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Soundcheck Smackdown: Baby Boomers vs. Generation X
The poet and philosopher George Santayana once said, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." To ensure that future generations don't forget the triumphs and tragedies of pop music's past, we host another Soundcheck Smackdown over the musical legacies of baby boomers and Generation X. Joining us in studio are Jeff Gordinier, editor at large at Details magazine and author of "X Saves the World," and music critic Anthony DeCurtis, contributing editor at Rolling Stone and author of "In Other Words: Artists Talk About Life and Work."
Tell us: Who has the better musical legacy -- baby boomers or generation X? Why?
"X Saves the World" on Amazon.com
Jeff Gordinier's web site
"In Other Words" on Amazon.com
More about Anthony DeCurtis
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Slackers! Independent rock bands and labels of the 1980s and 1990s helped create a template for today's (and tomorrow's) bands to "go off the grid" in the music industry. MySpace bands of today (and tomorrow) owe a lot to the Minutemen and Fugazi. And ... so tired of boomer-music anniversaries.
Forget all you Boomers and Gen-X'ers. It was the Greatest Generation that had the best music - Tommy Dorsey, Frank Sinatra, Charlie Parker, the Andrews Sisters, heck, even Copland. Go check out the soundtracks to Ken Burns' "War" documentaries. Y'all are wack!
Judging by your definition of a "Boomer", then they must take credit for Punk Rock. Without Punk Rock, there would obviously be no Nirvana.
This is too black and white. There is a generation between the boomers and slackers that's kind of invisible. Westerberg wrote about that too.
Can we just say that it's all great music and not get too attached to the generational bit... It's a drag
The Fifties revolutionized music and society; it introduced "race music" into popular culture, and helped create and cohere something entirely new in American culture: a massive, revolutionary teen culture, very separate and apart from the adults.
It was the teens whose attitudes were fashioned in the 50s who were the college students who created the 60s revolution.
But the 60s revolution was an outgrowth of the original creation in the 50s of a radically alternate sensibility and culture.
That said, I agree the original power has long been lost; "oldies" were a brand new concept in the 50s. I remember an oldie promo from a radio station in 1959: "It was GREAT! in Fifty-EIGHT."
But now, I've been hearing the same goddam music for the last 50 years(!), no matter how much I try to avoid it.
Granted, the 40s and 30s music was wonderful, but for sheer revolutionary power, freedom, birth of rock n roll, the 50s were IT.
This is an choice for a topic in the sense that music, in the most diverse way possible, expresses its time. Its just as silly to say "music of the 20s is better than music of the 30s".
this inane conversation only furthers my feeling that soundcheck is a useless waste of air time in the middle of the day. makes me glad i did not renew my membership this year.
boomer music was born of the blues ..... gen x music was mostly a reaction against what went before mainly disco and stadium rock .....
The 60's was the downfall of classical music! A negative not a positive thing. Pop culture took over and it got worse and worse from there. Now,with Gen X and punk we are at the lowest of the low. Now people are proud that they know nothing about music or their instruments.
Decline of the West........
Pink Floyd, The Doors, Daviw Bowie...
The boomers weren't any better than anyone else, they have just been the most self-absorbed, self-promoters and having grown up hearing from adults that rock is dead and that music will never be as good I feel duped. I think it is important to get pissed about the boomers: they are responsible for so many of the world's problems and younger generations need to make a clean break so they can trust their own perspective.
Hendrix - blues, cream - blues, zeppelin - blues, obviously Dylan - blues
Although I identify with the aforementioned indie music from the '60s-00s, it's kind of pointless to argue.
Regardless, I do think mainstream Boomer soundtracks still constantly force feed the media with lots of songs I can do without ever hearing again (the same goes for some of the ultra-palatable Motown songs on every commercial).
On that note, why is "In the Mood" used for every WWII scene? You'd think that was the only song in existence during that time period!
Off the topic a bit but after watching my children text message their fingerprints off I submit that their generation (>1980) could be called 'Generation Text'...Hope it's original...love the show
Hip Hop X-ers??
Chuck D??
