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When I was young, we didn’t listen to our parents’ and grandparents’ music.

But, young people today enjoy music that is 30-50 years old.

I recently saw Herb Alpert in concert - the vinyl of his that I first listened to was stored in that little LP nook in my parents' console stereo. Perhaps I'm a bit of an outlier in that regard, but there have always been singers and bands from previous generations that maintain some level of new listener interest.

The big difference now, mostly due to digital music streaming, is that the older music never really goes away. When I was a kid, there were a few radio stations that played current music, separated roughly by genre. Plus, there was an "oldies" station that back then, was mostly playing the 1950s rock and roll. Eventually the oldies station began playing '60s music and I quit listening. Seems like the format kept the previous decade's hits around in a limited fashion for a decade, then *poof* - gone.

Now, younger people can hear the older stuff more easily - and new music frequently suffers in comparison.

I should clarify further...

I loved my dad's music, too. He grew up in the zoot suit era, and his music was big band and swing. He taught me (daughter) how to jitterbug. Sometimes, he poked fun at my music ("it sounds like noise"), but always with a smile. :-)

There were outliers my age, and swing made a comeback in the 80s and 90s with newer bands. But, overall, young people in the 70's and 80's didn't play their parents' and grandparents' music at parties, and they typically didn't go to see bands that played it.

Today, young people listen to music from the 70s, 80s, and 90s together. They talk about that music, and they share it with each other. One of my kids played in bands, and pretty much all the bands at his college were playing that older music.

I think Charles is onto something when he wrote about radio stations. When we were young, we had the radio, and each station played a different genre of music, whereas young people today are exposed to a greater variety.

Back to my dear dad... Once, as a teen, I made him a tape filled with his kind of music - played by the bands I was listening to. One track was this one from VH's "Diver Down." Eddie's father is playing the clarinet. My dad loved it. Recently, I shared it with my kids, and they loved it, too.