Forum of music lovers
Apr 24, 2024 22:15:15 GMT
Post by blackadderall on Apr 24, 2024 22:15:15 GMT
forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/gen-z-appears-to-have-rejected-the-musical-tribalism-of-gen-x.1200384/
Judge Judy
Hi, Gen X here (54) with a Gen Z kid (17). I remember very vividly that for all of my teenage years and maybe into my early 20s, there was a lot of tribalism among the people who liked particular musical genres, and the battle lines were very clearly drawn. The metal people would not associate with the punk people, who would not associate with the goth people, and so on and so forth. It was very intense, and there was really no crossing those boundary lines.
Today, it seems like Gen Z (as typified by my son, his friends, my nephews, etc.) doesn't care about any of that stuff at all and will listen to anything. They will listen to Rush, then Bruce Springsteen, then Echo & the Bunnymen, then Supertramp, then Ghost, etc., etc. They appear to have no use for any of the labels or boundaries at all, and I have to say that if what I'm observing is indicative of a more widespread phenomenon, then I think that's great. There are people I went to high school with who I became friends with in adulthood, and the only reason we weren't friends in high school was because they belonged to a different musical "tribe" than I did. It strikes me as kind of a shame to miss out on worthwhile people over something like that.
Has anyone else observed this? I hope so because I think it's very healthy and music itself has no boundaries. There's no reason human beings should create boundaries around it in my opinion, and I really do hope it's a relic of the past.
Today, it seems like Gen Z (as typified by my son, his friends, my nephews, etc.) doesn't care about any of that stuff at all and will listen to anything. They will listen to Rush, then Bruce Springsteen, then Echo & the Bunnymen, then Supertramp, then Ghost, etc., etc. They appear to have no use for any of the labels or boundaries at all, and I have to say that if what I'm observing is indicative of a more widespread phenomenon, then I think that's great. There are people I went to high school with who I became friends with in adulthood, and the only reason we weren't friends in high school was because they belonged to a different musical "tribe" than I did. It strikes me as kind of a shame to miss out on worthwhile people over something like that.
Has anyone else observed this? I hope so because I think it's very healthy and music itself has no boundaries. There's no reason human beings should create boundaries around it in my opinion, and I really do hope it's a relic of the past.
And I haven’t been 17 in a long time, but when I was 17 all of those bands (except Ghost) would have been considered really old. Like, Springsteen and Bunnymen were things my mom listened to, my friends and I had our own new, active bands to listen to.
I'm having trouble imagining a 17 year old listening to Supertramp in 2024.
Anyway, I must be older than your mom. I had my 17th birthday in 1980, and any Springsteen fan who knew about the Bunnymen back then would have been considered more plugged in than I or any of my friends were. I didn't know anything about Joy Division 'til about a year after Ian Curtis died.
A couple years later, I was getting into all kinds of shit, but at 17? Nope. Guitars, guitars, guitars, and while I remember some Black artists getting some space alongside classic rock a little, I was too young for true freeform FM radio. It probably didn't exist for long in Pittsburgh in any event..