This has probably happened to you: There you are, skipping along on the Internet, when suddenly you see entries that claim the best music happened from the ’70s to the 2000s, and anything newer isn’t as good.
Chances are, it was written by a member of Generation X—those born from 1965 to 1980, although some may extend that range five years either way.
Sure, that sounds like a “dad lament”—“Back in my day, we had real music and real musicians, these days it’s just people with computers”—but apparently, science can explain that sort of thinking.
Daniel J Levitin, a professor of psychology and the director of the Laboratory for Music Perception, Cognition and Expertise at McGill University, was of the opinion that the critical period for learning your musical tastes starts at around 14 and peaks at 24.
“Fourteen is a sort of magic age for the development of musical tastes,” he told the New York Times. “Pubertal growth hormones make everything we’re experiencing, including music, seem very important. We’re just reaching a point in our cognitive development when we’re developing our own tastes. And musical tastes become a badge of identity.”
“For Gen X, they would have developed their musical tastes from the mid-’70s to the mid-2000s.”
Said Patrick Chng, singer/guitarist of seminal ’90s Singapore indie band The Oddfellows: “I had so much new music to discover in my teenage years in the ’80s. It was indeed a very exciting time for me, and the ’80s was an incredible decade for music.”
“My love for music started after listening to Japanese bands like Hiroshi Kubota, Casiopea and T-Square as a teenager,” said social worker Colin Teo, who was in the ’90s band AWOL. “I learned the guitar during my polytechnic days after getting hold of cassette tapes by Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple. That led me to rock, metal, and different genres. There was something about the raw energy, attitude and earnestness in their music that attracted me to it.”
“The music of my teens was definitely the Backstreet Boys,” said travel advisor Choy Wan. “It was also an era when the sound of Seattle grunge gave way to the sounds of bubble gum pop like Aqua, Vengaboys, Britney Spears and Mandy Moore; and that defined so much of Gen X music for me.”
“I started developing my own tastes when I was 11 or 12,” said music lecturer Kevin Mathews, who said the ’70s movie, SWALK, got him into the music of the Bee Gees. “When I was in secondary school, I started to listen to more hard rock music, like Led Zeppelin, and Pink Floyd.”
“I think the songs back then were very well-crafted and had a great vibe. I still get the same emotional response when I listen to most of those songs,” said Patrick Chng. “I listen to new music of today, but probably because some of them hark back to the sounds, styles and melodic sensibilities of music I grew up with.”
Music For The Masses
Another reason why the Gen Xers go one about music of the day is the huge range of genres. Music aficionados note the different genres spawned in that era: punk, disco, Eurobeat, New Wave, synthpop, metal, glam rock, grunge, alt-rock and Britpop, among others.
If you’re a Gen Xer, you’d have busted moves to Donna Summer, Spice Girls or Fatboy Slim; or spit rhymes with Busta Rhymes, Run DMC, or Eminem. You’d have known pop stars who got by with only one name, from Bowie to Bono to Madonna. You’d dress up like Spandau Ballet or dress down like Soundgarden.
“The best part was the diversity of music,” says Australian filmmaker Aaron Wilson, who lists among his musical discoveries the likes of Queen, Nina Simone, Nick Cave, Bjork, R.E.M, Blur and Nirvana.
“R&B also paved the sound of that generation,” added Choy. “B.I.G., Tupac, Snoop Dogg, LL Cool J, Salt ‘n’ Pepa, En Vogue and TLC very much encapsulated the sound of those times, and created some of the best hip-hop and R&B songs in this lifetime.”
All this music would be played on radio, the most affordable and accessible way to be entertained. Nearly everyone had a radio, whereas TV wasn’t readily available in every household in the ’70s.
“Also, there were no video games, there was no Internet—none of these distractions,” said Mathews.
Radio offered not only the pop hits of the day, but programmes such as John Peel’s Session and Rock Salad, exposed listeners to alternative genres.
