Boomers for X, Xers for Y?
The Inter-generational Dynamic (or Lack Thereof) in Musical Movements
A few weeks ago, a friend of mine asked me in passing: “Do you realize that James Brown, John Mayall and Leonard Cohen were all in their mid to late thirties by the end of the 1960s” — the decade all three are most associated with? Honestly, I had known that the three of them were born in the early to mid ’30s — Brown and Cohen having both been senior citizens at the time of death, six to sixteen years ago — but I’d never considered their ages within the context of the “Sizzlin’ Sixties” before.
This set me to thinking. How many musical acts whose most famous or seminal output we automatically associate with a certain era and generation were actually of that generation themselves?
Take the aforementioned Sixties bunch for instance. How many of those acts who so enticed and entertained Baby Boomers during the psychedelic ‘hippy’ era of the mid to late 1960s and early ’70s were actually born between 1946 and ’64 themselves? Obviously not too many five- to ten-year olds would have been contributing to the musical pop culture of this period — unless we are to include a prepubescent Michael Jackson, Mormon celibate Donny Osmond, and the fictional Danny Partridge (whose economic conservatism might be called into question!); so that rules out those born during the latter half of the Baby Boom. As for those born during the former half, the majority who contributed were either second-tier recording artists whose relevance has waned over time (Ted Nugent, Burton Cummings, Melanie), or artists whose most seminal and celebrated work came after the era in question (David Bowie, Alex Chilton, Deborah Harry).
There’s no escaping the fact that the vast majority of the great musical visionaries who defined and shaped the era in question were born prior to 1946. Indeed, it bears pointing out that a large number of those generally perceived today as having been the most talented and groundbreaking — e.g., Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce, Ray Manzarek and Jim Morrison, Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart, John Cale and Lou Reed, the four Beatles, Jon Lord, Janis Joplin — were all born between 1939 and 1943. Given their birthdates, it should come as no surprise if some of these artists may have appeared rather non-radical and even a little “unhip” by the early 1970s.
Bearing this in mind — while returning to my friend’s original question — is it any wonder, then, that James Brown backed Nixon in ’72 and that Leonard Cohen took such a conservative stance on matters such as Israel and illegal drugs?
The punk era of the mid to late 1970s presents me with essentially the same question: How many of those tat-wearing, wild-haired musical acts were actually of the Jones ‘generation’ (i.e., born during the latter half of the Baby Boom) like their target audience? Obviously key American figures like The Ramones, Richard Hell, Patti Smith, and the previously noted Deborah Harry were not, all of them having been born between 1945 and 1952.
This is in almost direct contrast to the British punk experience, where the vast majority of the key figures were born between 1955 and 1960. The Sex Pistols, for example, were all born in the 1955–57 range. Three of the four founding members of The Damned were born in 1955 or ’56, with Captain Sensible born in ’54. Similarly, with the exception of the late Joe Strummer (1952–2002), all original members of The Clash (and Topper Headon) were born in ’55 or ’56. Siouxsie Sioux and Banshee Steve Severin were born in 1957 and ’55 respectively. The members of Warsaw, who by 1978 were renamed Joy Division, were all born in 1956 or ’57. Slits vocalist Ari Up (d. 2010) was born Ariane Foster in 1962.
Bearing this in mind — and given the rate of youth unemployment and disenchantment in the UK at the time — should it be any wonder that British punk was considerably rawer, more rebellious, and politically topical? By comparison, American punk musicians were (as someone at Spin Magazine once put it) “leftover hippies” essentially, recording for a more general audience in the rather laidback years immediately following the US’s pullout from the Vietnam War.
You can go so far as to say that, other than the musicians themselves and a handful of associated artists and media people, in the United States (and Canada) there were no punks — there was no scene. This is in direct contrast to the situation in Britain at the time, where the bands were born out of the scene.
This brings me to my own Generation X, unavoidably. How many of those 1980s and ’90s post-punk, hardcore, college-rock and grunge acts that defined the Gen-X alternative era were born between 1965 and 1980 themselves? Obviously the classic SST acts were not, with Black Flag, the Minutemen, Saint Vitus and Husker Du all getting their start in the late 1970s. Even the youngest members of (post-’70s) Black Flag — Dez Cadena, Henry Rollins, Kira Roessler, Bill Stevenson — were all born between 1961 and 1963 — two to four years prior to the Gen-X start point. Similarly, the members of such ’80s college-radio favourites as R.E.M., The Replacements and They Might Be Giants were all born in the 1950s and very early ’60s, with Peter Buck and Slim Dunlap born early enough (1956 and ’51, respectively) so that they could have been part of the original ’70s punk movement. Even a large chunk of the Seattle scene, which extended well into the 1990s, was of late Baby Boom (or ‘Jones’) origin. Most of the core or founding members of The Melvins, Soundgarden and Mudhoney were born between 1960 and ’64. Eddie Vedder (b. 1964) was already the age of Jim Morrison at death (27) when he debuted with Pearl Jam and the Temple Of The Dog project in 1991.
