The soundtrack of our lives

[Jann]

I just finished reading Lee Child's The Hard Way, pure escapism if you're inclined to read tales of inexorable vigilante justice.  Within the book there are several references  to John Lennon and one line which was thought-provoking.  Child's chief protagonist, Jack Reacher speaks of his own generation and describes the Beatles' songs as "the soundtrack of our lives."  Well, there is something I hadn't really considered but as I said it was thought provoking.  I recall a line from Apocalyse Now, something to the effect "that's the trouble with this damned war, it doesn't have a good soundtrack."  My BF assures me that wars never have a good soundtrack.  He has been to a few of them; I'll take his word for it.

But what about our lives?  What sort of soundtrack do we have?  Do we have anything worth looking forward to looking back on?  I admit that I envy the kids of the 1960s in this regard.  Their soundtrack was full of love and hope.

What do we have?

[Ed]

Oh, we do. It's just that some of the really incredible music out there isn't widely known. Music today is moving in so many wildly disparate directions that although we can always say that the well-known stuff is crap, it's just impossible to say that we're missing out on the 1960s-style musical revolution. We just don't know where to look.

There are shining examples of music from every genre popping up all the time, and there are loads more genres than there were back then - music's being used for a much bigger range of purposes, too. I mightn't listen to electro house to cheer me up if I'm angry or sad, but if I need to stay up late and work, or want something to dance to I'd rather have Deadmau5 on than the Beatles. If I want to put a massive grin on my face I'll whack some big-band classics on, or maybe Dave Matthews Band or something equally chirpy.

The only reason in my mind that it might be difficult to produce a list of music that defines my life or that of my contemporaries is that there's far too much to choose from across such a wide spectrum of styles that there's simply no way that any restricted list can possibly be representative.

[gbanude]

I had a friend once tell me-pick a song for yourself that if they made a biopic of you, what song would you want while the credits were rolling.  His choice-House of the Rising Sun by the Animals.

[Wolfboy]

I agree with ComfierNatural, there still is alot of good Music made these days, you just have to know where to look for it

[Jann]

I agree with ComfierNatural, there still is alot of good Music made these days, you just have to know where to look for it

I guess that is my point, you have to know where to look for it.  It doesn't have real presence in the culture like the Beatles and others did.

Back in the 1960s & 1970s there were many different genres of music as well, some great, some better forgotten.  But through it all the music of several groups still shine through (Beatles, Cream, Doors and others) and provided a readily recognizable soundtrack of their lives for the folks who were young then. 

Yes, there is some really good music now.  A lot of it is indie, far removed from the mainstream, and doesn't have the same pervasive background presence that the earlier rockers had. 

So that brings me back to the question: What will be the soundtrack or our lives?  And by this I don't mean what song do you like that was published 20 or 30 years before you were born and is seldom heard on commercial radio in the present.

[Jann]

When it comes to whole albums, nothing modern could match the music from the 60s and 70s.  The only entire modern album (that I can think of) that runs together and tells a story is "American Idiot" by Green Day.  I actually didn't listen to the whole album until a few years after it came out since I really didn't like the title song.  One day, I hear "Jesus of Suburbia" on the radio and that changed it all. 
But, "Dark Side of the Moon" by Pink Floyd is and always will be my favorite album.  "Time" is on and off my favorite song, too.

Time, Hootie and the Blowfish, what's not to love!  It is one of those songs that seems to have something that connects at the molecular level.  Some songs are like that.  Don't ask me to explain, I'm not at the molecular level.  I suppose there is something in the lyrics that connects to a real life event that is especially meaningful to me and this, combined with the music and artistry, makes it memorable.  Other songs that affect me in this way are Procol Harum's Whiter Shade of Pale, Dire Straits' Sultans of Swing and a few others . . .

[Ed]

Radiohead do weird-ass stuff with their albums with kinda scary frequency?

Porcupine Tree also do some pretty cool concept stuff.

[Wolfboy]

I believe we can still say we have a soundtrack of our lives, at least for now, i don't know how it will be in a few years.
There still are bands who shine through, bands you may or may not like, after all, everybody has a different taste in Music

The Music of the 60's and the 70's was (and still is) great, and it's influence on later bands was enormous, but so is the Music of the 80's and the 90's and even some of the Music of the century we live in today.

Keep in mind that every band is influenced by another band, this can be a much older band or a band of the same time...
For example, most of the songs of The Doors and Elvis Presley are covers from older bands (50's, 40's and way before that)

It is actually funny how Music works, for example, there was a time when the Music of The Beatles was "wrong" to listen to. At one moment in time The Beatles were even described as "the four horsemen of the apocalypse", yet when their Music became mainstream it suddenly was ok to listen to them...

While in the 60's & 70's there were bands like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, ... In the eighties there were Michael Jackson, Madonna, ... In the 90's there were Nirvana, Take That, ... and so on...

It all depends what bands you listened to while growing up, and what kind of Music you like

[brandon]

I'm not sure that we have the mass market musical culture that existed in the previous century. I have my soundtrack of the 2000s, but it's not the "Top 100" you'll find on any popular list.

I really only identify with about a dozen of the Telegraph's
100 songs that defined the Noughties. (I only know about half of them, lol.)

Was there a soundtrack for the first decade of the 2000s? I rarely listen to commercial radio anymore. I suppose the soundtrack of the 2000s was R&B, hip hop, and popular music I sometimes listen to but don't really identify with: Beyoncé, Katy Perry, Justin Beiber, etc.

My soundtrack for the first decade of the 2000s was Coldplay, Arcade Fire, Franz Ferdinand and a lot of indie groups and singer-songwriters.

I listen a lot to the music of the 1950s-1990s. In addition to the Beatles, the Doors, Cream and other groups already mentioned, I'd add Buddy Holly of the '50s, the Motown sound of the 60s featured in The Big Chill soundtrack. I listen to a lot of the 80s music that Wolfboy loves. My favorite decade is the 90s, defined by Nirvana. Oasis, Green Day and other alternative groups were also part of the soundtrack of the 90s.