Sure, you could buy records, but buying original recordings was a big ask of teens getting allowances that barely broke two digits. New original albums on vinyl cost upwards of $10; original cassettes could cost $8 and up; and later, CDs cost nearly $20.
“You had to be very picky about what you bought, because we were all on a budget,” said Mathews. “Sometimes you’d buy something and realise, ‘oh no, this is shit’ — that happened quite a lot, actually. We had those pirated cassettes which cost $2, but the quality was … questionable.”
Sound + Vision
In the 80s, two mediums stepped in to give pop music a boost: movies and TV.
The success of the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack—the bestselling soundtrack of all time—proved that adding pop stars to a soundtrack was a sure-fire hit. And sure enough, movies starting featuring the pop acts of the day: The Breakfast Club, Pretty In Pink, Some Kind Of Wonderful, Top Gun, Back To The Future, Flashdance, Break Dance, Trainspotting, Batman, Cruel Intentions, Dirty Dancing, Clueless, Romeo And Juliet, Wayne’s World, Boomerang, Titanic … you name it.
“A bunch of great films almost exclusively used music of the time—where the film informed the music which informed the film,” said Wilson. “Filmmakers knew how to integrate contemporary music into their story to create a strong and authentic emotional connection with audiences.”
“There were plenty of ‘coming of age’ movies with soundtracks that were pretty much the Spotify playlist of any young person back then,” said author Ning Cai. “Lisa Loeb’s ‘Stay’ plays in my head every time I think of Reality Bites.”
Then there was TV. Or more precisely, MTV—Music Television—which became the de facto channel to watch music videos.
These videos didn’t only feature musicians performing. Some were veritable mini-movies. Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video—all 14 minutes of it—was directed by John Landis (An American Werewolf in London, Trading Places, The Three Amigos) and revolutionised music video production, such that it has been considered the turning point when music videos became a “proper industry”.
Said Wilson: “The RAGE TV show (Australia’s version of MTV) was something my friends and I would discuss in school on Monday mornings. Pre-internet, it was like a portal into the outside world.”
“Music shows like Solid Gold were the place to get all the latest and greatest hits,” added Choy, who also watched RAGE growing up in Australia. She and her sister May would later become the most recognisable VJ duo on MTV Asia.
“When we moved back to Asia, it was MTV we turned to for all that was new. We looked up to the VJs back then and watched a lot of the videos. It was something we looked forward to with relish,” she said.
“It is bittersweet that this generation won’t really know this experience of ‘visual’ music,” she added. “It seemed more engaging when music videos were such a big source of keeping up to date with the latest tunes, and definitely broadened my taste of music because you couldn’t choose your playlist.”
I Love Singa-Pop
In Singapore, most teens turned to magazines like Smash Hits, Number 1, Q or Rolling Stone for music news.
“I was into New Wave—Duran Duran, Howard Jones, KajaGooGoo—and I would follow the music charts in the magazines,” said photographer Little Ong. “My music read was the NME at the reference section of the library, because you couldn’t buy it.
“One day, The Jesus And Mary Chain were on the charts, and I thought, ‘what kind of name is that?’ I got curious and that was my entry to alternative music and defined the sound that I liked.”
Said Mathews: “You would use these magazines to decide what music to buy. Like, ‘based on this review, I’ll buy Big Country’s new album’.”
But it was one local mag that would shape how many young Singaporeans discovered music, especially in the ’90s: BigO (Before I Get Old).
Helmed by Michael and Philip Cheah, it helped kickstart the homegrown music boom, and heavily featured alternative music, which bands in Singapore were gravitating towards.
“I formed the Oddfellows with drummer Casey Soo in 1987 (because) we both had a common love for bands like REM, The Replacements, The Buzzcocks,” said Patrick Chng.
BigO also helped to curate music events, such as the Festival Fringe alternative pop concert at the Botanic Gardens in 1988, featuring bands like The Oddfellows and Razor’s Edge.
