Huh. My first college roommate was born and raised in South America. We bonded over the fact that we knew all the same childhood rhyming songs. Other students on our floor (most from North America) knew them, too.
Karaoke is very popular in my area among adults. The participants where I usually go are a diverse bunch, with an age range from 20s to mid-80s. What surprised me is that the most popular tunes are American Standards. Everyone sings along, and since the prompter is only visible to the person who selected the song, the rest of the crowd must already know the words.
That gives me a new appreciation for the sense of community that comes from learning and singing religious and folk songs from various cultures and faiths. People used to mock Social Studies classes, but those lessons definitely helped me during my travels.
I have to go back to my youth for ‘deep-listening’: Put on an ELP, Led Zep, or Tomita LP; don headphones; kick back in my bed; have the LP sleeve at the ready for a read; and listen.
All kidding aside, one can experience the same jolt when agreeing on music one does not like – and also especially when the music discussed is obscure. I and like-minded friends at work (some of who I also went to school with) experienced this when we got to the subject of horrible electro-new age-experimental-jazz fusion music we’d experienced. With us was a co-worker, new to us, and taking part in the conversation. At one point, one of my buddies said, “Yep. That thing was a real Beaubourg!**” The new guy laughed and shook his head in agreement. We talked more about that; not only did he understand the reference, but he had also used “Beaubourg” as a derisive term for bad electronic music. We shared the same culture. He became our pal right then and there. Simpatico.
I will admit to being the person you sneer at, who still loves listening to Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here on his noise-cancelling phones and relishing every little nuance, because it’s not niche. Everyone knows it, it’s not some cool tip that no one discovered.
But I still love deep listening to it. How the two sides* smoothly tell a tale. Getting nostalgic about some little bit that I thought was part of “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” that was in reality just an artefact of my original cassette having a defect, and kinda missing it. Marvelling at the switch from 4/4 to 3/4 and back to 4/4 in “Welcome To The Machine” and my favourite part, the segue from “Have A Cigar” to “Wish You Were Here”.
But yeah, a lot of stuff we sneer at nowadays? It was wildly popular because it was well written, and we tend to forget that because we become so fixated on finding new stuff. We want to be pioneers, and sometimes become disillusioned with the first things that wowed us. A lot of Pink Floyd or Yes can leave you jaded when you find out what the inspiration really was, as well, so we move on. We want to find that old kick of discovery.
Er. I’m rambling.
*Like a lot of older albums, you can hear the breaks when you were supposed to flip the album. Especially noticeable on The Wall, which was a double album.
