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

[gatheringrivers]

Sadly, yes. :(

I've heard a lot of stuff I grew up with for the last 10 years ish. (but then my music interests have a large range across both time and genres...)

[jessie_c]

It doesn't really get weird until you hear those songs in an elevator.

[conuly]

Well, it's not that sad, though it's rather disconcerting.

[conuly]

Do people play music in elevators nowadays?

[dewline]

Starting to get that sense again of late myself.

[dewline]

Live music? No. Canned stuff via internet is a possibility in some skyscraper-sized hotels nowadays, though.

[loligo]

Every time I hear something like The Clash or Joy Division in the grocery store (and I'm talking big chain stores here), I just have to shake my head. When those musicians were young and passionate and felt themselves to be so very on the edge, did they ever imagine someday their songs would be the soothing soundtrack to buying TP and orange juice?

[conuly]

That's how they know now they made it big.

[topaz_eyes]

Yep. I'll catch myself singing along to the music in the grocery store, too.

[greghousesgf]

I was at Safeway today and I heard way too much current poppy crap.

[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...

[halfshellvenus]

I think the defining moment of horror for me was when I was buying groceries one day and realized that the Muzak was not just a tune I knew, it was freakin' "King of Pain" by The Police.

I could practically hear the clopping hooves of the impending Apocalypse...

Yes.

[bittercat]

I'll never forget the day I heard Talking Heads on a classic rock station. I thought to myself, "Dear Gods! I'm OLD!" LOL!

[wpadmirer]

Yep.

[rhoda_rants]

I heard Nirvana on the "oldies" station earlier this year, and that sent me to a very weird place.

[author_by_night]

Oh, definitely. I'll be shopping and hear "Bills, Bills, Bills" playing and start singing along under my breath.

[malada]

Just wait until PBS starts doing specials on the music of your youth.

W....O.... L... D.....

-m

[sabotabby]

I've noticed that.

Also my students listening to music I like, but it's "retro."

[nodrog]

P J O'Roarke's Bachelor’s Home Companion is a very funny and surprisingly useful book.  He gives a rule of thumb for music to play at house parties:  Determine the average age of your guests, and stock up on what they listened to in high school.  Specifically, decade by decade.

I hear a lot of ’70s played nowadays.  Not all of them; I have yet to hear Loudon Wainwright III’s “Dead Skunk (In the Middle of the Road)” but I'm sure it's an oversight…

[nodrog]

That was the most depressing song.

For the sunlit side of the same object, listen to the title tune from the TV show WKRP in Cincinnati.

"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!

[conuly]

We don't insult other people's musical choices. It's rude.

[conuly]

Were they any good?

[conuly]

YES.

[conuly]

There, there.