The Past? Now let me tell you about the past...

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I'm interested in how people think about old pop. We spend quite a lot of our time here doing polls about it, but nonetheless I'm going to start another thread on it and see what happens.

Two thoughts specifically:

- "Older sibling syndrome": I remember a conversation I had with Al (my younger brother WINOLJ) a few years ago where he was expressing envy at my having "lived through" acid house and jungle. Obviously he was alive between 88 and 95 too, but he meant "paying attention to music". I explained that I might have been around then but I'd hardly been taking advantage of my raving opportunities. Anyway it struck me that, even though I don't have an older brother myself, I also had always had a fascination with the years just before I got into music, the stuff I'd just missed or had absorbed haphazardly via the Sunday Top 40 show. Does anyone else recognise this?

- When does pop stop?: Not many people tick anything in the 1952-1953 Number Ones polls. Fair enough - this stuff is quite obscure. But there's no sense of curiosity either, or not of curiosity in the sense of "wow maybe there's some great old stuff here". It's too far beyond pop as we understand it to excite much enthusiasm. Are there other, more recent, pockets of 'old pop' which are like this for you - sounds and styles whose appeal is lost or baffling?

Comments

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

1. No. I remember, somewhat ironically now, the fact that I actively *hated* "popular" music up until a very specific point, when I was captivated by a particular single and band. Thus began my years of listening to the Top 40 countdown on the weekend and rooting for and against this and that. (This period lasted about three years, I'd say at which point I guess I found more interesting things to do on the weekend.)

Previous to said specific point (notice how I am avoiding naming the single in question, to avoid ridicule :) I listened to stuff like the Beatles, maybe Simon & Garfunkel... Quite consciously "60s" music. Once the world opened up/ I did do a lot of obsessive exploring of past eras, but nothing like the way you describe. For me it was more artist-focused I think.

2. Factually I touched on this, I think on one of the 50s polls. (Speaking generally, Rubber Soul-era Beatles is about as far back as I can go now.) Everything after that is, or has been, fair game, at least in terms of time periods. There are, obviously, genres that I like/know well and those that I don't but I don't think there's a specific chronological aspect to it.