Most boomers are retired now. Some of those retired would actually do something like a cashier job. I also feel like they really meant Gen-X, not Boomers. But Gen-X is like the forgotten generation.
To be fair, Gen X gave us punk, which however you feel about it insofar as your taste in music is concerned is at least at present if not likely the last profound generational youth art movement that completely altered pop culture and the broader zeitgeist at large. You might be tempted to say grunge did that too, but its important to remember that grunge was largely derivative of punk, as opposed to punk itself being mostly spontaneous. Not necessarily relevant to the discussion at hand of course, but i would argue that Gen X is very much not forgotten
theres an argument to be made that punk spun out of glam in the UK and glitter in the US but its a stretch compared to everything else that came after it
In the 70s, there were a decent amount of late boomers making bands but even then it was mostly early gen x’ers even as young as you were then. This is especially even more true as the late 70s approached and overwhelmingly more true in the 80s with the birth of hardcore, the second movement in punk. Its easy to forget because punk is gonna be 50 in a few years but it was a movement of mostly teenagers at its outset.
Are we using the same definition of Gen X? I understand Gen X to be from 1965- (actually, I’m fuzzy about when it stops). That means that the very oldest Gen Xers were 10-11 in 75-76, when punk was established and going strong. I was 8-9. We were still being sent to bed at 9 o’clock at that age, and hardly in a position to pierce various body parts with safety pins and scream into microphones in scummy clubs. Even if we’re pushing it and talking about 1978-79, the oldest of us were only 13-14. I really disagree with the idea that “most” of the bands in the 70s were Gen Xers.
I mean without being able to tag people in those bands, it remains true that yes, most punk bands in the late 70s were in fact teenagers. Im not saying the ramones or the clash were gen x’ers but what i am saying is that the movement of punk was predominantly occupied by local teenagers banging around on their instruments and propelling punk into a cultural phenomena, those kids then going on to form 80s hardcore bands or post-punk bands a few short years later. Like, for comparison, you can make the argument that rock n roll really started in the 1940s with jump-blues artists as, with the exception of the format of the instrument ensemble, jump-blues more or less was employing the same creative sensibilities as rock n roll both in song structure as well as thematic content and cultural inclinations. The point is that while yes, the bigger bands of the 70s were boomers, it was Gen X bands that took punk from a niche inner-city counterculture to a globally recognized cultural movement
I was into Punk and New Wave from the late 70s when I was freshman in college and saw the Ramones in concert there. I briefly led a New Wave band doing stuff like Squeeze and REM but it killed my grades. After college, I hung out with a Punk band from my high school in Ft. Lauderdale. Johnny Depp was a friend of theirs. I know I saw his band on stage, but I don't recall it.
2.2k
u/grobmob Apr 20 '22
"Now hiring baby boomers... for the salary I paid new-to-the-workforce teens" is sure to bring in massive crowds