# Millennials: does rock and pop from the 1970s and 1980s sound "old-timey" to you? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 21, 2018, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/millennials-does-rock-and-pop-from-the-1970s-and-1980s-sound-old-timey-to-you/821675 "2018-09-21T11:49:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Yookeroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yookeroo/32/323_2.png) [@Yookeroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yookeroo)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2018, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/millennials-does-rock-and-pop-from-the-1970s-and-1980s-sound-old-timey-to-you/821675/61 "2018-09-24T02:23:31Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > However, the point that pop music, for the past decade or more, There’s a whole world out there that isn’t pop music. > [@DigitalC](#): > > Its because we reduce a whole decade of shit to the top 20 or so songs we remember from that period. And a reluctance to dig deeper than the pop charts. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2018, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/millennials-does-rock-and-pop-from-the-1970s-and-1980s-sound-old-timey-to-you/821675/62 "2018-09-24T03:44:57Z")
> [@Yookeroo](#): > > There’s a whole world out there that isn’t pop music. People dismiss out of hand pop acts driven by teen and preteen girls, but those acts used to actually be good music. Like, for instance, The Beatles. Wasn’t classic rock the pop music of the 60s and 70s? ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2018, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/millennials-does-rock-and-pop-from-the-1970s-and-1980s-sound-old-timey-to-you/821675/63 "2018-09-24T04:54:43Z")
> [@Baron\_Greenback](#): > > I’ve seen a few of Joey’s reaction videos, I like him. My fave is probably his reaction to Pink Floyd’s The Great Gig in the Sky > > He really, really gets it :D I’m not convinced this is his first time hearing this. And I’m doubly not convinced that he’s never heard “Bohemian Rhapsody” before. It sounds impossible. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2018, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/millennials-does-rock-and-pop-from-the-1970s-and-1980s-sound-old-timey-to-you/821675/64 "2018-09-24T10:41:12Z")
> [@EllisDee](#): > > People dismiss out of hand pop acts driven by teen and preteen girls, but those acts used to actually be good music. Like, for instance, The Beatles. > > Wasn’t classic rock the pop music of the 60s and 70s? To a much larger degree than now, but still, if you look at the charts they will largely consist of motown, soft rock, bubblegum, and disco, depending on era. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2018, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/millennials-does-rock-and-pop-from-the-1970s-and-1980s-sound-old-timey-to-you/821675/65 "2018-09-24T16:10:39Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > I feel like, “back in the day”, they didn’t make as big a deal out of it either. You’d have to check the liner notes to see who the guest vocalist was versus it being part of the song title. Right, it was “Somebody’s Watching Me” by Rockwell, not “Somebody’s Watching Me” by Rockwell feat Michael Jackson, for example, even though it’s very clearly Michael Jackson singing the chorus if you listen to the song. And no, the pop of the 60s and 70s was more along the lines of what pop has always been. Classic rock fell into the niche that hair bands, grunge and metal did in the 80s and 90s- it played alongside the pop, and occasionally crossed over onto the charts, but wasn’t really quite as mainstream as pop was. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2018, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/millennials-does-rock-and-pop-from-the-1970s-and-1980s-sound-old-timey-to-you/821675/66 "2018-09-24T18:33:58Z")
> [@bump](#): > > And no, the pop of the 60s and 70s was more along the lines of what pop has always been. Classic rock fell into the niche that hair bands, grunge and metal did in the 80s and 90s- it played alongside the pop, and occasionally crossed over onto the charts, but wasn’t really quite as mainstream as pop was. Except for the Beatles, though, right? Didn’t the Beatles have all five top 5 pop songs on the charts at one point? Or was that not a pop chart? ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2018, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/millennials-does-rock-and-pop-from-the-1970s-and-1980s-sound-old-timey-to-you/821675/67 "2018-09-24T18:47:23Z")
