'll undoubtedly keep looking to the 1960s for a vision of a unified movement based on popular music. In fact, the most telling thing about Woodstock nostalgia is that it's now being felt by plenty of younger fans.

Baby freaks who enjoy the music of the Fleet Foxes and Devendra Banhart, grow their own tomatoes, rock woolly beards and retreat to the desert for vision quests don't feel the need to rebel against their elders at all. Such a warm embrace of their legacy may not be something the golden children of the 1960s expected, but I'm sure they're happy for the dissolution of that generational divide.

-- Ann Powers

Photo, top: "The Beatles: Rock Band." Credit: Harmonix
Photo, middle: Bob Dylan. Credit: AP
Photo, bottom: Taylor Swift. Credit: Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[James]

Of course there will always be the argument over which generation's music is best ... heck that battle wages nightly in my household! ... But I think it's high time the "boomers" stopped crowing, nearly constantly, about what a great time it was. It was 40 years ago and it's time to move on, why don't you heed your own admonishment toward us GenX's and grow up. I'll give you the Beatles and Dylan but c'mon, Woodstock?!, it was a cesspool and I'm certain it wasn't as nearly as cool as you remember it; most things never are. Frankly I've grown tone deaf to anything the boomers pound their chests over any more, why is it you collectively can't age gracefully?

Piece of advice. You're not nearly as cool as you think you are or were. Sure, some wonderful things happened in the 60's, not the least of which were major advancements in civil rights but then you followed that up with disco, strip malls and foreclosed upon McMansions. Gee thanks. It's time to shuffle off into retirement and let the following generations have their time. No one likes the guy who doesn't know when the party is over.

[commonsense101]

That explains why 20 million people tried to buy Led Zeppelin tickets to the O2 show...wake up! Those 20 million people were from ALL generations. Some music transcends time. I would like to know the name of one GenX or GenY band that is popular today that will draw 20 million fans trying to get tickets in the year 2040. Case closed.

[Graham White]

Rock nearly all white and all male? Guess you missed the 60's.

[Megan]

With my two high-school and college-aged sons (and their classmates), here in South Orange County, the music of choice is NOT hip-hop, but Classic Rock (late 60's-70's) with a few KROQ-type songs thrown in. Woodstock (and classic rock) is still relevant to this current young adult generation. It endures because of the quality of the music.

[Joe Mama]

So sick of the self-centered navel gazing generation. Die already please. Thank you.

[Liz Peel]

I'm 47 (1962) - I don't relate to the boomer generation or generation x.... I think there's an MTV (the original MTV) generation... 1960 to 1965-1967 maybe.

[AspenFreePress]

Sure, there's not antagonism between "elders and youth." The elders aren't trying to draft the youth and send them to the jungles of southeast Asia. Sterling Greenwood/Aspen Free Press

[Phil]

First, most of the creative fountains of '60s music and culture were not Boomers. I'm a peak-year Boomer, born in the middle years of the Baby Boom bounded 1946 - 1964. This is the accepted span. But the Beatles, Bob Dylan, the Stones, Hendrix, Paul Simon, Booker T, Sly Stone, et al were born before or during WWII as part of the "trough" generation. They were smart enough to see the huge Boomer audience as their market and it was symbiotic. The Boomer collective urge for change was fed by the art of contributors slightly older, and Boomer change agency in turn inspired and embolded some of the creative drivers.

Jackson Browne, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, Donna Summer, Eddie Van Halen are Boomers. When we talk of the 1960s, we are describing the excitement of an era of change not equalled in the US since. It's as much about the moonshot as the music; civil rights as the sexual revolution; Bill Mitchell's sensational cars as the tie-dye fashion. If you weren't there, you weren't there. But the music remains accessible and alive.

