by John Moore

A former advertising agency owner for over 35 years, today John D. Moore is a branding consultant focusing on teaching, mentoring and advising small business owners. (716) 631-2023. john@jdmpromotions.com . He is also a singer/songwriter with Americana musical duo BluesRoot. He currently has a CD, “Live. Real. In the moment.” in international distribution. . www.bluesroot.net. rootmaster@bluesroot.net.

You’ve got to take
the bad with the
good…I guess.

Sure signs that we’ve gotten lost in the generation gap…or we know that we’re getting older!

The signs are all around us and I don’t mean the wrinkles, gray hair and assorted body sags that stare back at us 60’s Generation types every time we pass a mirror. No, it’s more pervasive than that, unfortunately. In fact it’s so overwhelming that I swear you can hear it rumbling past us faster than our five, six or seven decade legs can possibly move to keep pace! It’s the thunder of time and change passing us by…or at least getting further out ahead of us.

As I said, the signs are everywhere. Want proof? Just take a look at the entertainment media.

Let’s start with music, or what they call music today. And, I don’t just mean the synthesized, new age bubble gum, or sadly, in some cases, gutter talk noise that is passed off as music in every possible form of mass distribution. It’s more than that. I mean it’s the whole music universe!

I asked a group of 15-year-olds recently which artist they liked best...the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Chuck Berry, or Little Richard. I got a collective blank stare, even a question as to which season of American Idol they had appeared. Worse yet, they apparently believe what the global radio DJ’s, record labels, and music sellers tell them…that this is the Golden Age of Pop music.

What? Sorry to burst their young bubbles, but without all the 50’s and 60’s pioneers, pop music would still mean Glen Dorsey or Patti Page. Finding our 60’s Generation “moldy oldies,” as one radio station DJ recently spewed, now means finding a streaming internet station that specializes in the good old stuff. Of course these stations usually “stream” out some country that’s only recently found the freedom to explore rock ‘n roll. Maybe it all seems new to those who didn’t experience it before!

I’m bewildered by what different music styles are called today. We used to have simple definitions. There was rock ‘n roll, R & B, Blues, and Country (and Western). Pop music was easy to categorize and easy to understand. Today, you need a computer database to find out what you’re listening to. I made a quick sojourn through various online music sites and counted…are you ready for this...123 different genres! Now I’m a marketing guy, but that’s taking product segmentation and customization a little far, don’t you think? I mean, how in the world can you find what you’re looking for, let alone might like?

And, then there are the names of the artists themselves. Don’t get me started here. Assuming that the name is something that can be uttered in normal society, they are chock full of made up spelling and/or shock producing phrases. I suppose it gets attention, but who really is waiting for the newest release from the “Rat Eating Degenerates”?

Where has the simple, straightforward names gone? You know what I mean: the Beach Boys, Junior Walker and the All Stars, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, for example. Even individual names are a stretch today. Hey, I understood Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Roy Orbison, and Jerry Lee Lewis. They sounded like the names of the people in my neighborhood. Now, it’s one street moniker after another. They call it a performance name. Sounds like a nickname to me. And who ever liked a nickname anyway?

And of course there’s the march of time and change playing havoc with the way we get our music, too. Back in the day it was simple. We had 45 rpm records. We had 33-1/3 rpm records. We had records…vinyl, tactile, and cool. They even had a label from companies we had heard of, like Decca and Atlantic.

Then things moved to cassette tapes and 8-track tapes. I understood that. After all, the labels were still there. It seemed to all lead logically to CD’s. They contained additional insider info. and background insight, and could be played on our car stereos as well as the ones we had in the den of our homes.

Again, there were labels and brands. CDs I could accept. Maybe it’s because they look like miniature records. But now it’s all changed. CD’s are on the way out, replaced by virtual world replacements. Introducing the era of the digital download…now the way a majority of music buyers get their tunes.

Of course you can still copy your selections to a CD of your own, but that’s a dying trend, too. MP3 players carry more “tunes” than my neighborhood music store used to offer, and all on a device that’s barely the size of a quarter. You can’t look at the covers, but you can name the file folders! Get tired of a song, then simply delete it. After all, you can get plenty for free online. Whatever happened to paying for a song?

The music universe has started to pass me by, and I feel the generation gap widening.

Of course music isn’t the only sign in the entertainment world. We used to enjoy a rooftop antenna-driven three to four channels of programming on television, watching our favorite shows in the deep shadows of black and white. Color seemed to change it all, and the stars of our youth didn’t look nearly as mysterious in real life tones and hues. Color meant replacing shades of mystery with perfectly replicated real life.

Now it’s on to even more reality…digital, Hi-Def and reality programming. I don’t want to watch television that is totally lifelike. I get enough of that every day, just going about my business. I want a little escape!

Yea, television is another piece of proof of the generation chasm.

Movies are another example. Like television unfortunately, color has taken some of the mystery out of the whole thing. So has the death of the star system that produced Humphrey Bogart and John Wayne and all their contemporaries. Now it’s the pretty boy and girl of the moment that substitutes for acting ability. Give me a twist filled plot, good dialogue and characters I can relate to. I’ll take Key Largo and Gone With The Wind over any of today’s blockbusters!

And remember when going to the movies meant just that…going to the movies? It was special. We were rewarded with big screens, great acoustics, hundreds of fellow viewers, and real popcorn. It was an event…an adventure.

Of course that morphed into multi plex bandboxes offering 16 screens, crowded living room sized viewing chambers, and a once a week cleaning. Now even those shopping mall cinemas have declined in popularity, only to be replaced first by video stores and now, full content video downloads delivered instantly to your 17-inch computer screen. We can all watch a different movie in a different room with our personal sound systems blaring through our ear buds.

Viewing a new movie release has become less of a special event and more of a personal time filler. It’s also a hard to miss sign of the widening generation gap. Most of my friends are like me. They prefer the old stuff…the classics.

Sadly, you can add books to the list, too. Even the old day-at-the-beach trash novel has been replaced by video and music packed iPods. And that is just the beginning. The day is fast approaching when e-books are the norm, and holding a novel in your hands will be replaced by whatever is the newest, trendiest, portable viewing screen…probably your mobile telephone! Just doesn’t seem the same to me. I guess I am getting older than I admit. I still prefer reading.

Bottom line is that change is constant and doesn’t stop for any of us. Familiar things are replaced by new things…but the pace is quickening…the gap between old and new widening. And, it’s defining each generation while separating us into technology defined age groups. Technology has reinvented music, television, movies and books. The familiar terms and standards of the 60’s Generation are gone forever.

The generation gap is growing faster than the national debt (and that’s saying a lot), and I am too often reminded that I’m not the youngster I once was. But that’s okay. I liked it better our way, anyway!