> [@EllisDee](#): > > Except for the Beatles, though, right? Didn’t the Beatles have all five top 5 pop songs on the charts at one point? Or was that not a pop chart? The Beatles will always be the exception that proves the rule. The 1960s also had the teen driven boy bands like The Monkeys and The Osmonds. I was born in 1980 (Xennial), and _I_ think that the early 80s music is ‘old’. It’s not bad, just old and unlike the stuff I prefer to listen to from this era. I mean it’s great for karaoke though. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2018, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/millennials-does-rock-and-pop-from-the-1970s-and-1980s-sound-old-timey-to-you/821675/68 "2018-09-24T19:01:55Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > I’m not convinced this is his first time hearing this. > And I’m doubly not convinced that he’s never heard “Bohemian Rhapsody” before. It sounds impossible. He’s a young hip-hop kid. I don’t find it hard to believe he’s never heard either track before, particularly _Great Gig_. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2018, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/millennials-does-rock-and-pop-from-the-1970s-and-1980s-sound-old-timey-to-you/821675/69 "2018-09-24T19:08:40Z")
> [@Baron\_Greenback](#): > > He’s a young hip-hop kid. I don’t find it hard to believe he’s never heard either track before, particularly _Great Gig_. I have no problem believing he doesn’t know _Great Gig_. Hell, I’m 43 and listen to a reasonable variety of music (even going through a classic rock phase lasting a couple of years in high school), and I’m only barely aware of that song. It’s not one in Floyd’s canon that gets played a lot out here. On the other hand, I feel like I hear “Another Brick in the Wall” or “Wish You Were Here” or “Comfortably Numb” at least once a week. Not hearing “Bohemian Rhapsody” seems a lot more unlikely to me, but it’s still well within the realms of possibility to me. I don’t remember being aware of that song until I was about 15 or 16, and that would have been 1991 or 1992. It really was Wayne’s World that put that song on the map for me. ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2018, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/millennials-does-rock-and-pop-from-the-1970s-and-1980s-sound-old-timey-to-you/821675/70 "2018-09-24T19:26:49Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > I believe it’s because new music sucks. And I know every older person has been saying that for a hundred years, but now it’s true. Pop music is now completely dominated by formula music sung by engineered artists of marginal talent, with the songs being written by a handful of professional songwriters you’ve probably never heard of. The music is intentionally designed to sound similar, it’s compressed as hell to raise the average volume at the expense of nuance, and it’s totally devoid of anything approaching artistry or individuality. There are exceptions, but they are few and far between. > > No wonder young people are discovering music from a time when individual artistry was still a thing. I agree with everything you said, except the “new music sucks” part. There is still plenty of great music coming out, it’s just not on the radio for the most part. I find good new music on YouTube and BandCamp mostly, and some on Spotify and SiriusXM. You just have to search for it. Go on YouTube, look up some songs you like, and see what else new-looking is in the suggested videos. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2018, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/millennials-does-rock-and-pop-from-the-1970s-and-1980s-sound-old-timey-to-you/821675/71 "2018-09-24T19:30:09Z")
Yeah, from that perspective, there’s just as much _or more_ good music coming out than before. Because back in the day, even if you were tapped into the most obscure labels and tape trading collectives, you wouldn’t have access to as many rock bands as are on bandcamp and youtube today. Now granted, it isn’t as _consistently_ great as the cream-of-the-crop of whatever your favorite genre is, but the absolute level of good songs is higher. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2018, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/millennials-does-rock-and-pop-from-the-1970s-and-1980s-sound-old-timey-to-you/821675/72 "2018-09-25T13:30:00Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > I have no problem believing he doesn’t know _Great Gig_. Hell, I’m 43 and listen to a reasonable variety of music (even going through a classic rock phase lasting a couple of years in high school), and I’m only barely aware of that song. It’s not one in Floyd’s canon that gets played a lot out here. On the other hand, I feel like I hear “Another Brick in the Wall” or “Wish You Were Here” or “Comfortably Numb” at least once a week. > > Not hearing “Bohemian Rhapsody” seems a lot more unlikely to me, but it’s still well within the realms of possibility to me. I don’t remember being aware of that song until I was about 15 or 16, and that would have been 1991 or 1992. It really was Wayne’s World that put that song on the map for me. I agree. I’m 46, and hadn’t heard it until this particular thread. I won’t claim to be a Pink Floyd fan, but I do at least listen to the classic rock radio stations, and I was only vaguely aware of it. Bohemian Rhapsody is one that I think I’d heard once or twice before Wayne’s World came out, but I was more of a thrash metal fan back in those days, so Queen wasn’t quite in my sights. I didn’t dislike them exactly, but they weren’t my preferred style of music. About “new music sucks”, I found myself talking to my wife the other day about how lame the Top 40 acts are- the rap/hip-hop/R&B ones don’t seem to be nearly so lyrically inventive as the acts in my youth, and they’re not really challenging anyone with their content like they typically have in the past, and if there’s anything interesting about them, it’s that they’re kind of obnoxious, a-la Cardi-B. I will say that the mainstream non-rap/hip-hop/R&B pop acts are… well done, if unremarkable these days. I felt very strange; at 46, shouldn’t I be ranting about offensive kid music and the decline of Western civilization and kids these days, etc… instead of lamenting that their music is lame and uninteresting? ---
