I feel bad for Generation X and The Millennial's

"Boy the way Glen Miller played.....Songs that made the hit parade.... Guys like us we had it made...those were the days!"

Top trolling.

Proof, if ever it were needed, that look-back bore Boomer audiophiles know nothing about music. 

The Beatles only became interesting once they retired and became a studio band. But do tell us how Help! is better in mono.

I must be lucky being born in 1964. My playlist has music from the 60s 70s 80s 90s and 2000s! How could anyone just like a small window of music when so much great stuff is out there. One song will be Zepplin and the next one Gangnam style by Psy! 
 

Happy listening ! 

Part of the valuation of music was having to pay for it.  I remember trying to decide how much money I wanted to spend from my after school jobs and having to make choices.  I was taken aback when file sharing started and kids were outraged at the suggestion that they should have to pay for music

The boomer sentiment of the OP aside, there´s one thought I keep having:

I actually pity the young generation for having everything instantly available. A sense of historicity is not part of experiencing music and the thrill of discovery is mostly gone.
On the other hand: The amount of people actually caring for these things has always been low.
Being into music and all that this entails changes. I´d also be disappointed if it always stayed the same.

@goofyfoot agreed that streaming is fantastic and getting better SQ wise every day, so yes I am not a Luddite as many technologies are a blessing.

@oregon yup the 50s might not have been all about great jazz there was indeed a lot of shite on many levels, you're right that too much nostalgia is plain dumb.

So sad, they never got to see Lawrence Welk while eating Swanson’s tv dinner with mom and dad. 

@kairosman New technologies have given us life like recordings. DSD 128 is jaw dropping. Listening to music live has and will always be my first choice but my inability to travel as I once did makes it so that I’m dependent on audio playback. We are in a digital Renaissance and I have no regrets.

Gen Xer here, I saw Pink Floyd in LA in the late 70s, David Bowie in Edmonton in the mid 80s, Beck in Geneva in the late 90s, and The Killers in Vegas in the late 2000s, however since then it's been hard to understand/appreciate and thus connect with hip-hop and rap, probably it's mostly me getting old and narrow minded - but then again the Brian Eno/Robert Fripp-inspired band Stars of the Lid from the 2000s sent me down the rabbit hole of 'eclectic' electronica/ambient "New Music". Every year lots of this stuff is produced but never finds a wide audience, nevertheless a LOT of it is fascinating and deeply immersive. My 21 year old daughter listens to Drake on her crappy Beats headphones etcetera and knows nothing about this genre, although kids her age are producing it. It does indeed seem the music scene has been atomized and siloed like so much else has via social media technologies. OTOH when I play her well-recorded "classic" Art Pepper-style jazz on my $$$$ hifi rig she is mesmerized and wants to share that with me, but is of course reluctant to risk sharing that newfound interest with her friends, so there is maybe something to the argument that new technologies and their subsequent market forces have decimated the incentives for music artists or even artists in general, and this has led to a dearth of quality artists/music/recordings.

It makes sense that older folks would have a deep sentimentality towards the influences of their own generation. I suppose it’s human nature to make comparisons based on subjective familiarity. However when I look at Giacometti painting it would seem odd to believe it unenlightened just because it belonged to a period where practices differed from the age of Bernini or Donatello. Yes, music is a vastly different discipline and so this may seem like an apple to oranges comparison however I could say the same thing about Steve Reich and Monteverdi. So in this light, it really isn’t as much about music as it is about popular culture. I was born in 1962 so I am at the tail end of the Baby Boomer generation but I listen to very little music from my generation. I like Sly and the Family Stone, Grateful Dead, etc… but that in itself is extremely limited by comparison to the amount of art music written throughout the centuries. So if I am feeling deprived, than it’s really of my own making. 

I'm a millennial, and honestly there is a lot of truth to what you are saying. My friends and I listen heavily to records from the 60s to the 80s. I remember a lot of cool music growing up in the 90s, and post 2000 you really have to look hard for excellent music. But it still exists.

