I feel like I grew up in the best time frame. Born in 1984, I have little memory of the USSR as anything other than a big blob on a map. Some of my first memories, in fact, are of the gradual fall of the Communist bloc. After that, I had computers without the lifestyle (for the most part) tethering me to them. I had a concept of the Free World getting better and better all the time, with open global borders and a booming economy. Technological breakthroughs were coming hot and heavy every day and the environment was going to be taken care of by the end of the week! Terrorists? They were all on airplanes or in weird places around the Middle East.
Go through the 60s? As a queer man? Ohmygod no! You either end up a closet case, terrified at every shadow, or a Capote, pickled in brine by life. I’m gonna gimme my love for the nineties.
My mom, class of 1971 and as much of a hippie as one could be in rural Kentucky, has always resented a lot of the nostalgia for the late 60s. For her, protest songs and being part of an anti-war counterculture were a response to something very real–the fact that her brother and her boyfriend (later my dad) were prime material to be snapped up and shipped around the world to die in a war nobody understood. It had already happened to her friends’ older brothers. So where I might look at 60s youth counterculture and see vitality and spirit and something new being created, she just remembers how afraid she was.
I think it’s hard to be general about this. I would have given anything to have access to the Internet as a kid and teenager, but everything else about being young in the last decade seems like a downside.
Whatever generations had were able to benefit from some sort of expansion, without any particular fear getting butchered in a war, would seem to me to have had the best time. This, of course, assumes that you are in a position to reap the benefits of such times. The early twenties must have been pretty good, as well as some of the latter part of the 19th century.
The 60s were a mess; if it hadn’t been for the music, we probably would have all gone mad. Maybe we did go mad. The fifties were better, I think, after McCarthy and Korea were out of the way, and rock 'n roll got picked up by white America.
I can’t help but think that any generation that grew up before nukes entered the picture had to have had it better than those that have come since.
Yes, I am. You don’t seriously think buying “Revolver” was some near-religious experience while buying “The Joshua Tree” was just a mindless consumer decision? Somewhere, John Lennon and George Harrison are laughing at you. Thirty years from now, people from my generation who are both shameless and stupid will be talking about how special things were when THEY were kids because by God they had Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” while the music of the 2040s is just noise.
This “The 60s were the Age of Aquarius, man!” stuff is ridiculous nonsense, pure nostalgia made up by geezers who can’t accept the fact that they’re old and the world has mostly passed them by. The vast, vats majority of people who grew up in the 60s were not at Woodstock and weren’t involved in the civil rights movement. (Those who WERE at Woodstock spent the majority of the time wallowing in the mud, bitching about it, and looking for food or smokes.) Most of them were dorks who took accounting classes, wore uncool clothes, and spent most of their time worrying about zits. Just like today.
Baby Boomers enjoyed the Sexual Revolution, the emergence of new genres of music and culture, and improved attitudes towards racial minorities and white women. Their children and grandchildren presently enjoy the Communications Revolution, the emergence of new genres of music and culture, and improved attitudes towards sexual minorities.
I do wonder if Baby Boomers were able to jump into careers easier than later generations, which means that young people were probably more secure about their futures back then than we are now. Back in the day, it was possible to make it to at least middle-management without a college degree. Nowadays, it seems like at least some post-grad work is required to advance. The days of the plush union factory job for a kid straight out of high school are no more. But I think on the face of it, kids have it better now. They have all the benefits the 60s gave their parents and then some.
I would rather be a teenager today than in any decade of the twentieth century. There is no draft, less racism than ever before, and no energy crisis. Also, despite what other posters have said, you can wear whatever you want today more than you could in the 60s or 70s. Flip-flops, sweatpants, pajamas, thongs and boxers are commonplace in college lecture halls today, but would have provoked gasps in the 60s. Heck, girls are wearing flip-flops to the White House these days.
Another reason I would prefer this decade is the greater accessibility of information. Its great to be able to walk around with your Ipod, listening to music any time, anywhere. With the internet, today’s generation can access a limitless amount of information at their fingertips. Entering a term in your google toolbar gets you information that once required a trip to the library.