Boomers, pre-Boomers, echo-Boomers, Gen-Y, the Oughts....everyone has come to recognize the creative burst by everyone from Dylan to Dean Martin in the 1960s and into the first half of the 1970s. But Gen-X pouts, sullen and resentful, face in the corner. Gen-X came of age feeling self-pity, believing Boomers strip-mined the economy instead of seeing we vastly expanded markets for them to exploit. Gen-X is today's trough generation, dwarfed in numbers by Boomers and echo-Boomers. The question is, where's their creativity to match what that earlier trough generation, born during Depression and War, managed to produce? THAT generation didn't whine. Jack Kerouac, Lenny Bruce, Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Mick, Keith, Graham, Sly, Otis....they had no time for whining and many of them are STILL going strong. Gen-X is odd man out here. Gen Y and the echo-Boomers are already overshadowing them.

[Nate P.]

"major advancements in civil rights but then you followed that up with disco"

Go listen to some of the great classic Philly International singles from the mid '70s -- maybe you'll realize those two things aren't mutually exclusive.

[Aaron David Ward]

The cultural juggerneaut known as the Internet has both simultaneously deconstructed and reconnected niche and mass audiences making the new millenium much more like the 19th than the 20th century.

Trafficking in generational stereotypes in an argument over whose generation or music or cultural contributions were of greater significance is an argument better left in the 20th century when mass audiences created by mass media clamored for shared experiences.

A much richer tapestry of music is now available to billions around the globe online rendering generational, gender, religious, cultural, ethnic, and racial differences meaningless.

[wondering]

the question is posed: "so what does it mean that 24-year-old New Jersey police Officer Kristie Buble didn't recognize Dylan when she picked him up as a possible vagrant during a pre-show stroll in the rain last month?" it means that you cannot go for a walk in the rain minding your own business without being hassled by the police ... that's really the astounding thing about this

[James]

Commonsense 101 & Phil ... you largely make my case for me, your responses were conceited & self-centered. (Also check your facts, 1 million people registered for tickets, nowhere near 20 million you claimed) For what it's worth, Led Zeppelin is popular in the same way John Deere & CAT diesel trucker hats were popular ... because someone told them it was cool to be snarky & retro, not because of any transformational self-discovery of their music. And I'd argue Zep is cynically exploiting you boomers and your misplaced nostalgia. As for the quality of the music ... so a few bands made it into this era & that somehow makes ALL of it poignant? Since when? One could argue quite successfully that Buddy Holly, Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis had more to do with the rise of rock-n-roll than anything that came outta Woodstock. But is anyone crowing about what they had to contribute? With you boomers the conversation always starts with what YOU did or what YOUR generation contributed and almost always ends by deriding anything before or since. It's your collective narcissistic attitude that galls my generation.

As for the hackneyed crack about our "whining" ... get a new critique will ya? Maybe if you boomers took a break from telling yourselves how great you are you'd perhaps recognize the wealth of compelling music, culture & art. It's easy to point to U2 but what about Tiger Woods, Lance Armstrong & Michael Schumacher? We also gave the world Google, YouTube, Amazon & your new favorite invasion, FaceBook. But then again, when did you ever give us a chance? From the drug addled "free-love" era to the disco "free sex" era then AIDS to junk bonds and S&L bailouts with a few Wall St. Ponzi schemes thrown in, when did we ever get a chance to figure the world out? Opened markets for "exploitation"? You do realize that's not necessarily a good thing, right? And finally, because you couldn't live within your means and took to heart "greed is good", you'll be in the marketplace well past normal retirement further standing in our way. We're supposed to thank you?

Yes this is well past a discussion of music but I get back to my original point ... How about getting a little humility and maybe taking responsibility for your messes along with your contributions?

[GRF44]

Unfortunately, Pew is still behind the curve on this one; more up-to-date pollsters now regularly include Generation Jones (born 1954-1965, between the Boomers and Generation X). The Michael Jackson/Madonna era described above is pure GenJones, just one of many ways in which this heretofore "lost" generation is critically relevant.

Google Generation Jones, and you’ll see it’s gotten a lot of media attention, and many top commentators from many top publications and networks (Washington Post, Time magazine, NBC, Newsweek, ABC, etc.) now specifically use this term. In fact, the Associated Press' annual Trend Report forecast the Rise of Generation Jones as the #1 trend of 2009.