The difference is that while record companies probably aren't going to own an artist's soul in perpetuity anymore, the economics of music, particularly recorded music are such that few can make it a career. Artist development is not that much of a thing anymore, production budgets are tiny, audio quality is also in a pretty bad state with so many records relying on plugins. I feel more optimistic about electronic artists who can exist exclusively in the digital realm, and that is honestly where most new music that interests me comes from now. Bands tend to be so heavy fried in distortion that I just can't get into the recordings.

People will always defend their turf and get sensitive about generational stuff. I honestly think a lot of it is cope. The reality is that we don't produce true classics like we used to because we don't invest in artists or recordings. I think it also comes with the general decay of culture that happens as commodification and capital eat up everything leaving empty husks. I also wonder as younger people are less likely to own homes, or live in them, that also makes rehearsal a lot more difficult and you might as well become a DJ. This stuff comes in cycles, and I wouldn't be surprised if the next generation of great musicians come from Asia where culture and the economy isn't in such decline.

So yeah, I think you are right that we missed out, but it's always a mixed bag and some things are better now. Boomers had the post-war golden age age where the economy was growing at an enormous pace, a social safety net still existed, homes and education were affordable, and then you had an influx of new drugs etc that made for some inspiration. Our future pretty much sucks, and without that confidence and economic support it is hard to get far in music. But there will always be creative people doing something interesting, and once in a while you get a true genius.

I love how a Generation X person on this thread is sad for the next generation coming up and what they'll miss that he experienced. Hmmm, sounds like the Boomer being sad for everyone who came after them, and of course the Greatest Generation feeling sorry for the Boomers. So I agree with the sentiment that some folks are stuck thinking their music/generation is the only good one and refuse to listen/try new stuff. 

I would happily be a 20 year old again in this day and age. Yeah, I'd miss a lot of good stuff, it might be rough, but I also wouldn't have arthritis, thinning grey hair and ED......

Did I just share too much? 😗

Listen, the live music scene is vital, you're just dated and perhaps a bit jaded. There are two new 3500 and 6000 capacity live event facilities in Boston to go with HOB and the many smaller clubs who are also shifting to at least a partial live schedule. How about the DJ who gets $500K to play for 60mins to a sold out club in Vegas or Red Rocks in CO. What about EDM and festival culture... Coachella, Ultra, EDC who's going to these two/three day sold out events? It's there, it's all around us. Live shows are back with a vengeance and at every level. Young people are buying LPS at a staggering pace and accounting for 70% of LPs sold. That demo is under 30yo. To say that only boomers experienced "all the great music" is total BS. Ever been to a Bruno Mars show. As entertaining as any show I've seen and I've been to hundreds. How about a U2 concert in '87... Gen X repping those shows, hard. How about Taylor Swift, she sold out an entire tour in what, an hour or something absurd. Who's buying all those tickets? Is she not talented? To say it all died with Hendrix, Joplin and Morrison is just narrow minded. What about Nirvana or Pearl Jam... no talent there? Foo Fighters, Adele... endless. 

Why,

they can listen to anything they want on Tidal or Qobuz just like you can.

It isn't that I feel for GenX-ers and millennials because they missed out on some golden age of music.  I feel for them because they can't or don't care to experience the wealth of live music that we boomers saw.  Because there was no Tidal or Spotify we boomers had no choice but to see bands live.  It's those real performances of yesterday that drives my current attempts to recreate those experiences in my living room.  That for me is the frisson of the audiophile experience.  I suspect as well it's those memories of living performers in real spaces that drive other audiophiles as well.

That's the problem with boomers...and that's why Gen X has to clean up all the damage they've done. And I love the 'greatest generation' moniker...classic narcism! 

All good though...no generation is without its flaws.