**Author:** ![NAF1138](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naf1138/32/3245_2.png) [@NAF1138](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NAF1138)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2018, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/millennials-does-rock-and-pop-from-the-1970s-and-1980s-sound-old-timey-to-you/821675/73 "2018-09-25T13:55:09Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I agree. I’m 46, and hadn’t heard it until this particular thread. I won’t claim to be a Pink Floyd fan, but I do at least listen to the classic rock radio stations, and I was only vaguely aware of it. > > Bohemian Rhapsody is one that I think I’d heard once or twice before Wayne’s World came out, but I was more of a thrash metal fan back in those days, so Queen wasn’t quite in my sights. I didn’t dislike them exactly, but they weren’t my preferred style of music. > > About “new music sucks”, I found myself talking to my wife the other day about how lame the Top 40 acts are- the rap/hip-hop/R&B ones don’t seem to be nearly so lyrically inventive as the acts in my youth, and they’re not really challenging anyone with their content like they typically have in the past, and if there’s anything interesting about them, it’s that they’re kind of obnoxious, a-la Cardi-B. I will say that the mainstream non-rap/hip-hop/R&B pop acts are… well done, if unremarkable these days. > > I felt very strange; at 46, shouldn’t I be ranting about offensive kid music and the decline of Western civilization and kids these days, etc… instead of lamenting that their music is lame and uninteresting? I have said it before, kids today are rebelling by making boring music. You can’t go more extreme than what was already there so you go bland to rebel. ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2018, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/millennials-does-rock-and-pop-from-the-1970s-and-1980s-sound-old-timey-to-you/821675/74 "2018-09-25T16:31:27Z")
I once had a discussion with my teenager about music over the decades. I said, you can recognize the 50’s easily enough. The 60’s were more diverse, there was a lot of ‘folk music’ and ‘psychedelic music’. Often, a cheesy organ solo (like in “96 Tears”). The 70’s were noted for ‘horn’ bands. She said, ‘the 80’s always sound so cold and blue’. The 90’s and beyond - I don’t know, that’s over to her. Her favorite music was Rammstein and 9 Inch Nails, now she is a bit more eclectic. She despises popular music, like Taylor Swift and Beyonce. On the thingy in her car, she is currenty playing the music heard in ‘Twin Peaks’ from a couple years ago. I would love to search that car and see if my Duran Duran and Led Zeppelin CD’s are in there! They both mysteriously went missing when she got her drivers license… ---
**Author:** ![Ashtura](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ashtura/32/2963_2.png) [@Ashtura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashtura)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2018, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/millennials-does-rock-and-pop-from-the-1970s-and-1980s-sound-old-timey-to-you/821675/75 "2018-09-25T18:43:08Z")
I don’t know, I’ll have to ask my kids later. I play pandora in the car with a mix from the 80s until now. My kids sing along to all the 80s songs. Love “Shout” by Tears for Fears. Given the recent 80’s songs, I don’t think a lot of, at least electronic music, sounds that dated. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2018, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/millennials-does-rock-and-pop-from-the-1970s-and-1980s-sound-old-timey-to-you/821675/76 "2018-09-25T20:23:26Z")
> [@NAF1138](#): > > I have said it before, kids today are rebelling by making boring music. You can’t go more extreme than what was already there so you go bland to rebel. That’s something to consider… they do definitely seem to be doing much the opposite of what we did at the same age, which means they’re surprisingly mild and well behaved. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2018, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/millennials-does-rock-and-pop-from-the-1970s-and-1980s-sound-old-timey-to-you/821675/77 "2018-09-25T20:52:47Z")
> [@NAF1138](#): > > I have said it before, kids today are rebelling by making boring music. You can’t go more extreme than what was already there so you go bland to rebel. Now we get the horrific Korean K-Pop boy bands. Ugh. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/millennials-does-rock-and-pop-from-the-1970s-and-1980s-sound-old-timey-to-you/821675.md?page=3)