Van Halen released their first new album in 14 years last year, which debuted at #2 to good reviews, and their 2012 tour was the eight most lucrative tour of the year. Not exactly forgotten.
How many “average” people, especially of the “younger” generation, can name more than one Van Halen song - besides “Jump” - without secretly looking it up on Wikipedia? Not all that many, I’d suggest.
I’m not in the younger generation, but most of the people I know (in my mid-50s) know plenty of Van Halen songs. They’re played all the time on classic rock stations. If you’re a certain age, you keep up with them. They had a highly-publicized reunion with Sammy Hagar in 2004 and picked up again with David Lee Roth in 2007. If you’re a rock music fan in general, they haven’t disappeared. I can understand how someone born after about 1990 may not be familiar with them, but as with anything, YMMV. They’re about as “forgotten” as Aerosmith, I’d suggest.
- 14 years is a long time of nothing much.
- “Good” reviews doesn’t sound too memorable.
- A lucrative tour full of nostalgic sad middle aged rockers in black t-shirts, I’m guessing.
To be fair Van Halen may have slightly more name awareness than most of their contemporaries to satisfyingly illustrate my point, we could probably nitpick the details and not get anywhere. My point was that when you live through their heyday, especially as a fan, they gain more prominence in your memory than they objectively really had, both at that time and especially in their waning years.
I still have to reject the assertion that Van Halen is forgotten. I’ll concede they are largely a nostalgia act now, but saying they are forgotten is like saying the Beatles are forgotten because a few people didn’t know Paul McCartney was in a band previous to Wings. And yes, the Beatles were more well known and had a bigger influence on the world than Van Halen. But still, the subject of the thread is well-known pop references and I’d say Van Halen qualifies. I would be genuinely surprised if I personally ran into someone who didn’t know who they are.
I’ve been sewing for over 50 years, and I’m quite familiar with the word. But if you never worked in or patronized JoAnn’s, Hancock Fabrics, or a similar establishment, I can understand not knowing the term.
Is sewing even taught in school any more? I used to make a lot of my clothes, but I’m not sure my daughter can even thread a needle.
This only tangentially applies to this thread, but I worked with an engineer almost 30 years ago - a degreed mechanical engineer from University of Kentucky - who didn’t know what angle iron was. 
I’m an aero engineer. My materials background was primarily aluminum, and even* I* knew what angle iron was. I’m not going to put all the blame on UK, tho - this guy was a flake in many more ways.
Or a certain Bellamy Brothers song?
I knew an American over here who is from Baltimore and has a master’s degree in journalism. So it is inexplicable to me that he had never heard of HL Mencken. He seriously had not. I was reminded of him when I saw a Mencken reference in another thread.
Although he grew up in Baltimore, his master’s was from a small school in Boston, and his bachelor’s degree was in a non-journalism-related field. But still that seems incredible. I see him around from time to time, but he has some serious mental problems and has in fact been in and out of psychiatric wards in Bangkok. He absolutely refuses to leave Thailand, but it would be the best thing for him. I see his writings in the paper occasionally. He writes freelance, considers himself quite the storyteller, but his stuff is pretty innocuous tourist fluff for the most part, with no insights whatsoever. The last I heard, his main job now is teaching English at some school he managed to wheedle his way into. Strange little guy, to say the least.
This is news to me, and I’m old enough to remember when Van Halen was a current, popular band. I’d be a bit surprised if an American over the age of about 30 hadn’t ever heard of Van Halen, but it’s my recollection that after about 1992 they weren’t considered “cool” anymore. I’m vaguely aware that they continued to tour and had various different lead singers since then, but I really couldn’t tell you anything they’ve done since For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge. I wouldn’t expect anyone of college age or younger to be familiar with Van Halen unless they were into '80s rock.
“Hot for Teacher” is probably still fairly well known. It (and “Jump”) have been performed on Glee, so some younger people would have heard them that way…although they may not know who the original artist was.
I’m 58, and I can’t name any Van Halen songs.
Huh. I don’t know that this is SO weird. I was certainly aware of what “bowdlerize” means, but until I looked it up just now I had no idea the word was coined from the name of an actual guy.
Re: “Second breakfast”: I’m a bit confused by all the confusion over this, honestly. Even if not familiar with Tolkein, or not knowing of any existing culture which practices it, isn’t the phrase itself pretty damn self-explanatory? No one had to explain it to me when I first encountered it in LOTR with no further context at that time, but I was certainly able to figure out that a second breakfast came after the first breakfast and before lunch.
RE: notions: okay, so people who sew in the 21st century, what DO you collectively call the things, then, if “notions” is an unused, unheard of term? I’ve never heard them called anything BUT notions. I suppose you could say “I’m going to the store to get buttons, snaps, thread, elastic, zippers, rick-rack, and a thimble.” But I bet that’s about as common as saying “I’m going to the store for nylon, polyester, linen, cotton, satin, tweed, and denim,” instead of just “I’m going to the store for fabric.”
I know the term “notions” but I would probably say “I’m going to the store for sewing supplies.”
A quick Google suggests it’s primarily a US/Canadian term.
I’m 31. I heard Van Halen’s name, and saw it in print, even as a kid. Then, even though I have never been a fan of theirs, like any rocker I heard some of their songs, and I think the video for “Right Now” is superb. The early 90s seem like a time when there were many great videos which a non-fan could still enjoy.
Then, of course, there’s that great conversation (“Whose side did you take?”) in the film Airheads.
This explains my astonishment when, as a music seller, we had a seasonal employee, slightly younger than me, who was placing Van Halen and Pink Floyd in the miscellaneous “V” and “P” sections, because she had never heard of either. She only knew anything about Country and Christian music, you see.
I don’t think anyone is confused about the obvious meaning of the term: it’s a meal eaten in the morning between the first meal of the day (first breakfast) and the midday meal. What I personally do not know is whether in the context of the LOTR it’s supposed to have any significance beyond the obvious. Prior to this thread I would have assumed not, that it was just a second morning meal, but the OP seems to suggest that there’s something special about this concept with regard to the LOTR and that one would have to read the books/see the movies to understand this.
I seem to be the only one who remembers the song “Right Now” being in a popular Pepsi ad campaign. But then I watched more TV than most people my age.
I do, too. It was for Crystal Pepsi. Remember that? It was short-lived and has long since disappeared.
Not even “Jump”?
I’m 63 and I can name only two: “Big Bad Bill Is Sweet William Now” and “Happy Trails to You” (their cover of the Roy Rogers-Dale Evans song). I have a cousin, thirteen years younger than I, who is a Van Halen fan; he also likes The Who and Pink Floyd. They don’t appeal to me.
I know a girl like that - she’d no idea who the Beatles were until we taught her.