Music was life

I've had my grown kids ask me why I'm obsessed with certain songs or bands like it's a foreign concept to them. Young people don't really understand the relationship GenX had with music. Today, they say, "yeah, I like that song, I'll add it to my playlist." And that's about it. No one really knows what they like or what they're listening to.

For GenX, it was different. Our music was life, and we wore it on our sleeves. Prior to the days on social media, or even the web for that matter, music WAS our social media. It was all we had. It was how we expressed ourselves. It was how we fit in, how we made friends, how we socialized, what clique we belonged to.

We not only listened to the music, we consumed it. We listened to songs and albums 1000s of times. We knew every word, every beat, every rif.

We ordered tapes from Columbia House. We listened to Casey Kasem or Rick Dee's every week, without fail. We cheered when our favorite songs rose in the charts, and were crushed when they were edged out of the top spots. We dedicated songs on the radio to our girlfriends or boyfriends, or, if we were brave, our crushes.

And we played the part. We looked, acted, and dressed according to our preferred genres. You could walk into any high school in the 80s and 90s, and just by taking a quick look around, tell what groups listened to which music. And you tended to gravitate toward those that matched your vibe.

We talked about music, bonded over music, traded music, recorded each other's tapes, talked about artists and bands, shared rumors and information about bands, as information was hard to come by in those days. There was no www putting out information 24/7.

We spent many an afternoon in a friend's room,or them in ours, high speed dubbing cassette tapes for each other. We sat in the driveway with a boom box and met the new kid when he walked by and heard our music.

Some of us wore denim or satin jackets emblazoned with our favorite band logos. Some of us were pop, some goth, some emo, some country. Some of us wore parachute pants, Adidas with fat laces, and carried cardboard around the neighborhood for impromptu break dance sessions.

Most of the time, it was easy to find the people you wanted to hang out with or meet. We all looked the part. Music was how we came together, how we bonded, how we made friends.

And that is lost on the younger generations. It's what my kids will never fully understand. They'll just "add it to their playlist."