You know you are getting old when:

[Fading Fast]

One thing that does bring the Milllennials closer together is that, even if born in '80s and raised pre-internet, the internet took off when the oldest of them was 16 (not yet out of high school), so they "learned" the internet and digital technology at a time when learning was easier and natural for them. I remember hiring kids out of college in the early 2000s and they seemed like tech wizards (not tech majors, business majors) because they had already integrated the internet / digital technology into their lives.

I am the tail-end of the Baby Boomers (born '64) and forced myself to stay current as I like earning a living, but those my age and older (with obvious one-off exceptions) will never be as tech / digital savvy as even the oldest Millennial (again, allowing for one-off exceptions in both groups).

It is something that has greatly empowered the Millennials at work versus the Boomers. When I started in the mid '80s, the "old-pros" had very little to learn from us "new kids," but now, you'll see Managing Directors huddle over an intern's desk as the intern shows the MDs how to use this or that app, make a report in Powerpoint really flow, etc. It has changed the hierarchal power and allows for more rapid advancement for the Millennials and (on the less fun side of the equation) the faster superannuation of the Boomers.

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

I disagree with the usual demographic of the Baby Boomers. I'm vintage, born in '47. For my definition, to be a Boomer, your formative years were the '50s and '60s. So I see the earliest Boomers as born around '43. I don't think you qualify as a Boomer if you can't remember the '50s at all.

 

[Lean'n'mean]

I'm a baby blooper, I wasn't at all on the planning sheet, my father just didn't pull out in time.

 

[LizzieMaine]

That's the difference between popular-culture definitions of a generation, which are arbitrarily defined by whoever's doing the defining, and statistical definitions, which are based solely on birth-rate calculations. Around here, for example, the definition of a Boomer might be considered to be anyone born after WWII who remembers the Red Sox winning the pennant in 1967, which was one of the overwhelming cultural moments of the postwar era in New England. But those kind of definitions have no scientific or statistical basis -- they're just pop culture things thrown around by the media, and the definitions shift and change strictly according to the biases and the perspective of whoever's doing the defining.

To the professional demographers, though, a "baby boom" has nothing to do with what kind of music people listened to or what kind of politics they followed, or whether or not they expected the world to be blown up at any moment. It's simply a sharp increase in the birth rate between two points. To them, Boomers, Milliennials, or any other generation are not unique social groups with a shared set of experiences. They aren't even individuals at all. They're simply clumps of dots on a chart. From that perspective, the birth rate jumped between 1945 and 1947, and didn't sink again to 1945 levels until 1965. And that bump on the chart was the Baby Boom.

 

[Stearmen]

B
From what I remembered, no one born in 1954 was drafted, although we got our draft numbers 1973 (March 8). Since I had already enlisted by then it was was a non-event for me. I had completed Basic Training and was in USAF tech school at the time. More important to us was about 5-6 weeks earlier when the ceasefire was announced. Since I was going to a B-52 school, I was very interested in the Dec 1972 bombing missions when B-52s were being shot down

Draft numbers were also pulled for those born 1955 and 1956.

https://www.sss.gov/About/History-And-Records/lotter1

Interestingly, the man identified as the last one drafted for during the Vietnam era stayed...and stayed...and stayed. According to the stories at this search, he was inducted in April 1972 when he was 19, retiring 42 years later.

The last men were inducted on June 30, 1973. You are right, they got their notices during 1972, and I believe all of them were in their twenties. Well most of them did, Archie Turner, often called the last man, didn't even know his number was up, until a couple of MPs came to his job sight! Seems his girlfriend was intercepting the notices and burning them! He retired in 2004 with the rank of Sergeant Major.

 

[Zombie_61]

I'm a baby blooper, I wasn't at all on the planning sheet...

"Baby Blooper". I'd guess that's the widest demographic of all, and one that I'm a part of.

 

[ChiTownScion]

Kids these days....

 

[green papaya]

When you turn the radio on while driving and cant stand the modern music kids listen to these days, they keep replaying the same crappy songs / music over and over , sounds terrible, I usually turn the radio off , Im sick of everything sounding like "Hip Hop" or other new hit music kids listen to these days.

I think most people grow up liking certain music and when they get older cant enjoy the new stuff, cant relate to it anymore.

you wouldnt expect a 95 year old WW2 vet to like the new music they play these days

 

[LizzieMaine]

I despised the music of the '60s and '70s when I was a kid in the '60s and '70s, and I don't think it has improved with age at all. (I didn't think much of the music of the '50s, either.)

On the other hand, Artie Shaw gave up swing after WWII because he got sick of playing "Begin The Beguine" until he wanted to throw up, tried his hand at bebop, and was pretty good at it until he decided that the music business was for chumps and had his clarinet made into a lamp.

