Why Has Listening to Music Become as Solitary as Masturbation?

My friends seldom whisper a word about music anymore, which I am finding very strange. People used to talk about music, at least back in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. I assume young people today are just as crazy about music as my generation, but they don’t talk about music with me. It could be the generation gap, or has music dropped off the water-cooler topic list? Oh, I have a number of guy friends that are music nuts like me, and we tell each other what we’re listening to and trade recommendations, but as far as I could tell, most of my friends stopped listening to music a long time ago. At least that’s what I thought. I sent an email out and polled some friends and I was surprised by what I got back. Many still love music, they just love it alone.

My wife hates when I play music at home when she’s there. I beg her to sit and listen with me and share the music I’m discovering, but my enthusiasm to just sit and listen bores the crap out of her. She does love music, but in the car, when she’s by herself, where she can sing along. It’s become a personal thing, something to do in private. I’ve heard from other women friends that like to sing in the car alone too. Many people tell me their only source of music is the car radio. Others love the iPod, and we all know how isolating those little gizmos are. Plug in, turn on and tune out the world. I have heard people extolling the virtues of noise cancelling headphones but nary a word about what they are hearing. And I’ve heard endless arguments over digital music, MP3 players, music piracy and so on, but I just don’t hear people listening to albums together.

When did music become so anti-social? As kids in the 1960s with limited budgets we gathered together in after school parties to play, trade and share records. Or gangs of us would ride around in beat up old 1950s cars, going nowhere, doing nothing but listening to dashboard AM radio. On weekends we’d go anywhere where there was a great jukebox, or to roller rinks and thunder along on wooden floors to the blasting boom of the Beatles. We’d have endless arguments. The Bryds v. The Buffalo Springfield, Eric Clapton v. Duane Allman, Motown v. Brill Building. Did the Monkees play their instruments? What did those lyrics really say?

And of course, there was the communal aspect of the musical enhancing herb that would bring us together in darkened rooms lit by muted televisions, with the stereo drowning out our thoughts, sharing the vibrations, feeling groovy. We’d spend hours talking about our favorite groups between changing LPs. Music was a revolution that was of vital importance to art and society. We felt we were on the cutting edge. We could have all written our own books about Bob Dylan or Bruce Springsteen.

Every weekend there would a selection of touring bands to consider, and this would bring us together by the hundreds or thousands. Seeing top performers cost no more than going to the movies today. Now, don’t get me wrong, I do know there’s plenty of live music playing every night in 2007 in any big city, but that’s for a generation two generations younger than mine. My generation might go out once every year or two to some performing arts center to see an Oldie-Goldie nostalgia act, but to be honest folks, I don’t like seeing geezer rock and roll. I remember going to concerts or parties with bands and I hated when old people showed up, so I don’t like intruding on the current generation of the in-crowd. So I wonder if age is a factor – is live music mostly for the young? I know I’m going to get some howls over that prejudice.

I do have some theories about us old guys playing music alone. I think music makes us feel really good, almost like a drug, but it produces a high we like to experience alone. I’m bobbing my head to “All Your Reasons” from Matchbox Twenty’s Exile on Mainstream album that’s coming through my computer’s speakers via Rhapsody. I’m listening to this week’s new releases. I just finished Annie Lennox’s Songs of Mass Destruction and I’ll probably listen to Bruce Springsteen’s Magic next. It’s 7:43 pm and I’m tired after work, and I haven’t had dinner and I’m hungry, but the music is infusing energy into me, enough to encourage me to write. When I tired of music I’ll eat. Music is more nourishing now. My wife is at the kitchen table playing games on her laptop – that’s her way to unwind. My friends are at their homes, tired from work too, doing their thing. Maybe watching TV, maybe woodworking, reading the newspaper or maybe they are at the gym grooving with their iPods – tuning the rat race out. I guess the world of work, marriage and families split up our communal listening gatherings. That’s sort of sad.

I wished that all my friends were members of Rhapsody so I could still share music. I’d hit the share button on special discoveries and send them a song in a bottle to listen to on their own mental desert island, where they commune in their loneliness. I’d love to share some songs from The Reminder by Feist, the little girl doing the iTunes Nano commercial with her song, “1234.” Maybe that’s why MP3 music stealing is so popular – kids don’t want to get together, but they still want to share.

The best I can do to recapture this old spirit of music sharing is to write this blog. I do have to wonder why my generation is secluding itself into their little rooms to pursue solitary pursuits. Are our hobbies of self pleasure more fulfilling than trying to communicate and work on the same wavelength? It reminds me of long ago when my sister would beat on the bathroom door and yell, “Why are you taking so long? What the hell are you doing in there!”

jwh