I was born in 1967. So this Gen Xer bought records. Gen X sees boomers as sell outs and kinda greedy. Parents that wanted to be their children's friends instead of their parents. 

My ex was in the punk scene...she said it was finally a place where boomers just couldn't tread. 

We'll probably be judged harshly by the Millennials. 

But this post is classic boomer sentimentalism. Love it.

Apologies for the cynicism and saltiness...classic Gen X nonsense.

And you walked uphill in the snow to and from school lol with flip flops 

The people I feel sorry for are the ones that are unable to evolve and continue learning and exploring. Most of the time we are unable to fully appreciate the era we come of age in until we have the perspective of years and the context of history. I’ve been to a lot of shows, and yes, there can be something about that interaction with the crowd and the collective energy. But for the most part they’re all a blur. And just to be clear, there were only a very few shows that I attended “altered”, so that’s not the reason.

Having hundreds of years of music at your fingertips is amazing. Having it catalogued and annotated and cross referenced is even better. There’s new music coming out all the time too. This isn’t meant to be a static hobby. You’re only shortchanging yourself. I’m envious of the kids being born today and all the new music they’ll be able to hear long after we’re all dead. 

Sorry but you are dead wrong and stop yelling at the kids for walking on your grass. Every era has great musicians and bands. I think the talent that is out now is the best ever. Go back to our old days and think about the 1000’s of bands and guitar players we never got to hear because the only medium was corporate controlled radio. The access we have to the massive amounts of music today is unprecedented. Yes there are still the bull heads out there that will only listen to vinyl and that is their choosing. They have no idea what they are missing out on. Wont add streaming because it “does not sound like my albums”. Too bad I don’t want my streaming end to sound like records I just want it to sound good and it does! Don’t claim that new music is not good just cause you don’t like it the same you would not want anyone to claim your old music is bad just because they don’t like it. Music is the one and only thing in life that can stand up to time like nothing else can. Like what you like respect what others like but most of all enjoy the music!

they can listen to everything you did and enjoy it for what it is. 

Seeing someone live and appreciating music are not mutually exclusive.  I have a niece and great nephew who both appreciate Led Zeppelin and like classic rock and one's in high school and the other is a few years out of college.

Everything is relative...for example the golden age of the automobile may be now... I just hope none of the K-cars become collector cars for the Mopar or no car crowd.

Genx and Millennials will have the last laugh when we are dead and be saying the same thing about HipHop and Rap… just like our parents said about Glenn Miller and Frank Sinatra.

I'm generation x and not only have my tastes in music changed so has what I think actually sounds good. I prefer CDs but only well recorded and produced copies. 

I'll get into vinyl soon, starting to collect records from estate sales but have yet to get a player. 

What concerns me is the kids now are totally satisfied with the speaker on their phone playing music out loud or a tiny Bluetooth speaker. Expect a lot of really nice expensive systems ( and by then mostly vintage) to be for sale when we are all gone. 

I still don't like streaming as the quality isn't Newark it as good as a CD but I'll do it if that's the only way or maybe on a jobsite where there is other noise anyway. 

Generational chest-thumping is so-Boomer. And pathetic.

You can have some views here.

The younger generation can access more music in one hour than a baby boomer could sample between '64 and '74.

Whatever.... more of the same old my generations music is/was better than your generations music. We all missed Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, etc. 

@larsman well, they were wrong, look at how The Beatles turned out

Too bad that they are younger...

ozzy

Kinda like how people my parents' age felt bad for me because I liked the Beatles and not Perry Como. 

"is lucky if it gets chosen"

it gets chosen ALL the time. That's all I hear. We must be getting wildly different commercials

All the great music from that period is lucky if it gets chosen for a commercial, movie soundtrack or sampled for a pop/rap tune. Then, when the original cut is heard for the 1st time, they will say-Hey that group copied it !

Reality-all of this is an illusion..

@kota1 they will never know

They are feeling bad for you too (NOT)