 

[Zombie_61]

When you turn the radio on while driving and cant stand the modern music kids listen to these days, they keep replaying the same crappy songs / music over and over , sounds terrible, I usually turn the radio off , Im sick of everything sounding like "Hip Hop" or other new hit music kids listen to these days.

I think most people grow up liking certain music and when they get older cant enjoy the new stuff, cant relate to it anymore...

I concur. The operative word in your post is "kids", because that's the target audience. Like you, I can't relate to modern music because I'm long from being a teenager or twenty-something, and very few people are producing music for people beyond that age range.

These days I mostly listen to home-made CDs and "oldies" stations on Sirius/XM--40s, blues, jazz, "vintage vinyl", and so on. Unfortunately, those stations play mostly "middle of the road" stuff with the occasional "hit" thrown in, but it's better than what's airing on the FM "Top 40" stations.

 

[Stearmen]

Rap is now 47 years old and Hip Hop is celebrating it's 38th anniversary. So in other words, kids today are listing to their parents and grandparents music! While I appreciate the music from the 20s and 40s now, when I was a teen, that would have been so L7 and a one way trip to unpopularityville! So kids, get your own music!

 

[EngProf]

I despised the music of the '60s and '70s when I was a kid in the '60s and '70s, and I don't think it has improved with age at all. (I didn't think much of the music of the '50s, either.)

On the other hand, Artie Shaw gave up swing after WWII because he got sick of playing "Begin The Beguine" until he wanted to throw up, tried his hand at bebop, and was pretty good at it until he decided that the music business was for chumps and had his clarinet made into a lamp.

Remember (as you said yourself) that you are statistically part of the "Baby Boom", but not a part of the Baby Boomer culture, so there is no reason for you to like the music of that time.
For most people I know of the Boomers, our music was mostly background sound for whatever it was that we were doing at the time - sock hops, drive-in cruising, drag racing, etc.
If you weren't old enough to connect the music with a pleasant event or activity (or a sad one) during your formative years, there is not much reason to like most of it.
For example, the Beach Boys' song "409" barely qualifies as music at all. (It's that bad...) However, since I owned (and raced) a "4-speed, dual-quad, Positraction 409", it sounds great to me. When I hear it now I stop whatever I'm doing and just listen and reminisce. "She's real fine, my 4-0-9..."

On the negative side (at the time), I always associate hearing Question-Mark and the Mysterions' "96 Tears" with studying for our first big calculus exam, and we were lamenting that we would all be crying "96 Tears" after the exam was over.

I can count on one hand, with fingers left over, the number of times we just sat there and listened to music.

Not living through the time and not combining life's activities (good and bad) with sound (music) changes your perspective on the perceived quality of the music.

 

[GHT]

I despised the music of the '60s and '70s when I was a kid in the '60s and '70s, and I don't think it has improved with age at all. (I didn't think much of the music of the '50s, either.)

Me neither, I bought records probably due to self induced peer pressure. But I couldn't get excited over any of the bands. I didn't go to see many and I certainly wouldn't ever go to a gig, that featured music from that era, today.

 

[green papaya]

actually my favorite type of music is easy listening jazz or city jazz, just the music, no singing needed

kind of like the type of music you might hear in the bookstore / elevator / grocery store

just mellow music / relaxing music

 

[Lean'n'mean]

I think most people grow up liking certain music and when they get older cant enjoy the new stuff, cant relate to it anymore.

Fortunately I'm not like most people then. ..despite my age I listen to all types of music including Rap & R'&'B.( I must admit though I've always had trouble with Country & Western ) As Louis Armstrong said when asked what his favorite type of music was " There are only two kinds of music, good & bad." .....I agree with him. Besides, there is just too much great music out there..... It would be a shame to be imprisoned in just one genre or era.

 

[LizzieMaine]

We indeed didn't have "boomer music" in the house when I was growing up -- my mother, who went to high school in the mid-1950s, hated Elvis and "rock-n-roll" and everything that went with it -- so I was left to figure out my own tastes in what to listen to. Even as a kid tuning around the radio dial at night, I could tell that the then-current product was lacking something. I didn't really know what it was yet, but I knew there was something about it that bothered me, and I developed a dislike for it even before I started school.

What I eventually realized that I dislike most about "boomer music" is that, especially from the mid-sixties forward, it takes itself way, way too seriously -- a reaction, perhaps, to the relentlessly juvenile music of the decade or so that preceeded it. And the people performing it just don't seem to be having any fun, because, you know, they're just so damn serious about slamming their noiseboxes. Perhaps the only exception to this is the Motown stuff, but even that suffers from being overly formulaic in a franchise fast-food sort of way.

