Am I old? Or was music better in my youth? (1970s-1980s)

[Ken Burch]

81. You're of my era...and I think it's complicated

People always have a natural bond with whatever music was popular when they were teenagers, tied to particular events(when I was 16, there was a young woman I met and danced with at a summer camp run for University of California alumni-my stepfather had graduated from there-and nothing ever happened between us but a few exquisite slow dances-but the song "That's The Way Of The World" by Earth, Wind and Fire will always have a special, bittersweet place in my soul as a result...it would have been "our song", if I'd managed to have us be an "us"...ah well, such is life isn't it?)

But there can be horrible and wonderful music in any decade if you look for it.

When I worked on the Alaska ferries, one of the boats had satellite radio in the crew mess-we had all chipped in for the yearly fee after the chief steward bought the set-and it had channels for each decade. I listened to the Sixties channel, and it played a lot of songs no radio station had played much since the Sixties-and in many cases, there were valid artistic reasons for not playing some of those songs for the next forty years.

for myself

1960s(my childhood)-first Peter, Paul and Mary, then the Beatles)
1970s-soul, the Beatles solo albums, reggae, some punk and new wave because those were genres where they cared about the lyrics
1980s-more reggae, more new wave(big on Talking Heads)ska(the English Beat), Gil Scott-Heron, some stuff on MTV, Billy Bragg, the Minutemen

1990s-Tracy Chapman, a lot of stuff in the Americana genre, Steve Earle,

Not sure about the Zeros and the Teens yet...still processing it.

(I do like Halsey and Hiatus Kayote these days, and some of the neo-folk people)

It's about the ear you bring to it and where you are at the time.

That said, I believe everyone, from ANY generation, can unite in a shared hatred of Johnny Hates Jazz and Men Without Hats.