I’m just saying that relatively speaking, the Beatles and Pink Floyd are, to me, the only two bands that had massive audience appeal yet also consistently put out excellent records. Combining the two is the only way to make it a truly cultural experience, as without both appeal to myself and appeal to the mass audience I’d feel like I was sitting alone listening to the record myself or, well, not buying the record at all.
Then again, I’m not one to attach massive cultural meanings to my music purchases but if I were, the Beatles and Pink Floyd would be the only ones I’d feel as if I were partaking in something bigger than myself in doing so.
I think this time is good to be at least a teenager, think about it, in the 60’s you couldn’t date someone from another race without questionable looks or the turning of heads, at least in this age I can go out with someone with browner looking skin (which is my preference) without much fear of reprisal.
And looking like a disgusting slob makes the world better, how? Taking some pride in your appearance, if I recall, can be fun.
Me, I don’t think any generation of teens has it better or worse than any other. Each generation, from my grandparents in the 1910s to mine, has its advantages and disadvantages. The people who have always had it best are the rich; whichever ethnic/religious group is in power in your country; the pretty; the healthy.
The answer is different for each economic/racial group and country.
In the USA, this is probably the best time to be a middle class “Teen of Color” as the past has been bad.
If you were a middle Class white kid the 60’s were pretty special unless of course your lottery number came up and you were whisked off to some strange jungles. “Free Love”, “groovy music”, low cost College", “A spirit of empowerment”, etc.
For geeks, the late 90’s had to be special. The internet changed the geek world.
If you happen to be Native American, you are probably thinking in terms of Pre-1493.
If you are rich, then as you say almost anytime.
Right now is a tough time for kids. You are less likely to have the freedoms growing up that my generation did. Kids spend a greater percentage of time in School and aftercare programs than kids of earlier generations did. School appears to put greater demands on kids. There is far more homework than I had at a comparable age. To get a fairly good job is requiring more college than ever.
Jim
That’s your personal opinion with regards to the music you like - I disagree, for one - and doesn’t really answer the OP or prove that it was better to live in one period over another. With respect to YOU, it’s quite valid; with respect to a generation of kids it means very little. Millions of teenagers like neither band. Kids in the 1980s felt exactly the same way about U2, Michael, Prince, or any number of bands that kids in the 60s felt about the Beatles, the Stones, or the Beach Boys. Kids in the 1990s felt just the same way about Pearl Jam that kids in the 70s felt about Pink Floyd. And Elvis Presley is an order of magnitude more popular and culturally significant than Pink Floyd, so we have to talk about kids from the 50s, too.
^^^I’m gonna hijack a bit here. Question: Do you honestly truly believe that U2 and Pearl Jam pretty much changed the face and tone of music worldwide the way Elvis and The Beatles did? As much as I enjoy both U2 and Pearl Jam, and Prince (and like MJ up through “Thriller”), I don’t think so. In fact, I know they didn’t, though MJ and Prince and Nirvana came a hell of a lot closer than your two examples.
End of that hijack, and a half-ass theory I have that is not new or original.
I truly think kids, young adults, etc., in the 60s had more of a communal experience whenever a Beatles record came out simply because the world was “samller” then. As far as electronic outlets, they had TV, the movies and music. Today there are half a dozen new diversions (video games, computers being the big two) to take young people away from that sort of massive communal experience.
I doubt very much that kids of the 90s/00s, 40 years from now approaching their 50th or 60th birthday will recall the excitement of buying a record. I think their nostalgia will be more for the things I mentioned–the first (FILL IN THE NAME OF A MASSIVELY POPULAR COMPUTER GAME), the early days of the internet, or for the older ones the early days of MTV. Things that in their lives truly did change the direction of an artform or discipline.
In fact, I doubt there can be another “Elvis” or “The Beatles” – groups so different/innovative/at the right place at the right time/whatever that they change the face of the recording industry and spawn imitator after imitator.
But, I’m likely not to be here to see 40 years hence, or else too old to care what the middle-agers are nostalgic for.