It is important to distinguish between the post-WWII demographic boom in births vs. the cultural generations born during that era. Generations are a function of the common formative experiences of its members, not the fertility rates of its parents. Many experts now believe it breaks down more or less this way:

DEMOGRAPHIC boom in babies: 1946-1964
Baby Boom GENERATION: 1942-1953
Generation Jones: 1954-1965
Generation X: 1966-1978

Here's a page with a good overview of recent media interest in GenJones:
http://generationjones.com/2009latest.html

[TOM O'LEARY]

Ann, Very insightful and provocative, as always. Good to have you back from vacation.

James, You could use some serious therapy. Unless your anger is supposed to be humorous. If that is the case your humor is way lame.

[Ramius]

Oh please, please do NOT associate Obama with the rise of the hip-hop movement in this decade. To begin with, Obama's a whole different animal than those talentless, ignorant, pathetic and sorry excuse for artists we call 2000s's rappers. I cannot believe you actually threw him in that category.

However, I'm 16 years old, and I'll have you know that I DO NOT in ANYWAY possible support this decade of music. It is crap. Pure pop/mainstream crap. All made possible by those greedy and corrupt music labels and producers who are only intending to put out what sells to stupid little pre-teens and teenagers who have no legit taste in actual music.

This is also due to parents not exposing their children to good music, particularly music they listened to as teens and young adults. At age 5, I was listening to Carlos Santana, Nat King Cole, Michael Jackson, some Led Zeppelin, Janis Joplin, Sam Cooke, and others. I can nearly guarantee you that very VERY few people in my age group were listening to music like that on their OWN. Alot of pre-teens and teenagers will just listen to anything that's given to them by the media and not even know it's crap, either because they don't know what actual music is, or they just want to fit in with the crowd sadly enough. Thus is part of the reason why the music industry is crap. I as a person who despises pop/mainstream 2000's music, listens to older stuff from the 60s to the 90s, like Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin (even to this day) Nirvana, Alice In Chains, Soundgarden, Eric Clapton, Rainbow, Bob Dylan, Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd, and Cream to name a few.

There are also artists from this decade that most aren't even well known, and definitely should be including The Black Keys, The White Stripes, Wolfmother, Deadboy and the Elephantmen, Agents of Oblivion, people my age will probably never know who or what this stuff is. There's only a handful who can say they listen to this stuff.

It's sad and pathetic that the 2000's teenager is such an easy target for labels and producers who put out garbage music and artists to sell to. Our predecessors in the 90s had great taste in music and knew what was garbage and what was actually legit. It was up until 1998 when all the pop stars and boybands began to appeal to the younger kids at the time (which i believe was my age group) and it all went down hill from there. Those kids in 1998 are the same kids now that are listening to and supporting the crap that comes out now. I'm going to end my ranting now.

[G]

The Beatles are fast becoming irrelevant.

Their music is all but impossible to find now (no iTunes or any other download?) and younger music buyers have skipped them as a result. I was born after they broke up but they were still a big part of my upbringing (Tapes) and my younger brother's (CDs).

But todays younger music fans (mp3's)? They've missed them altogether.

[Joe Cole]

I am 23 years old. My old ipod (now my zune) has a majority of doo wop, rock & roll, 60's pop, british invasion, classic rock. (50's - 70's.) The 80's/90's/Today portion is very selective. I've had my ears open to all types of music, and I find that the music my parents listened to is far superior. (My opinion) Favorites include The Beatles, Zombies, Hollies. The collection spans from Nat King Cole to The Beatles to TLC to Plain White T's. And yes, I even have a Britney Spears song on there.

My generation has nothing to define it other than where we were on 9/11. We all have very different tastes in music. We all put in our ear buds and hide away in whatever we can find. There is no Wolf Man Jack - we aren't tuned into the same station.

People might claim this is a good thing - that our tastes as a people are so eclectic, but I find if anything - the 60's had the real variety. I find that good music is hard to come by. Back then there were so many different flavors - a new hit every week - hits black or white that everybody fell in love with - a renaissance for music.

I don't know if we will ever see music...unite us like it did back then. But honestly - I think we focus to much on what splits generations. There was enough hits that came out of the 60's that will transcend at least a few more generations perhaps forever - timeless songs - that anyone with 2 ears and a heart will always appreciate.