Episodes
Tuesday Aug 13, 2024
Songs for a Lost Generation
Tuesday Aug 13, 2024
Tuesday Aug 13, 2024
We wanted to identify what makes Generation X different from other generations. Many books that lay bare this question, but the one that informed most of my thoughts about Generation X was the book Generations by Jean M Twenge. Twenge did not make any real statements about the music of the generation. Instead, she identified differences mostly based on how we interacted with different technologies. For instance, Generation X is the last generation to grow up on analog music and the first to experience digital. We were the first generation to experience MTV which changed the face of music as we knew it. There are many more data points that Twenge pointed out that provide the parameters for Generation X. However the questions I wanted to answer were more related to the content we listened to.
What music defined Generation X? When we started creating our music, what were the trends we created? What impact did Generation X have on our beloved prog rock? Some of the answers may be contained here in this episode, in short, the results of my findings in this all-too-brief exploration of generational music were:
Regardless of the generational divide that seems to show up in culture wars, there is no escaping that the music we listened to growing up came from the previous generation. Progressive rock itself is a Boomer genre of rock music. We grew up on Classic Rock, Punk, and 80s pop. When Generation X did start speaking musically, we developed Grunge, and Hip-Hop. However, on the prog side, we had prog metal and post-rock. The earliest rock music from Generation X appears to have been Gun's and Roses (although some members just miss the identified cutoff). The earliest band to speak prog that was a Generation X fronted band, was either Majesty (later known as Dream Theater) or Echolyn.
The episode provided here is not even close to answering all of the questions, but the research and theme did make for some enjoyable listening. We hope you enjoy this all-too-brief dive into this question.
Artist | Title | Duration | Album | Year |
Porcupine Tree | Time Flies | 11:39 | The Incident | 2009 |
Foghat | Slow Ride | 8:10 | Fool For The City | 1975 |
Kansas | Miracles Out Of Nowhere | 6:17 | Leftoverture | 1976 |
Styx | Snowblind | 4:46 | Paradise Theater | 1981 |
Genesis | Land Of Confusion | 4:41 | Invisible Touch [Remix] | 1986 |
Yes | Our Song | 4:07 | 90125 | 1983 |
Rush | Between The Wheels | 5:29 | Grace Under Pressure | 1984 |
Peter Hammill | Losing Faith In Words | 3:35 | A Black Box | 1980 |
Adrian Belew | The Lone Rhinoceros | 3:56 | Lone Rhino | 1982 |
Marillion | Chelsea Monday | 8:14 | Script for a Jester's Tear | 1983 |
Pendragon | The Black Knight | 9:50 | The Jewel | 1985 |
Blind Melon | Tones of Home | 4:21 | Blind Melon | 1992 |
Foo Fighters | Everlong | 4:05 | The Colour and the Shape | 1997 |
Blind Melon | Tones of Home | 4:21 | Blind Melon | 1992 |
Foo Fighters | Everlong | 4:05 | The Colour and the Shape | 1997 |
Radiohead | Exit Music (For a Film) | 4:21 | OK Computer | 1997 |
Smashing Pumpkins | Porcelina of the Vast Oceans | 8:54 | Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness | 1995 |
Muse | Supremacy | 4:51 | The 2nd Law (Deluxe Edition) | 2012 |
Echolyn | 21 | 5:37 | Suffocating the Bloom | 1992 |
Kevin Gilbert | Ghetto Of Beautiful Things | 4:48 | The Shaming of the True | 2000 |
Phish | Monsters | 5:09 | Evolve | 2024 |
Big Big Train | Welcome to the Planet | 6:30 | Welcome to the Planet | 2022 |
Dream Theater | Light Fuse And Get Away | 7:15 | When Dream And Day Unite | 1989 |
Pain of Salvation | Idiocracy | 7:03 | Scarsick | 2007 |
Threshold | The Latent Gene | 7:57 | Clone | 1998 |
Riverside | Friend or Foe? | 7:23 | ID.Entity (Deluxe Edition) | 2023 |
Moon Safari | 198X (Heaven Hill) | 3:51 | Himlabacken Vol. 2 | 2023 |
The Tangent | Paroxetine - 20mg | 7:39 | Down And Out In Paris And London (Limited First Edition) | 2009 |
Frost* | The Boy Who Stood Still | 7:33 | Day And Age | 2021 |
Anathema | Summernight Horizon | 4:06 | We're Here Because We're Here | 2010 |
Comments (0)
To leave or reply to comments, please download free Podbean or
No Comments
To leave or reply to comments,
please download free Podbean App.