music and nostalgia

Being the age that I am now, I often find myself wondering about things from an older generation's point of view. It doesn't seem that long ago that I was in my twenties and really only able to see things from that perspective, and here I am looking at things from my forties.

Earlier today, I had the television playing in the background and the band Chicago was performing for a Brain Boitano skating special. And it made me think of songs of theirs such as Saturday In the Park and Colour My World which evoke feelings of nostalgia in me; another example I can think of is the song Maybe It's You by the Carpenters, which I discovered on YouTube last year. Hearing such songs brought me back in time, as so many of us are transported back when hearing songs from our pasts. And yet I wonder how such songs are taken by the younger generations should they hear them.

Or considering the Beatles who broke up more than 15 years before my nieces and nephews were even born. If I were to go back 15 years before my birth... let's see, what music was popular in 1948? By the time I was growing up, rock and roll was popular and I don't think that it's quite as big a stretch for the younger generations to listen to as it might have been for me had I gotten into what my parents were listening to when they were my age. Perhaps on the radio and before home phonographs.

I can recall my eldest nephew wearing Led Zeppelin and Cream t-shirts as a teenager. Yet I wonder what effect oldies music has now - or music in general. And not just the music itself but the role that modern technology plays in how people listen to music. The vinyl record is antiquated, and compact discs are even getting outdated with music being available online and directly uploaded to iPods and the like.

I hate to think that the music that meant so much to me growing up can't help but slowly be forgotten, but that's just a consequence of time going by.