"He owns eleven pairs of sneakers, hasn't worn anything but jeans in a year, and won't shut up about the latest Death Cab For Cutie CD. But he is no kid. He is among the ascendant breed of grown-up w

uh, no thanks

you mean the part about making your kid listen to sufjan instead of the wiggles? yeah, that was harsh.

honestly who gives two shits about this kind of "lifestyle" trendspotting.

yeah, standards round here are so much higher

haha and complaining about Radiohead records being too "difficult"

if this were the case, the story wouldn't make the grups seem so lame... but the only groups the author manages to namedrop (and with alarming frequency, i'll add) are franz ferdinand and bloc party. that's like saying, 'wow, ppl in their 30s listen to NPR!'.

Then again, that's probably easy to say when you're loaded enough to spend $200 on a shitty haircut, $600 on jeans, and have enough loot to own a loft in Manhattan. I don't have, nor do I want, any of these things. I'm just tired of my job and want to do something different.

(Hey, you think the "average New Yorker" lives in a million dollar loft?)

http://www.babywit.com/bands_1old.html

First of all, there has always been adults who stayed current with culture, be it art, literature, poetry, film or music. They've always been a relative minority, and they still are. Throughout the 20th century, some were categorized as bohemians, beats, hippies, anarcho-punks, avant-garde artists, etc. But they could have just as well been iconoclastic individuals in Kansas or Kentucky who diverged from the norm. The few people who realize that giving up new music is like never reading another new book or seeing a new movie. Personally I think it makes as much sense as giving up sex, eating or breathing. The actual increase in the percentage of people who stay tapped into youth culture nowadays hardly represents a seismic shift. Sure, there's more people into new music now than in the 70s and 80s, when punk and indie shows would more often than not have less than 20 people in the audience. But these people hardly represent a mass movement or paradigm shift. When I go outside on a weekday, I don't see throngs of grups. I still see a sea of suits.

Secondly, very few of these "grups" are affluent enough to afford $600 jeans, especially when they're raising children. Typically, this New York article takes time out to plug a "very hot, hip fashion label" run by Rogan Gregory, who designs jeans that are so distressed and tattered, they're likely to fall apart within a month. The article gives the impression that grups "want the world to know [they] can afford the very best in tattered jeans." Funny, the people I know would be mortified at the idea. They might as well just wear a sign on the ass, "Fashion Victim Lemming." The article winds up by crowing how noble the grups are for quitting their hamster wheel jobs and creating their own destiny by being autonomous and self-employed. They can somehow do this and still afford their posh lofts, babies as fashion-accessories, not to mention health insurance and $600 tattered jeans. Surprise surprise, a New York publication is once again holding up a handful of smug trust-fund babies and crediting them with a trend.

This is so far from reality it's not even funny. It's offensive to the people who do value culture, but can barely make ends meet, or at the very least cannot afford to live frivolously.

"This, of course, is a seismic shift in intergenerational relationships. It means there is no fundamental generation gap anymore. This is unprecedented in human history. And it’s kind of weird."

I think it's just the usual sloppy thinking and research used to prop up yet another ridiculous fashion spread.

Nope, oddly enough neither of them really liked rock (though I love it). I gotta admit that my mom's tapes of funky early 70s Motown and their shared love of 80s synthpop had a definite effect on my musical tastes.

Neither of my parents owned a Beatles record - my dad listened to whatever was popular at the time (he was a disco & yacht rock fan in the 70s), my mom's taste ran to classical, world music, and movie soundtracks (though in the 80s she was into Depeche Mode and The Cure, which further skewed my view of the universe).

When I was around 10 or 11 I discovered Bowie, Queen, Pink Floyd, it was like aliens were raining from the sky. Never liked the Beatles, they always sounded like music for little kids, which is kind of ironic for a little kid to be thinking...

That's definitely something to be thankful for.

In other news, my wife's become a big Arctic Monkeys fan since their SNL appearance. Now my 2 year old daugher walks around going "Listen... artic... monkee!" and 5 year old son has taken to randomly shouting "I don't want to hear you KICK ME OUT KICK ME OUT." So Arctic Monkeys may have a shot at a US fanbase in the under-10 demographic.

No $400 haircuts or fasionably distressed jeans in our house, though.

Haha, at first I thought the shirt said "never trust a baby", which would be much cooler.

Not intentionally, no. Apparently my wife hasn't discovered that particular f-bomb... the heavy Sheffield accent helps I guess. I must thank you, sir, for saving my family from this insidious overseas threat.

The only music I can remember my mom (1951) listening to was Phil Collins solo and Enya. She liked those Gregorian Chants CDs, but I don't remember when that phase was.

It does bear noting that the magazine is called New York, not America or Humanity.

Oh shit, I was just gonna place an order. :-)

My parents were born in 1929. My dad played Hank Williams for me from birth. They didn't like the Beatles, except for "Yesterday." Around 1971, whenever I played Emerson Lake & Palmer's debut (faux classical piano) or Savoy Brown's Raw Sienna (w/clumsy bigband horn arrangements) my mom would knock on my bedroom door and ask "what's that you're listening to? do you call that rock?"

how many people were actually listening to Joy Division and Killing Joke in the 80s?

of course. hmmm. maybe I am too old for this place?

and here I thought I was actually making a point, albeit an oblique one.

Nonsense. If anything, we're all too young.

Not only did my parents not like the Beatles I'm sure neither one of them wore a pair of bluejeans in the entire lives. That changed with the baby boomers, where parents and their children started wearing the same clothes as well as listening to the same music. The previous generation dressed like grownups even when they were dressing down. And their parents, my grandparents' generation, forget about it. Old people looked a lot older back in the day, it's hard to explain, just check out a vintage photo of Eisenhower or Harry Truman. That's what my grandafthers looked like.

god remember when death cab for cutie were a thing? oy. that was the year this country lost its innocence. it only took four years for them to be completely erased from a nation's collective memory. until today. shit, sorry...

I thought you hated the indica & were swearing it off

Oh, man. Gurps is like my Velocity Girl.

― Eppy (Eppy), Thursday, April 6, 2006 3:10 PM (4 years ago) Bookmark

i am dying here

"I thought you hated the indica & were swearing it off"

i gave it away! i AM listening to Barefoot Jerry sing their 1975 hit "Hero Frodo" right now though.