My teacher had an interesting point on exactly what you're saying. He was born in 1920 and taught his entire career at a military college (40+ years). He observed on several occasions how popular music used to consist of genres, but everyone listened to them in common. It wasn't till Frank Sinatra in the 1940s--he said--that music was created and marketed specifically for an age-based group (I think they were called "bobbysoxers," for the socks the girls wore), and from there popular music became a divisive commerical force to drive wedges between family members.
By the 1950s that was well along with promotion of of degeneracy (beatnik, hood, and sexual frenzy subcultures). Then as you say by the early 1960s, it was being lined up with various other policy and opinion projects to create "age demographics."
I always hated that stuff. Just an excuse to drive family members against one another, as my teacher said. The idea that I have more in common with someone because of the accident of our birth-year, than with someone 20 years older or younger in my family...it's despicable. A potent weapon though, for those seeking control.
My teacher had an interesting point on exactly what you're saying. He was born in 1920 and taught his entire career at a military college (40+ years). He observed on several occasions how popular music used to consist of genres, but everyone listened to them in common. It wasn't till Frank Sinatra in the 1940s--he said--that music was created and marketed specifically for an age-based group (I think they were called "bobbysoxers," for the socks the girls wore), and from there popular music became a divisive commerical force to drive wedges between family members.
By the 1950s that was well along with promotion of of degeneracy (beatnik, hood, and sexual frenzy subcultures). Then as you say by the early 1960s, it was being lined up with various other policy and opinion projects to create "age demographics."
I always hated that stuff. Just an excuse to drive family members against one another, as my teacher said. The idea that I have more in common with someone because of the accident of our birth-year, than with someone 20 years older or younger in my family...it's despicable. A potent weapon though, for those seeking control.