Another current thread asks for “Songs that must be played full blast.” I just made two lists of the songs that have been mentioned so far: Songs I have Heard Of and Songs I Never Heard Of. There is, of course, some duplication in both lists. But I have heard of only 40 of the songs. The other 429 were new to me. Whatever happened to the Andrew Sisters?
I’ve not read that thread but upon opening this one, I did a quick perusal of it and would say I recognize maybe forty to fifty percent of the titles listed therein but music’s hardly passed me by and is actually my biggest passtime and has been for a couple years now. I just happen to listen to artists that don’t get a lot of widespread play and am not that familiar with those that do.
I love The Beatles, like some Zeppelin and Floyd, and can tolerate Rolling Stones but my most often played musicians are K’s Choice, Sarah Fimm, Tegan and Sara, Tool, and the aformentioned Beatles and some favorites besides them are The Romanovs, Amanda Ghost, Pretty Balanced, VAST, and Xavier Rudd. Of those ten, only two are famous, another two are on the bubble, and the remaining six range from pretty obscure to fairly well known inside their circles but not out.
Just listen to what you like and ignore the rest. That’s what most of us do.
OTOH, I know I can list most of my music and most people here wouldn’t recognize 10% of it. There is just too much stuff out there for you to know it all. As already said, just listen to what you like. Keep your ears open for new things, but don’t feel bad for not knowing the top 20 of this week.
Music passed me by going about 90 mph with its bare ass hanging out the window before I learned to walk. By the time I was in elementary school my favorite singers included Al Jolson, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Burl Ives, I loved anything by Scott Joplin, and I was listening to the soundtracks of musicals that had closed a decade before I was born, so I’ve always been out-of-synch. That’s nice now, because friends in their 30s and 40s are starting to feel old at all the bands they once loved who are now looking wizened, and all the hot stars who are young enough to be their kids, the whole new genres of music they can’t relate to, etc., and since I showed up to the party that way it never hit me. (Kind of like being fat in high school was nice in retrospect- I’m still not thin but I weigh probably 20 or 30 pounds less now than when I was 17, so when I see a former classmate who looked like Zac Efron then but now looks like John Goodman, I can chuckle contentedly.)
I have some bad news, I hope you are sitting down. Laverne died 40 years ago and Maxine 12. Good news though, Patty is still alive.
Music passed me by in the 90’s. The three latest albums I have bought have been by John Fogerty, who first became popular in the 60’s, and by Bruce Springsteen and by the Eagles, all first popular in the 70’s.
Music passed me by on April 10, 1970.
Pfft! You know Paul’s really dead, don’t you? 
Music passed me by in the late 1980s. By about the end of 1987 there wasn’t much new music that I could identify with, and I stopped paying attention, turning to the discovery of older music instead. Since then, I’ve acquired over five thousand CDs of music from Glenn Miller on up. There is still so much music I haven’t heard yet that was made during my life. I’d rather play catch-up than listen to anything on the radio now, new or old.
I counted until some point on the second page, when I got bored. Not counting albums and secondings.
Songs I recognize by titel, or if I put it in the disc player: 113
Songs I don’t recognize: 131
Songs I dont count since they should never be played, let alone turned up: 1 (Fergie - Fergalicious)
Anyway, I don’t think that this is such a good measure. It would be better to look at the top200 song list form here: http://acclaimedmusic.net. Hopefully you know more than 10% of those.
I’m 30 and I don’t believe it’s passed me by yet. True, I no longer buy all the music papers and magazines like I used to when I was 18, and the bell-curve of my CD collection peaks around 1995, but I still know what’s going on and who’s who, at least in the genres of music I listen to.
I don’t necessarily know who the latest R&B, rap or X-Factor-style artists are, but frankly I never gave a crap about them anyway, so what’s new?
I consider music to have passed me by when Weird Al Yankovic released “Poodle Hat” and I could no longer recognize the songs that were parodied. The only one I knew was “Ode To A Super Hero” which was a parody of Billy Joel’s “Piano Man.”
Music tossed me aside like a used Kleenex right around '89. I stay happy digging around for the worst of the sixties, seventies, and eighties, and I’m beginning to appreciate some old-fashioned country as well. My great-grandma and I can actually enjoy much of the same stuff.
I was recently surprised to find out that I like Johnny Cash. You know, I’m only 37 years old! This is just weird.
Signs that music has passed you by:
[ul]
[li]You don’t recognize any of the songs or styles Weird Al is parodying on his latest album [nods to cochrane][/li][li]You think of MTV as that channel that plays music videos[/li][li]You don’t recognize the person on the cover of Rolling Stone[/li][li]You wonder what all those "feat."s on the pop charts mean[/li][li]You were in a car crash and you lost your hair[/li][li]You’ve never heard any of the music that was nominated for this years Grammys, and you aren’t even sure what all the categories mean[/li][/ul]
That was about the time I stopped listening to the radio, or hearing new music through the “standard” sources. I still try to keep up, and I have discovered lots of artists, old and new, that I like a lot, but I buy albums more on the strength of good reviews and recommendations than from already having heard and liked the songs on them.
And so there are huge random gaps in my musical experience. I’ve heard “Hey Ya” plenty of times, but I couldn’t tell you anything else OutKast has done. And I keep meaning to someday find out what Radiohead and the White Stripes sound like.
I understand that cds are being phased out in favour of downloaded music files.
I own five cds of music, most of my music is still on vinyl.
I’ve been passed by for two generations of recording media…
This is me, except for the country part. (I wish we had a yuck smiley). But of the more recent artists, all my favorites are…well…not mainstream. A lot of “Celtic”, some popera and some classical-type.
I like music that makes me laugh. Mmmmmmm, cheez!
Most of the music I like is from the 60s and 70s, and I was born in '82, so I guess music didn’t so much pass me by as I walked backwards. I have a perverse preference for vinyl records and my first favorite musician, at the age of 8, was Joan Baez.
I remember seeing a commercial for a radio station that said, “It’s not your little sister’s music!”
Except that the songs they were playing were, in fact, my little sister’s music. My ten years younger little sister.
I’m not sure what that means. What type of station was it? By “your little sister’s music” were they referring to boy bands like NSYNC and pop tarts like Britney?
Anyway, while we’re on the subject of boy bands and pop tarts, I’d have to say that in 1999 and 2000 when acts like that seemed to be everywhere was when I realized the music industry didn’t want my business anymore. The only listeners they seemed interested in were girls between the ages of 10 and 14.