Bands That You Can't Believe are 15 or More Years Old (The 'Dang I Feel Old' Thread)

This comparison won't mean as much unless you were into music in the 80s, but in 1987 St. Pepper's was issued on CD for the first time and the tagline for the campaign was (of course) "It was 20 years ago today..." (they matched the release date of the reissue to the date of the original release). And I bought it the day it came out, and at that time the 60s seemed like a long time ago and an entirely different world (I was 17). And now the day of that reissue is 23 years ago. And "20 years ago today..." would be 1990, when the Black Crowes put out their first album.

Which now feels like the Dark Ages, or at least pre-Enlightenment.

Did folks who were 30 in 1980 feel the same way, I wonder? Or did they see the spectrum of music they'd lived through I a different way...

The Beatles' reissues charting in 2009 is like if the original recordings of "Over There," "McNamara's Band" and "The Darktown Strutters' Ball" had charted in 1963.

It almost makes it seem like pop music has largely stagnated!

depressed when I learned today that Eminem is 38

haha I bet he's more depressed about that fact than anyone.

I got this the other day about Nevermind, which was compounded by the realization that when Nevermind came out, albums that had been released 20 years before included Led Zeppelin IV and Janis Joplin's Pearl, both of which seemed like dusty artifacts to me at the time.

― kkvgz, Wednesday, October 6, 2010 9:07 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark

yeah, this is always kind of disorienting. i said something similar on some other thread a while back. like, when i was a kid in the 1980s, the music of the late sixties and early seventies seemed ancient, though "classic rock" was everywhere, it seemed like the artifact of some vanished civilization. both cool and weird for that reason. but the music in question was only 10-20 years old at the time. and when i think now of the music i loved best in the late 80s and early 90s, it still seems "contemporary" to me. this despite the fact that the distance from here to zen arcade (26 years!) is MUCH greater than the distance from thriller to sgt. pepper's (only 15 years). doesn't seem possible...

Pop culture has sped up, atomized into countless subcultures and perpetually regurgitates itself in the 24/7 media cycle of the Internet age. Welcome to the future!

Very retro of you to say that.

I still remember Madonna as something new that sort of came on the market after most of my (then) favourite acts, so it is kind of amazing she's been having hits for 27 years or so.

I mean, as in, 1985-86 was when the chartpop world I grew up with started tumbling down, and acts like Madonna, Pet Shop Boys, Whitney Houston and others whose breakthrough was after what I still consider to be "the golden age" ("Holiday" didn't do much here initially, so "Like a Virgin" in late 84/early 85 was the first time I heard of her), well, they still feel like pretty much "modern" artists to me.

When I really want to depress myself, I play this little game called "Where Was Paul?" I started doing this when I was 13 and read that Paul McCartney lost his virginity at age 15. So I told myself that I had two more years.

And then, I reached the age he was when he formed the Beatles, when they came to America, when they did Sgt. Pepper, when the band broke up.

Right now, I'm the same age he was when he released "Back to the Egg". I'll tell ya, that one hits like an arrow through me.

I am still younger than he was when he did "Tug Of War", and that remains my fave solo Paul album. :)

As far as time slowing down between Buddy Holly and Led Zeppelin compared to Jagged Little Pill and Jay-Z, it's good to hear I'm not the only one who's noticed this. I couldn't tell whether it was me getting older and it not being 1993 anymore, or if popular music was remaining much more static than when it was first available to the masses.

You younger folks will have to share with me. Do you get all misty-eyed when you think about those halcyon days of 2002, cruising down the highway listening to Rilo Kiley? Does it seem so far away like 1972 does to 1980? To me, it feels like last week.

That said, pictures like these break my head. What happened?

http://rosemaryx.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/blonde-redhead.jpg

Not bands, actually, but it occurred to me a few days ago that the hypothetical children of the people in the cast of The Real World's first season are nearing the age where they can appear on The Real World themselves.

If I keep this up, I'm going to start being the guy forwarding those "Today's college freshmen don't remember the Persian Gulf War!" e-mails.