For Little, who would later become a photographer for BigO, that concert introduced him to local music. “That got me quite proud of the Singapore scene. Before that, I had no idea that there were musicians from Singapore putting out music.”
BigO also released music by local bands that came as freebies with the magazine. These featured a wide spectrum of music from bands like indie rockers The NoNames, The Padres, singer-songwriters like Eza and Art Fazil, hardore rockers like Opposition Party and Stompin’ Ground and more.
Along with the rise of local bands came concert venues. The Garden in the Substation provided a space for regular weekend concerts (also helmed by BigO), as did any auditorium-like space, including shopping mall atrium, the outdoor auditoriums at the World Trade Centre and Marina South, and even community centres and nightclubs like Zouk.
But it was the Singapore Indoor Stadium that really gave music concerts the biggest boost. Prior to that, concerts by major pop acts were few and far in between. Once the Stadium was opened, there was an influx of concerts from the biggest names: Eric Clapton, REM, Metallica, Bryan Adams, Pearl Jam, Depeche Mode, Paul Simon, Jay Chou, Take That, Kylie Minogue. Some local bands even got to support these acts.
Rickrolling With The Times
But time goes by, and many assumed that, like the music before, Gen X music would be forgotten. Except that it hasn’t. Not really.
The ripples it created can still be heard today, thanks in part to music sampling, and the fact that a lot of the popular music forms of today are direct descendants of Gen X music. EDM owes a debt to drum and bass or even Eurodisco. Urban music owes its roots to early hip-hop and rap. And where would “Despacito” be if Ricky Martin hadn’t come along?
The bright stars of today also give nods to Gen X artistes: Dua Lipa acknowledges Pink and Nelly Furtado for starting her musical journey, while Billie Eilish has given props to Kanye West and Imogen Heap.
More recently, music biopics such as Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocket Man, as well as movies such as Ready Player One, Baby Driver and Scott Pilgrim vs The World have shone the light on Gen X music.
“I did a lesson and my class asked me to sing a song,” said Mathews. “And they picked “Bohemian Rhapsody”! These are 18-year-olds! But they know it because of the movie. If that movie didn’t happen, would young people know this song?”
On the Internet, YouTubers have covered songs from that era, or posted reaction videos that go viral: TwinsthenewTrend’s dramatic reaction to Phil Collins’ “In The Air Tonight” made that song return to the charts after 40 years.
“I am surprised that young people listen to songs from that era,” said Patrick Chng.
“My boys appreciate 80s music actually,” said freelance writer and former radio presenter Pamela Ho, adding that it was probably due to them watching movies featuring these songs or listening cover versions. “I then introduce them to the original singer or album.”
And let’s not forget Rick Astley, possibly the one Gen X artiste who rules the Internet, thanks to his ditty, “Never Gonna Give You Up”. The lyrics have been memed like mad (“Vote Rick Astley for president: he’s never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down…”). And who hasn’t been Rickrolled? Even Rick himself fell for that on Reddit.
For Gen X, the music they listened to mark milestones in their lives.
“There are key events that I remember because of the songs: ‘Time After Time’ from a friend’s birthday party, ‘Walk Like An Egyptian’ from a school group exercise class, ‘Deeper And Deeper’ from a mixed tape I made for someone I really liked, and ‘Heaven Sent’ from a rock music festival,” said Wilson.
For Colin, music from those days makes him “feel nostalgic and complete”, he said.
“I think the songs back then were very well-crafted and had a great vibe. I still get the same emotional response when I listen to most of those songs,” said Patrick Chng. “I listen to new music of today, but probably because some of them hark back to the sounds, styles and melodic sensibilities of music I grew up with.”
Agreed Choy: “I still like listening to music from 20 years ago. Listening to all of them definitely brings out good feelings and good memories.”
“Music is evergreen, accessible to anyone and everyone. And in the wise words of Madonna: music makes the bourgeoisie and the rebel. That’s what makes it so special,” said Ning.
Gen X and their music – they’re never gonna give it up, are they?
