Mums The Word

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Something I said on the Other Place w.r.t. this BBC article:

If you look at the lists of #1 UK albums it's really only from 1964 that youth-targeted music dominates (and even then the Sound of Music OST is a massive seller in 66-67). I'd guess that listening to and socially enjoying popular music has been primarily an all-ages activity for almost all British history, barring maybe 40 years in the late 20th century. Which we happened to grow up in, so we think this trend is odd.

Is this true, or fair, or significant?

Comments

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

I wonder if there is anything in the idea that when rap, dance music etc. took off this saw a shift away from pop music led by melody, verse/bridge/chorus and other trad traits in pop, which in turn brought about this sense of doom among the older record-buying crowd who at any previous point had been able to digest the new as it still generally followed the rules of the old song-wise. maybe you could throw punk/post-punk stuff in with the dawn of techno. or maybe that doesn't hold water.

i say this because when i was growing up it really DID seem like people my parents age and older HAD lost interest in buying records. in the 80s i think my Mum bought only two albums - Flowers In The Dirt and Introducing The Hardline According to Terence Trent D'arby - and she was pretty with it! Mind you she didn't turn 50 until only a few years ago, ditto my Dad.

this could well be all rub theory as is just based on my own experiences.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I think the BBC article is right to say that some people simply got into the habit of buying lots of records.

I think the huge success of Mojo etc. suggests that the late 80s didn't turn a lot of ppl off forever.