As far as time slowing down between Buddy Holly and Led Zeppelin compared to Jagged Little Pill and Jay-Z, it's good to hear I'm not the only one who's noticed this. I couldn't tell whether it was me getting older and it not being 1993 anymore, or if popular music was remaining much more static than when it was first available to the masses.

yeah, i'm totally with you there. distance between 1955 and 1985 = 30 years. from ground zero for rock, soul, r&b, etc. to a point where punk, prog, disco, house, rap, minimal, industrial, and just about every other significant contemporary musical form had been invented. the last 25 years seem much less dense with invention - which probably means that the invention has been more subtle & technical. or just that it's harder to see the overall shape of trends when you're still immersed in them.

Tapes n Tapes

grime

ummmm Built To Spill & Modest Mouse I guess

Is 15 years really that long?

I just thought it was weird recently when I realized my grandfather probably heard Hank Williams at the same age when I first heard OK Computer.

I also recently found it strange that Wilco was on Beavis & Butthead.

Weezer's Blue Album is about as old today as The Cars' first album was when the Blue Album came out.

http://i53.tinypic.com/2woapvb.jpg

the last 25 years seem much less dense with invention - which probably means that the invention has been more subtle & technical. or just that it's harder to see the overall shape of trends when you're still immersed in them.

Or that pop music in its current form has run out of gas.

'70s nostalgia : 1990s :: '90s nostalgia : 2010s (when I am tempted to say ______ was better in the '90s, I remind myself of how sad the 1970s-obsessed sounded when I was a kid in the 1990s)

Of course, if you are still obsessed with the '70s now, that makes it the equivalent of stanning for the '50s in the 1990s. And '60s='40s.

As far as time slowing down between Buddy Holly and Led Zeppelin compared to Jagged Little Pill and Jay-Z

????

Jay-Z's first album came out only a year after Jagged Little Pill, while Alanis was still spinning off hits from it.

I am still younger than he was when he did "Tug Of War",

!

That said, pictures like these break my head. What happened?

Broke my head too, cos I thought that guy had three arms.

God bless Grey Greyhead btw.

Who is Pleasant Plains' picture of anyway. I dont recognize them.

An even sadder game to play than "Where was Paul?" is "Where was John?" because, by my age, John was fucking dead.

When Lennon died, a couple of singles from his most recent album entered the singles charts, along with a reissue of a less than ten years old song that was his most famous solo song.

When Michael Jackson died, pre-teen fans filled the singles charts with re-entering Michael Jackson songs that by 2009 were older than the American rock'n'roll records John Lennon grew up with were in 1980.

Who is Pleasant Plains' picture of anyway. I dont recognize them.

That's Blonde Redhead.

Oh okay, I was like, well that's almost two Beasties and someone from Cibo Matto, but not quite.

A friend of mine was working at a fresher's week event and they were playing Snap's Rhythm Is a Dancer, which made sense to me until I realised it was as old to them as Superstition or Walk on the Wild Side were to me when I was a fresher.

Cat Power
Built To Spill
Palace (Will Oldham)
Guided By Voices
Ween

http://www.musicdirect.com/shared/images/products/medium/nirvana_nevermind.jpg

This guy turned 19 this year.

technically my first cameo was late '88,first release was 1991...umm i cant do th math..so sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeepy

My favorite album of all time might be Meat is Murder. I think of the Smiths as (sort of) contemporaries, sort of "of our time." That album is the mid-point between now and Bill Haley and His Comets (1960).

Good reference points!!

Spiritualized & Spectrum have been around three times longer than Spacemen 3 was

There are people in high school now that were born AFTER Dookie came out.

How strange it is in retrospect that they had this bizarre second career writing rock operas. I graduated in 2004 but remember these guys from middle school during which they were just another Blink-182/Alien Ant Farm/Everclear type band

That was career 1.5. (Career 0.5 = "We're on Lookout and we have fans!" Career 1 = "So are you and the Offspring the true face of punk in 1994? Do you hang together?" "Um.")

I graduated in 2004 but remember these guys from middle school during which they were just another Blink-182/Alien Ant Farm/Everclear type band

poor green day.

i mean there's no love lost between me and them considering what they turned into this decade, but still..."another alien ant farm"? poor green day.

forgot to mention the Offspring in there

at the time I had no idea that Ant Farm was terrible, in fact I actually thought "Smooth Criminal" was an original and that it was quite good

But see I link Green Day in my mind with the, lol, "neo-punk thing" off 1994 with them and Rancid and Offspring. Alient Ant Farm and Blink were of like a totally different generation.

"of 1994"