This is the same reason I'm not a particular fan of Glenn Miller -- his stuff is technically proficient, but absolutely joyless -- if he ever cracked a smile in his life, it was an accident. Give me somebody like Fats Waller any day of the week -- a musician and songwriter of towering talent who refused, at any time whatsoever, to take himself the least bit seriously. Or someone like Cole Porter or Johnny Mercer or Harold Rome -- whose skills at meshing music and lyrics were exceeded only by their sense of humor about it all.

 

[Fading Fast]

I was born in '64 and only heard big bands and "crooners" played in our house growing up - my father would have none of that "rock and roll nonsense / noise" in his house.

But of course, with my friends, I heard what was current and would listen in my room on my hand-me-down radio to current music.

That said, I loved the big bangs and crooners that I grew up hearing at home and listen to them to this day.

I also love "classic" rock - when it got serious by about '65 (and became "rock" not "rock and roll") until the '70s morphed into lounge rock and disco.

Sure, I listened to all that '70s and '80s stuff (in college) -but to me, everything felt soulless versus the classic rock of my early youth. Mick not getting any satisfaction, men coming from the land of the ice and snow, smoke on the water / fire in the sky touch deep inside me; whereas, put on your boogie shoes, hold me now or voices carry all sounded pop junky. (Guns n Roses was the only band since the rock area ended that understood, wrote and played classic rock music.)

Somewhere along the way, I "discovered" classical music and have been a fan ever since.

Okay, so I eventually reached back to Beethoven, absorbed the big bands and crooners, fell in love with rock (and went back and fell in love with its R&B and early rock and roll roots), but all the other stuff, while on a given day I can enjoy it, I really don't care about.

I'm open minded and hope that tomorrow, some new trend, type, style will sing to me again the way the opening riff to Baba O'Riley or the line "I was born in a cross-fire hurricane" did, but I am not hopeful. I don't think it is because I'm closed minded or "too old," I think there are periods where music works for you and period where it doesn't - today's just doesn't work for me, but neither did the disco of my youth nor the "big hair" bands of my college years.

 

[BlueTrain]

As I remember it, radio played the same pop music over and over in the 1960s and early 1970s, which is how we learned the lyrics. Practically all of what I listen to these days, however, is German folk music, and I have no idea how that came to be. But it tends to be a little circular and I find myself hearing Dueling Banjos played by a Swiss musician playing the hammered dulcimer (hackbrett). But even Elvis (Presley, that is) recorded at least one German traditional folk song (Muß i den).

The Germans themselves have had revivals of old music, too, one performer in particular capitalizing on it. Max Raabe leads a little dance band and sings (in four or five languages) music from the 20s and 30s. I even managed to catch his show once when he visited the U.S.

Although I was born in 1946, my formative years have not ended.

 

[Trenchfriend]

@LizzieMaine

We indeed didn't have "boomer music" in the house when I was growing up -- my mother, who went to high school in the mid-1950s, hated Elvis and "rock-n-roll" and everything that went with it -- so I was left to figure out my own tastes in what to listen to. Even as a kid tuning around the radio dial at night, I could tell that the then-current product was lacking something. I didn't really know what it was yet, but I knew there was something about it that bothered me, and I developed a dislike for it even before I started school.

What I eventually realized that I dislike most about "boomer music" is that, especially from the mid-sixties forward, it takes itself way, way too seriously -- a reaction, perhaps, to the relentlessly juvenile music of the decade or so that preceeded it. And the people performing it just don't seem to be having any fun, because, you know, they're just so damn serious about slamming their noiseboxes. Perhaps the only exception to this is the Motown stuff, but even that suffers from being overly formulaic in a franchise fast-food sort of way.

I guess, you realized on the 60's-music very soon the same thing, I was realizing as a kid in the 90's. This more or less mainstream-boringness. And to mask the boringness, they filled the mainstream stuff with a pseudo-modern, but in the end, trashy character.

The best example, for me, are The Backstreet Boys and their booming success, here in Germany, in 1995. The music was at least "ok" to me, but really nothing more. The trashy appearance and all this commercial cheapness bored me very.
Take That were in their end-phase and I think it was nice, more or less loungy music for the teens and the adults together. And with the end of Take That and the big success of the Backstreet Boys, that seemed to be the beginning of the actual cheap teeny-pop mainstream with the always same formated boringness.

But of course, I know, the mainstream-thing began much earlier.

As a pubescend boy of 12/13, I heared the old Bee Gees-stuff and especially "Nights on Broadway" got me really and still got. It's the atmosphere and I still like the older cassette-sound.

 

[tonyb]

...

Although I was born in 1946, my formative years have not ended.

There ya go. No reason to die before your heart stops beating.