Why People Venerate Music from Youth

Note:This entry can be found in entirety athttp://rupertroo.blogspot.com/
Ever notice how your oldest relatives swear that Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby have the best singing voices? Your parents think that the Beatles and Stones are the greatest bands ever. Your older siblings insist that the music of the 70’s like Zeppelin, Queen and CCR is the greatest. I happen to adore all of these artists. But it’s hard for me to not label them as somehow “dated” in my mind. I can’t help it. I was born in 1978.

I spent ’92-96 in high school. So it should be no surprise that I canonize STP, Pearl Jam and Nirvana above all else holy to me. To preface: I realize that not everyone engages in this practice. I have many friends in their 30’s who actively seek out new music on a near daily basis and always look to expand their tastes. I’ve tried doing that same thing w/ limited success. I’ve found it hard to convince myself that any of this current stuff is better than the ACDC I first heard in my youth. Another note is that this effect can work retroactively. Using a previous example, I was first introduced to the Beatles when I was about 12 y/o. So for me, it’s as if A Hard Day’s Night was initially released in 1990.

I’m writing this under the initial premise that this phenomenon is real and exists. I don’t aim to convince anyone otherwise. But psychologists at Duke have studied this effect and have already termed it, “the Reminiscence bump”. Assuming that this premise is true, why does it exist? Here are a few reasons, but I have nothing concrete.

First shot is the idea that the teenage years are a very intense, revolutionary time for most people. The media and film culture will tell you that it’s, “The best time of your life”, although I’ve already written about how I disagree strongly with that adage. But I will concede that for most people the teens are a time of many firsts and discovering things about yourself. Things like: what kind of person are you, what kind of things and people do you like… most importantly you find out what really turns you on (in a more than sexual way). Tied into these concentrated feelings is the music. Even if you’re one of these, “high school sucked for me” people, it was still a pretty powerful time in your existence. And these songs become engrained into your mind more forcefully than they otherwise would.

"Since when did Guns ‘N Roses become 'The Oldies'?"

-A Friend of mine

NTM that music is a huge social identifier for a lot of people. Were you one of the rebels listening to punk? Were you one of the goth kids smoking in the parking lot? How about one of the preppies? These archetypes do exist outside of John Hughes films, and music has strong ties with each of them.

As a corollary to his reason, for a lot of kids the teens are the first time they have the freedom to go to a store and buy a piece of music they desired with their own money. That is a powerful moment too. It’s the first instance of gaining financial freedom from our parents, which later becomes one of the cornerstones of establishing adulthood in general.

Another reason that also highlights the difference of adult vs. child is that many adults don’t have the time, energy or mental real estate to invest in music that they did in high school. Adults have to work 40+hrs/wk, pay mortgages, soccer practice for Billy, etc. When you were 11y/o, do you think your middle-age parents had time to listen to Journey tapes for 8 hrs a day while discussing the hot chicks in your junior high? That would be gross, come to mention it. Make that Bob Dylan records while discussing the hot chicks in your junior high.