On musical tastes and one’s place in time
Over the past week or so – nothing to do with my editorial duties I hasten to add – I have chosen to watch specific items featuring popular (rock) music on the television for my own enlightenment and/or pleasure.
I have blogged previously upon my view that, in many respects – whether we like it or not – “the music of one’s youth” (for present purposes I suggest that which one listened to and followed between the ages of about 10 and 40) tends to define the lives of most ordinary, i.e. non-music industry, folk.
There are exceptions to every rule, of course.
I have an example at home.
My own wife still spends a good proportion of her daily life listening (often via the Alexa device) to the pop music of the last twenty years and – disconcertingly – has been known to suddenly burst into word-perfect song whilst driving her car in order to accompany some ditty being warbled on the radio by an under-30 “pop star of the moment” whose entire career output to date – and indeed name – I have never previously been exposed to.
In my own case, if asked, I identify 1985 – over three and a half decades ago now – as the last year in which I ever took note of (or willingly chose to listen to) what could be described “current” popular music.
My thrust is that that there comes a moment is all our lives when – actively or passively – we acknowledge that we’re perfectly happy to live with the accompaniment of the historic “music of our youth”.
This “acceptance” this usually dawns via a growing lack of “connection” with the latest trends in popular music … in my case (and without any racist connotations, hopefully) the likes of hip hop, “garage”, “gangsta rap”, “drums and base”, house, techno, drill .. [ad infinitum].
As a result, these days I never listening to music radio stations and – upon the rare occasions I watch videos and/or play music of any description for my own pleasure – it tends to be from one of the “rock gods” (or groups) who were at their peak at some between 1965 and 1985.
This might explain why – for lack of anything else to do – I recently decided to dip in and out of some of the BBC’s television coverage of Glastonbury. Of those I thereby listened to (and/or saw) by chance – those that most interested/impressed me included Paulo Nutini and the (all girl) American rock group Haim.
One of the reasons I watched Glastonbury at all was to see the performance of former Beatle Paul McCartney. At about a week past his 80th birthday, he was appearing as the oldest-ever headline act to play at this particular festival.
I didn’t quite know what to expect but, believing him to be one of the great popular musical figures of the 20th Century, I had my fingers crossed.
Overall – and I only listened to about 40 minutes’ worth of his nearly three hour set – I gave him no more than 6 out of 10.
It was undoubtedly great to see him on stage “live” at his age (because it was happening at all) but he seemed intent upon playing songs from each and every stage of his career, which meant – for me – that well over half of them I had never heard before.
I guess (deep down inside) I wanted to hear a jukebox-type run through all my favourite Beatles songs and McCartney wasn’t going to do that – presumably because he wanted to try an appear “relevant” to today’s audience.
Which in my view was a mistake.
Separately, a couple of nights ago, I watched the first programme in a series on the BBC devoted to saluting 60th anniversary of the founding of the Rolling Stones. This particular episode concentrated exclusively upon lead singer Mick Jagger.
I’ve seen him interviewed many times before and he always seeks to come across and humble, laid back and “one of the lads”. In this instance, however, whilst he was doing this with careful earnestness, he also gave the impression that he was consciously trying to stress (bring to the fore) his own importance to everything that the Rolling Stones ever stood for and represented.
This morning I came across this review of the programme by Christopher Stevens on the website of the Daily Mail.
Stevens gave the Jagger interview (Mick Jagger: My Life As A Rolling Stone) just 2 stars out of 5 and (you know what?) I kind of agreed with him.
See here – DAILY MAIL