Then there’s Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain. Whereas the likes of Mark Arm, Buzz Osbourne, Chris Cornell and Eddie Vedder were all born between 1962 and ’64, Cobain was born in 1967. This fact is unavoidable, given the constant reminders that he was a member of the ‘27 club’ when he committed suicide in 1994. Ever wonder why some singer-songwriters become “the voice of their generation”? Maybe it has a lot more to do with their being an actual member of that generation than what it does dying young. Born in 1966, Mother Love Bone frontman Andrew Wood may have enjoyed a similar adulation — if he hadn’t overdosed on heroin in 1990 at age 24, before his band’s full-length debut was even released.
Beyond Gen-X’s alternative side, there was the so-called ‘garage rock revival’ of the late 1990s and early to mid 2000s. Arguably the last real movement in Western popular music worth any attention, the garage revival was spearheaded by the likes of The Hives, The White Stripes, The Von Bondies, The Strokes, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. The vast majority of these musicians were from the latter half of Generation X (1972–1980), with 1978 being the most recurring birth year. Given the inter-generational pattern I’ve so far demonstrated (particularly where North American movements are concerned) and the time period in which these bands debuted and flourished, it’s easy to conclude that they were aimed at Gen-Yers primarily.
But wait — it’s pretty much common knowledge that poor taste triumphed throughout Generation Y, and that teenagers (i.e., the rechristened ‘millennials’) were digesting an almost exclusive diet of ‘nu metal’, faux-punk, dance-pop and commercial hip-hop by the early to mid 2000s. Furthermore, a colleague of mine has long insisted that the whole garage rock revival was actually the last major wave of grunge, and was intended primarily for alt-rock ‘holdouts’ from the latter half of Generation X.
The garage bands’ failure to ‘translate’ to the majority of Gen Y may explain the decline of rock music as a commercially viable form over the past two decades, especially in North America. It would seem that American and Canadian youth are so reliant on the parent-child dynamic for education that even pop culture cannot be passed on successfully without the conscious effort of the senior generation. The fact that the ‘new garage’ movement didn’t produce the likes of a Johnny Rotten or Kurt Cobain to be the sociopolitical voice of his or her generation may explain the movement’s rather lackluster place in history two decades later.
So what can we take away from this look at the generational dynamics of musical eras over the past six decades? Well, it would appear that the most successful eras or movements are those that are built upon a generation of musicians performing for their immediate successors. Such a situation usually entails older, more accomplished performers and composers, and therefore the output tends to be of a higher or more challenging calibre, more conducive to influence and capable of lasting the decades. On the other hand, those eras or movements that evolve out of an existing youth clique or social situation tend to revolve around younger, less accomplished musicians performing for their peers. These tend to be briefer, owing to the obvious nature of youth, and their output less polished and less conducive to commercial success and artistic longevity. When tied to revolutionary politics, however, they can easily gain the attention of the media, and a reasonably articulate young man or woman who lyrically encapsulates the concerns of his or her peers can be dubbed ‘the voice of his/her generation’. On those rare occasions when the voice of a generation emerges within an era or movement led and dominated by the previous generation’s musicians, then the young (usually) man or woman not only exhibits a direct lyrical relevance to his or her own age category, but also prodigious musical and compositional abilities that warrant acceptance and admiration by that older crowd setting the trends.
The argument can be made that there are no genuine, grassroots musical movements or eras any longer, particularly where popular music is concerned. Pop music ‘movements’, or rather fads, are now exclusively top-down affairs, conceived of and perpetuated by the same producers, agents and raconteurs who create the ‘artists’ who are credited with making the music. There may still be movements in rock, jazz, country and western, etc., but, if so, I’ll have to leave a discussion of such movements to those who are truly acquainted with them. If such movements still transpire, they are obviously confined to the contemporary version of the musical underground, and definitely off the radar of the mainstream media and their consumers. Such musical forms, after all, were reduced to just shadows of their former selves years and decades ago, their existence no longer synonymous with mainstream airplay and astronomical sales figures.
And meanwhile, at least at the time of writing, dear ol’ John Mayall is still out there somewhere, still doing his thing at nearly 89.
