Music from a different Generation by Matt Ward

One evening a few months back, after a couple of alcoholic beverages, I was having a discussion with someone regarding music genres. We were discussing bands and artists like The Doors, George Harrison, The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix. My friend was of the opinion that people should be listening to the music of their own generation and nothing else, whereas I was of the opinion that we should be able to listen to different era’s of music if we choose to. I can see both sides of that theory, however, I think that there must be something that keeps drawing us (myself in particular) back to music from a different generation?

I was brought up with a varied selection of music playing in our house (I’m the youngest of four brothers). Anything could be playing from Iron Maiden to Neil Diamond, INXS to Utah Saints, James to The Who. I think it’s fairly common that you keep listening to what you know or are familiar with at a younger age. I didn’t start listening to my favourite music genre on a regular basis until the last few years. Over the years I’ve floated from Oasis, Shed Seven and The Charlatans when I was at High School, onto house and dance music when I was at College and Uni, before moving onto bands like Artic Monkeys, Kasabian and The Kings of Leon and now I’m more often than not listening to older stuff including The Doors, The Kinks, Jimi Hendrix and Black Sabbath. I still listen to modern day indie and rock music, as well as new up and coming artists, but I continuously find myself listening to music from back before I was born.

One of the main reasons for this, in my opinion, is that the music scene at the moment is average at best. I’ve mentioned in the past about Radio One being for a younger crowd and Planet Rock only being available digitally, but these factors must play a part in it. All the really talented musicians and bands don’t really get a look in at the minute and hopefully somebody in a position of power within the music business sees fit to change that. There are so many bands and songs from the 60’s and 70’s, that if they were played on the radio today, would still draw in a mass amount of listeners. I appreciate that we need to move with the times and look forward, but not everyone watches X-Factor and other music reality TV shows or buys Rihanna and Cheryl Cole albums. So for me, I guess this a reason why I look to some of the older artists for some inspiration to get me through the day. I think that memories also have a part to play, along with stories from our elder relatives and the mystery that surrounds certain artists such as Jim Morrison, Keith Moon and Jimi Hendrix.

All in all, I think that I’ll always listen to music from yesteryears and the fact that its still getting played in households around the world from people who weren’t even alive at the time, must tell you something :-)

By Matt Ward

The Unofficial 'Brit Writers and Writers Everywhere' blog.