I realised something today that I hadn’t previously realised. Sometime around 1998, I stopped being aware of most contemporary music. I realised it when the radio was playing hits from the year and I hadn’t heard any of them before except the Manic Street Preachers and Robbie Williams. It really shocked me. I must have just shut my ears to it. I was still listening to contemporary rock music like Dream Theater, Bonamassa, Ian Anderson, Satriani, Vai and Paul Gilbert to name a few.
I remember when I was a kid being told that I’d never know what the #1 record was by the time I was 40…and I was 37 in 1998. I thought it wouldn’t happen to me, someone so wedded to music and its culture…but it did. Would you know what is #1 or even what it means to be #1? I suppose if you’ve had kids that de facto makes you aware, as some dance music interrupts your listening to the latest Greenslade live recording!
It's funny because it was such a part of life to know what was popular whether it was Slade or Duran Duran. Even if I didn’t like the music, I still was aware of it. Those pop quizzes where you have to identify the years something was a hit, I usually get right 9 times out of 10 because music indelibly stamps itself on my timeline, so to have that totally disappear feels odd. I wouldn’t have known most of these songs were a hit in 1998, 2004 or 2010. Often the only way I know if it’s modern is if it’s over compressed so it hurts your ears and autotuned
I suppose this coincides with the change in sales to include streams and downloads. When we were kids, if a record was top 5, you knew it had technically sold a few hundred thousand
Even if the band had bought a few hundred. But now with the position being a compilation of physical sales, streams and downloads it somehow seems less transparent, more disposable and even less romantic.
It’s odd that I’d know the Lemon Pipers had a hit with ‘My Green Tambourine’ in 1967 but haven’t a clue who someone from 2022 even is. I feel vaguely annoyed about this because I take great delight in contradicting assumptions made about me, such as my dad saying I’d grow out of loud, heavy music when the opposite has been true.
Have you been able to keep up? I still do with rock music but generally I don’t.
