Unpopular opinion: The music of 1968 is so enduring because Baby Boomers have had an outsize influence on culture for decades, and are obsessed with their youth. Plenty of other musical periods were also important, but we almost never hear about those.
Led Zeppelin? Joni Mitchell's Blue? Songs in the Key of Life by Stevie Wonder? These are all incredible cultural touchstones from the 1970's, and we almost never hear about them as "the sounds that evoked a generation" or whatever.
Uh, pardon my take but but who is the "we" in your assessment here? I honestly had Sir Duke playing last night at my NYE party, and I'm in my thirties.
If "the kids" didn't before they surely do now after the amazing use of "Immigrant Song" in a certain recent Marvel movie. (Also featured in School of Rock)
Yes, we have all heard of Led Zeppelin. That is not my point -- my point is that I've seen roughly one million "Music from 1968/1969 is The Best!!!!111" articles / essays / etc in my life, and zero "Music from the 1970's changed the World!" articles, even though Led Zeppelin 4, Joni Mitchell's Blue, Songs in the Key of Life, Fleetwood Mac's Rumours, and a bunch of other amazing stuff all came out then.
I blame my baby boomer parents precisely for getting me interested in their generation's music, if it weren't for them I wouldn't be jamming out to The Temptations right now.
shakes fist mightily
"Damn you, Boomers!"
Also, from the GP:
Baby Boomers have had an outsize influence on culture for decades, and are obsessed with their youth.
I have ZERO reason to believe Millennials will be ANY different when they're old and their time has passed. Us Generation Xers don't care one way or the other. It's our trademark :P
As a fellow Gen Xer, I think we've got a healthy approach to our glory days. Did I like Nirvana and Red Hot Chili Peppers? Yes, yes I did. Do I insist that the world stop so I can indulge in early 90's nostalgia? No.
I think you hit the nail on the head. There are other issues at play (the "pop music" medium was still new so it was super easy to innovate...) but this is clearly subjective.
Here's another unpopular opinion: If you defrosted someone from the ice age and had them sit down and listen to Bob Dylan, they'd not identify it as listenable music. From a musical perspective, it's pretty bad. Limited melody, no harmonies, no counterpoint, limited syncopation, very limited vocal range...
Baby boomers will tell you all of these artists are "great" but I think they're unconsciously talking about the social context around the bands more than the actual music.
>If you defrosted someone from the ice age and had them sit down and listen to Bob Dylan, they'd not identify it as listenable music. From a musical perspective, it's pretty bad. Limited melody, no harmonies, no counterpoint, limited syncopation, very limited vocal range...
As you say, everything is subjective, but I've heard "tribal" music and chanting (which is probably close to what someone from the ice age would be familiar with), and it's a lot closer to Bob Dylan than whomever you would consider "great." Complexity isn't the only valid measure of greatness, of course.
>but I think they're unconsciously talking about the social context around the bands more than the actual music
Maybe. Maybe they also actually like the music. Maybe it's a bit of both, and what you're describing applies generally to everyone, that part of musical taste is wrapped up in the nostalgia for the era it comes from.
You make a good point. Dylan is folk and that obviously has some similarities to tribal music. That being said, I think social context is super important to both styles, more so than musical aesthetic.
I would say that a lot of interesting concepts around poly-rhythms and syncopation come from tribal music though.
> Maybe. Maybe they also actually like the music. Maybe it's a bit of both, and what you're describing applies generally to everyone, that part of musical taste is wrapped up in the nostalgia for the era it comes from.
I agree. My point was mainly that Dylan is a great example to show how subjective "greatness" in pop music really is. There are a lot of cases you can make that he's actually not very good from a musical perspective.
Bob Dylan is a bit of a cherry-pick there, though. He's definitely not a great musician (he's a good songwriter), but The Band, just to pick another example, absolutely are.
But you're right, a huge part of music is the time, place, and people where it came forth.
I agree Dylan is an extreme example and The Band are very good musicians. That said there’s a Dylan like quality that a lot of the music at the time had. Joplin and even Hendrix are pretty rough sounding from a purely musical perspective.
Counter examples would be bands with heavy use of harmony such as Crosby, Steel, Nash and Young or the Mommas and the Papas.
I've had OCD since childhood, and even when I was a kid I noticed that sometimes my symptoms would flare up for a few days, right before I came down with the flu.
As an adult, I contracted Lyme Disease, and one lingering symptom was that my OCD got a lot worse. After 1 month of IV antibiotics (rocephin), my OCD went from a "10" down to maybe a 7 in severity.
I work in a technical field in the US, and my few female co-workers are supposedly in a great position compared to other women in the US. They've got good educations, and make good incomes. However, when it comes time for them to have kids, they still have to scramble around and cobble together a solution that is tedious and expensive and stressful. Every family in America has to figure out how to arrange childcare, as if this whole "people have children" thing is just a brand-new concept that no one else has tried out before.
When government decides that it has zero responsibilities towards helping the next generation, and when the cost of living (and the cost of educating that next generation) is so darn high, women make the completely rational choice not to have children, or to have fewer than they would otherwise like.
America found a way to offer childcare during WWII, when keeping women in work was a priority. But somehow we've forgotten how to do it in peacetime.
