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Torquaymada and “generations lost in space”
That heading quote is from Don McLean’s American Pie and his commentary on post-war until 1971/2 “rock history”.
With the greatest respect to our senior member here, nearing 90, a musical dedication to him coming up later (called Sunday) and accepting that each classical or baroque piece pinpoints in itself a sub-era so to speak, what was the rage at the time … so does popular music of more recent, post-war sub-eras … or in other words, throughout the duration of our own lives.
Part of that has been reestablished contact with my first genuine Valentine’s romance after so many decades now, plus other ladies of various eras … and that has sharply focussed my mind at least on how far a person is always of his/her era, with its thinking process, but also how far he/she has explored other eras and likes or skips past various eras. Clumsy construction but you get the idea.
And into eras and sub-eras comes the modern (though also biblical) notion of labelling a generation … it’s quite possible to do immediately post war but starts to lose its validity into the 80s and has almost diversified into quite different musical camps by the mid-90s, at which point, imho, the music did, finally, genuinely grind to a halt and die, coinciding with the rise of autotuning. It quite lost its way, went dark and satanic, inc. Minaj.
So we’d been through proto-punk, punk, post-punk, techno, disco, grunge, glam … plenty of other genres … and then we get to Britpop:
“Britpop was a British music and cultural movement that emerged in the 1990s. Musically, it produced bright, catchy alternative rock that drew heavily on the traditions of 1960s guitar-based British pop, with lyrics that emphasised national identity and offered commentary on British culture and society. The movement was seen as a reaction against the darker lyrical themes and soundscapes of the American-led grunge and the more introspective shoegaze scene in Britain. It helped bring British alternative rock into the mainstream and became a key part of the broader Cool Britannia phenomenon, which echoed the spirit of the Swinging Sixties.”
I largely missed entire sub-eras after the mid 70s … I was vaguely aware of something called a Nirvana and some teen spirit thing people went on about but I never knowingly heard any of it until exploring it relatively recently. I also vaguely knew of some guy called Kurt and something about him dying … big deal, Jim Morrison and Hendrix had died, Joplin, Sandy Denny. As for Pink Floyd … that largely passed me by, except for Meddle, which I liked.
I did know of The Clash but had never been deeply into “down by the wivver” rock, completely missed Oasis, Queen (except I want to be free) … yet as the 80s became the 90s, I knew MC Hammer, Paula Abdul, Betty Boo, Twenty4Seven, boy bands such as Take That and Backstreet Boys, and of course Ska and Two-Tone … so how had I missed all the rest?
Around 1995, I was on a bus to Blackpool (don’t even ask) with a London girl deeply into Oasis … I’d heard there were two Gallaghers who didn’t like one another, we sat on the beach together, speaking of nothings … maybe she’d heard of Blondie and New Order, maybe even Slade but I’d never knowingly listened to some Guns and Roses thing … seemed to be big in the lives of various young ladies I knew.
And so we finally get to Torquaymada at 1294:5:
“The particular subject may not appeal to all (some might say ‘who cares?’) but this article should be of interest. Our host … often challenges us to ‘dig deeper’ into the multiple offerings and ‘starting points’ proffered here.
Whether you like it or not, this is a masterclass in ‘deep diving’ to my mind…”.
https://restoremag.com/chasing-the-restless-ghost-of-kurt-cobain
I found it fascinating and forgive my plug for NOWP (see navbar above) but there is so much reading there, going right back … there’s our era in real time. And yes, I’m also going to urge people to work through the anecdotes at UHC-WP. If I don’t oush HQ all that much, it’s coz I’m writing much of it.
Now, with your permission, I must revert, briefly, to Don McLean because last night I saw another reaction to him from young people … yes, I much prefer to see how the “old music” affects the young or does not, obviously the things they know nothing of but also the things they’re quite interested in. Dozens of youtube reactors (mainly Millennial or early Gen Zee) are avidly exploring the old and my vintage seems to be going to comments threads to supply primary source info.
To my mind, the whole thing is healthy and if we take that, plus what you chaps and chapesses are supplying here … well I for one am piecing together quite a postwar roadmap of what went on at our level. Sorry to confess to my first romantic love back then but part of it is placing “us” in the wild events, the eras, more accurately, more definitively, seeing just how one summer of love signed off on one era … began another. One day, I’ll write it all up. Maybe.
Oh … here’s that very emotional young people reaction to American Pue. Do give it a viewing please.
