Lately I seem to hear songs from my adolescence an awful lot lately

[conuly]

At the grocery store, when picking up a burger, things like that.

Is this what being middle-aged feels like? You stop hearing the songs from your parents' youth, or today's youth, and start hearing your own youth again?

Comments

[offcntr]

You stop hearing the songs from your parents' youth, or today's youth, and start hearing your own youth again?

Basically, yeah. The Friday night headliner on the Jazz Stage of the Arts Festival I sold at last weekend was called Nearly Dan.

A Steely Dan cover band.

Feel. So. Old...

"Songs played in the style of - "

[nodrog]

Well, now, that can actually be good.  When it shades on into historical re-enactment (“Beatlemania,” and another I've seen even better) it can be fascinating!

[As a trivia example, Billie Holliday had no interest in recording her signature tune “Lover Man” until she heard it performed by a female impersonator who specialized in Billie Holliday!  In effect she heard a virtual simulation of herself and realized how well it worked!]

Update:  My comment title dates from 8-track days:  US copyright laws at the time allowed artist impersonators to record and sell counterfeit current hits.  If you couldn’t afford the actual albums, “Stars On” [On 45, On LP, &c.] and the like were ready to serve your party tune needs!

Re: "Songs played in the style of - "

[offcntr]

Oh lord, yeah. I badly wanted a record of Glen Campbell's "Rhinestone Cowboy," as a youth, and my parents got me a cover version by the Ray Coniff Singers. I still shudder at the memory...

Re: "Songs played in the style of - "

[nodrog]

Oh noo-oo, you're talking there about a whole different concept:

https://www.discogs.com/Various-Soft-Safe-Sanitized/release/1447491

- which is indeed bizarre.

[conuly]

Were they any good?

[nodrog]

Some of them really were!  The “checksum” failed, I mean, you were certainly not hearing what you heard on the radio, but it could pass for a different unreleased take!

[nodrog]

Here's a good example:

https://youtu.be/7cI_yxJ_yf4

Kelly van Hoose Smith is the singing voice; she does Cher for a living.  (Phil Spector dons his shades.)