Paul Shirley is also more than a little underwhelmed:
As I grew older, I was confused by everyone’s reverence for The Beatles. Curious, I listened, read and researched. Eventually, I had to admit that the band was important and influential. But that didn’t make their music any better. It was predictable, fairly dull and seemed elementary. Because I thought Achtung Baby was better, I listened to Achtung Baby….
I understand that The Beatles are culturally significant and important in the historical progression of rock music. And I understand that they’re talented. But unless you were locked in a time capsule like Brendan Fraser in “Blast From the Past,” they cannot be your favorite band. If you’re younger than 50 and you do make such a claim, you’re either (A) trying to impress someone with what you think will be received as good taste, or (B) woefully behind in your consumption of music.
Shirley obviously thinks a bit more of them than I do. But not much more. Meanwhile, over at the OC’s Friday Challenge, Henry mistakes my contempt for the Baby Boomers for the usual intergenerational irritation, but nevertheless raises an interesting idea about them:
The rap on the Boomers is that we never grew up, never learned that the world didn’t revolve around us. I’ll go ahead and admit that there is some truth to that. I know members of my generation who haven’t ever learned what it means to be a grown up. But I’m also believe no previous generation was quite like the Boomers.
I could go on about all the things in this world that are not the fault of the Boomers, but that is mostly beside the point. The thing that was truly unique about the Boomer generation is that they were far more likely than previous generations to survive into adulthood. There was no major war being fought as they grew up nor the worst depression ever seen by the industrial world. Through out the Boomer’s lives, the country’s wealth was increasing at such a pace that people we now consider poor are living a lifestyle that would have been considered middle class in the 1970s.
Put bluntly, more irresponsible and idiotic Boomers survived to adulthood that any generation before it.
I suspect it has more to do with the mass media myself. But the point is that I don’t despise the Boomers because they are my parent’s generation. I’m completely fine with the idea that tastes change and so forth. What I find annoying is the way the Baby Boomers are the first generation to completely fail to understand that as adults. As I pointed out previously, there is no chance that any Generation X writer is going to be writing headlines about Duran Duran still being cool in 2027.
But if a Baby Boomer survives that long, who can doubt that he’ll still be insisting that The Beatles are the best music that the human race ever managed to produce and Woodstock changed the world. And he’ll be doing it even if the human race is living in underground bunkers hiding from the AI gods ruling over a planet full of psychotic killer robots.
Henry, we’ll make you all a deal. We’ll stop ranting about your generation as soon as your generation will STFU about itself.