David, there's plenty of contemporary classical music (have you listened to this very station in the middle of the night?). Who determined that classical music of a certain era was the end-all of what constitutes "classic?"
I'm 51 - please stop saying "Dylan, Beatles, Stones, Who" - all of whom I love. But there are probably 50 more iconic groups that X-Gen radio REFUSES to play because of demographics.
Crosby, Stills, Nash (&Young)
Allman Bros
Jethro Tull
Pink Floyd
Grateful Dead
and 45 others
both eras exemplify a widening of influences and an increasing awareness of other musical styles. but i think, by virtue of the timeline, gen-xers took advantage of a bigger palette.
i think digable planets and jane's addiction are decent examples.
what about hip hop?
Public Enemy's legendary album
1988's It Takes a Nation of Million to Hold Us Back
De La Soul
Three Feet High and Rising
De La Soul-Is Dead
Bran Nubian-One for All
Tribe Called Quest-Low End Theory
Black Sheep
The list goes on and on
Generation X takes the title!!!
Minor Threat! Black Flag! Fugazi! Hardcore DIY-->INTERNET! Music that had impact!
Duh!!!
I feel that the construct that was setup is irrelvant. There was incredible music in the boomer era (Beefheart anyone?) as well as the later (Television). There is great and aweful music in each era.
pre boomer music will be around forever and remain as important as it ever has. without it you wouldn't have your pavements and nirvanas. that said i think whats going on now is far mor interesting.
Oooops, I completely missed Gen X music because I was still listening to The Who, The Stones, Zeppelin, Skynard, Allman Brothers, and well yes many many hours of listening to the Grateful Dead. I did notice Punk and lately I've really been enjoying Flogging Molly, Black 47 and The Real McKenzies.
The way I remember things in the '70's radio wasn't so finely delineated, we heard Black Sabbath, Zepplin and the Commodores on the same station.
Oh yeah, I was born in '66.
will the bands today be playing sold out arenas in thirty or forty years and if not why?
My question is 'Who gets Disco?'
If it's us boomers, I'll shoot myself.... ;)
There are more good bands today than ever in the history of modern music. The file sharing folks among us probably are much more in the know of just how many amazing (and mostly unheard of) bands that are out making music today. Examples: Tortoise, Grizzly Bear, The Books, Animal Collective, Fleet Foxes, Four Tet (and his work with Sun Ra drummer Steve Reid), Atlas Sound, AU, Battles, lcd sound system, My Bloody Valentine...
I can't even find the time to type anymore of the overwhelming list of good bands out there these days without my boss catching me not working!
Hi. i am 18 years old and honestly wish i had music as fantastic as my parents did being produced today. i mean is all i get miley cyrus?? i know people who consider her a rock and roll type and it frightens me. the music we get now reflects the times. we are uptight but not driven or creative enough to a] appreciate the people who are putting out good stuff [i.e. wilco, radiohead, or new pornographers and b]try and make some of our own. when i am forced to endure another fallout boy song or another jam from panic at the disco i wish my music could be filled with something more substantial...i miss the zest and feeling and pure rock and roll or funk that seemed to fill the albums of zeppelin, cat stevens, the beatles, the doors, and even the carpenters for goodness sake. when i think good music, my mind reverts to the awesome soundtracks of the big chiil or dazed and confused.
I'm a boomer and a musician. No question, lots of all-time great music came out of the sixties. But we boomers are insufferably full of ourselves. It all got stale by the seventies and now most of the bands that survived are pathetic. Rock is for the young. The Gen X guy is right, too, the sixties music became corporate branding, too.
Get out of the way and let the kids take over. Let the sixties die. The swing era was fantastic, the do-wop era was great, too. Sixties boomers should just step aside like others have.
Comparing Gen X to the Boomers is like comparing apples to the apple tree. Much of the boomer music is the foundation for what came after. But all generations are capable of putting out a good album...
Someone mentioned the music of the "Greatest Generation" and then gave some names as examples, a list that did not start or end with Ella Fitzgerald -- Obviously he knows not of what he speaks.