Probably not a popular opinion. With the world reaching ~10 billion in population, wouldn’t some in the govt see not offering child care, a good thing for the planet since it side effect encourages people to have less kids?
When I lived in NYC, there was a program where you could collect full unemployment benefits -- all 6 months' worth -- if you were enrolled in school at least half time. I found it tremendously helpful, and it basically got me through 2 semesters of school.
It would be great to have similar programs for welfare, etc. Instead of the work requirements that that are often onerous, and keep folks in dead-end jobs rather than getting an education that will both help them and eventually, get them to be self-sufficient.
Considering the number of GoFundMe's I see for basic medical care, staking one's self-worth on social acceptance is not some weird psychological delusion. In this economy and country, social acceptance is the difference between life and death.
Somewhat ironically, the higher up you get on the socioeconomic hierarchy, the less true that is. Both in the obvious way (rich people have these little tokens called "dollars" that will make a surprising number of people and organizations do your bidding, particularly institutions like hospitals, colleges, and politicians), and in a much less obvious way: the most effective approach to acquiring these dollars is to become the monopoly provider for a good that lots of people need, and if you don't have lots of capital to buy up real estate and such, the most effective way to do that is often to seek out psychological desires that people have but don't want to admit they have (for example, being liked by everyone) and provide that.
Yes, this is part of what makes social mobility hard. To move up the socioeconomic strata, you often have to abandon values that were essential to survival or self-worth at lower levels.
This.
I'm legitimately scared when random guys approach me, as I've had guys grope me, try to corner me, etc in past. Sadly, I feel like these are common experiences for women.
Yeah this reminds me of the Louis C.K. bit: "How do women still go out with guys, when you consider the fact that there is no greater threat to women than men? We’re the number one threat! To women! Globally and historically, we’re the number one cause of injury and mayhem to women. We’re the worst thing that ever happens to them!"
"If you’re a guy, imagine you could only date a half-bear-half-lion. ‘Oh, I hope this one’s nice! I hope he doesn’t do what he’s going to do.’"
Every woman I know has had one of those common experiences -- many times -- but honestly when I was younger man I really had no idea what women go through or the frequency of it. My wife has had more than few things happen to her over the years.
It's weird that he did so much self aware material about male sexual misconduct. That self awareness kind of makes the Louis J.O. thing a lot more sinister.
The ACES study really backs up what you're talking about. Adults with high ACE scores (Adverse Childhood Experiences) have a much higher rate of multiple diseases than adults with low scores. https://acestoohigh.com/
Seconded. Try to get on the "REPAYE" plan, I feel that's the best one. Only downside -- when they forgive your loans after 20 years, you pay taxes on that as if it's income.
Thanks. And yes, this whole thing requires a bit of finagling, which I think unfortunate.
I advise couples w/ debt to rethink formal marriage because of how tax laws are structured. Same goes for those who are married; strategic divorce is a real and sometimes necessary option.
I've had both experiences. I had very difficult home circumstances, and I "overcame" them at a challenging boarding school. Then I "couldn't handle" them in a challenging Ivy League environment, where I felt isolated and developed depression.
I have a few takeaways from these experiences:
1. The difference for me between "succeeding in spite of" and "failing because of" was in a few areas. One, good help being available if I sought it out. Two, being able to find a few niches - academically or in extra-curriculars -- where I could excel and feel mastery. And three, having involved, concerned adults around who cared -- even if they weren't "yours" (not your family, not teachers in your major -- they're still there and they still care).
2. Other peoples' judgments about whether you are "succeeding" or "failing" are, in fact, part of the problem. That's why I put those terms in quotes. Sometimes leaving a bad situation to take care of yourself is success. Sometimes forcing yourself to look good on paper but ignoring your insides is failure. Who knows what's really going on with other people? Not me.
3. Good health care, especially good mental health care, especially good mental health care that looks at the whole body -- these are extremely important.
4. Focusing on resilience is important, but it's only half the story. The truth is, most kids who experience hardships are affected by them, often quite seriously. It's better that we as a society figure out how to reduce poverty and misery to help most kids, rather than figure out how to help a few more kids be the exception to the rule.
We need to get back more to a group mentality, rather than an individualistic rising-from-the-trash-fire mentality.
I think it's very easy to forget that the same thing can both create advantages and handicaps. Take being an outsider in a field.
Being an outsider in a field can be a huge advantage sometimes. You know things other people in the field don't, you aren't bound by the same prejudices and preconceptions as the insiders, and you'll try things no one else would consider because of your radically different starting point. It can be a huge advantage, setting you apart from the crowd and letting you succeed where others fail.
But you'll also make mistakes no one else in the field does, suffer from and for gross misunderstandings of the simplest things everyone else takes for granted (and never be corrected of them, because no one could even conceive you would not know such a basic thing), and waste huge amount of times and money and effort going down dead-end rabbit holes everyone else would discard out of hand.
At the end of the day, most outsiders in a field will fail - hard and fast - because of the handicaps, but every once in a while an outsider will come along and revolutionize a field, because they are an outsider.
The people/environment around the person going through the trauma makes a big difference to outcomes imho. And usually it "takes a village". Because though most people who care will want to help, they each bring different strengths and weaknesses to the table.
It's a magic combo of the different strengths that make a diff. And realising that and raising group consiouness about it I agree is badly needed these days.