What about the political aspect of 60's rock. For me that's the touchstone. Where is today's political theme song -- music to march to. Mr. Gen X doesn't quite get that -- for boomers this was the music of rebellion and the (futile) attempt to remake the world. Which then got coopted. But for some of us it will never die.
Gen x here... sorry, but suggesting audio material of recycled or beatbox plus spoken word, as "music" equal to musicians is smackdown worthy. It has a validity, somewhere, as poetry I am sure - because people somewhere support it and continue to make it relevant as a discussion in legitimate musical circles, which I will never cease to be puzzled by. Hugely influential, but...
I find it interesting that your same guest that keeps ragging on The Boomers for their destruction of "the rock spirit" and that generation's propensity for overly itemizing and commoditizing their music is doing the same thing his "generations" argument -- quibbling over which artist was born during which generation.
Hey guy, guess who built those arbitrary generational boundaries you're using to support your argument?
Those same stupid boomers (who need to retire, already).
Sincerely,
Some Guy Who is Told He is Part of Generation Y
Aretha Franklin is a powerful figure. However, the difference between her and the Gen X women is that they wrote and played their own songs. Sorry, Gen X women win.
music, like life, is evolutionary... each step along the way adds to the next. The process is ever growing and expanding, mutating and hybridizing. It doesn't matter the Generation there were greatness that occured - in each time. Remember "back to the future?" Music is a reflection of society and the times, where would we be if we didn't have the past to try and create something newer/better?
-Gen x'er
really, this entire debate is problematic because music will always be influenced by what came before it; so of course gen x was influenced by the boomers. and gen y gets no respect (yet) because, as raymond williams says in his book Culture and Society, "A culture can never be reduced to its artifacts while its being lived". gen y has its great artists, as gen x did as the boomers do. the rolling stones are relevent, as the pixies are relevent, as cat power is relevent. most great bands i see nowadays are local bands that no one has ever heard of. yet. =) so i say, support local music, it will give us the next bob dylan.
As a classically trained opera singer born in 1983 who has never given up on my rock star dreams, I am fascinated by all the throwbacks, covers and influences modern musicians are using in their music. I'm a big believer that ALL music and time periods have relevance and influence.
as for Aretha " Rock Steady" is the one..still has every ounce of power.
Smackdown is fun - a good way hear John and others deep knowledge of music - but I don't seem the point of one gen over the other.
I think music a tree that gets bigger and bigger and more branched out. . . but all coming from a common source.
I agree with Jeff about Boomer songs being oversold and meaningless, but just wait till Courtney Love starts mine stripping Nirvana to pay for more plastic surgery, and horse riding lessons for Francis.
ABF, you have the internet...use it! I'm on old person (36) and when I was your age the mainstream selections were also pretty dismal. I however had to utilize "'zines" and word-of-mouth. It's amazing to have a tool like Myspace at my fingertips, since I've discovered so many bands around the world I may have never had the pleasure of hearing.
Johnny, I don't buy the stadium-filling argument because I have heard lots of great obscure music from the Boomer era that would never have filled a stadium.
John, you said the musical cutoff was 1965. you're right but only for JAZZ music.
I know it's deeply akward, but are we really going to ignore the race divide? As a white guy, I'm deeply uncomfortable "claiming" hip hop for "my" generation, and I definitely know a lot of black people that would be uncomfortable with me claiming it. Is it unforgivably racist of me to say that the whole problem with music today is that white music has strayed from its black roots (and perhaps vice versa)?
To ABF # 27 above,
Hey-
I am 67, I agree with you completely7. But you can get a lot of this music very efficiently and inexpensively by buying album downloads of mp3's at Amazon.
You need to look for the largest possible purchase, preferable multi-"disc" best of's, etc, so that the price gets down to around $0.50/ track. Even if you then trash some tracks that you don't like, you are way ahead.
Then, if you need to fill in a few tracks you can at the track price.
I just added two tracks by Bruce Springsteen to my 3 disc purchase. Then, I "stuck" them in the album on one disc by changing the ID-3 tagging.
>>RSM
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