Of course it's pretty common for celebrities to act, look and just generally come off younger than many "average joes" of the same age. It's not just because of makeup or trying to be cool either. I think alot of it has to do with attitude. It's probably ingrained in them to an extent, since many were always influenced by entertainment and that ties into youth culture. Even if they weren't famous, their personalities would probably be similar anyway.

Yet I've noticed their fanbase is commonly younger than they are...to the point of their own peers not always being into them. This bewildered me when I was younger. For instance, I know a woman born in 1964 who said she kinda thought the pop music around 1989 was out of her grasp. She didn't dislike it, but felt like she couldn't relate to Paula Abdul, power ballads, New Kids or MC Hammer. The amazing thing is she's two years YOUNGER than Hammer and Paula, yet felt too old for them! ;)

I bet there were also Boomers in the early MTV era who couldn't get into songs like "We Built This City". Random thought, but Steven Tyler of Aerosmith has almost the exact same birthday as Al Gore - again, quite a difference, lol. While this makes some sense, it seems flat-out awkward in a way. Has anyone ever thought about it before?

We were around when the music industry was in its heyday.  It wasn't so corporate and polished, and that is what I see, and hate, in the music industry.  Mass marketing, polish, makeup consultants, fashion consultants, what will sell, what won't.  They have concerts in football fields that have to broadcast large screens so that those in the bleachers can see the action.  What kind of acoustics do you think they have going on there? I just can't get into alot of that stuff, the likes of Stones and the Who going around in these venues makes me barf, I love their music, but I find that kind of a concert just greedy, money grubbing, bullsh*t. 
We took a bit of a train trip this weekend and on the train there was an Irish group on their way to Portland, Maine.  They were practicing on the train, I guess they thought everyone was just too pleased to listen to them, and they did a couple of Beatles.  They practiced over and over, and I wanted to get up and tell them that the reason the Beatles did it so well was because they didn't obsess over the exact notes to harmonize.  They just sang the damn songs, and that is what made them so great. 

We were around when the music industry was in its heyday.  It wasn't so corporate and polished, and that is what I see, and hate, in the music industry.  Mass marketing, polish, makeup consultants, fashion consultants, what will sell, what won't.  They have concerts in football fields that have to broadcast large screens so that those in the bleachers can see the action.  What kind of acoustics do you think they have going on there? I just can't get into alot of that stuff, the likes of Stones and the Who going around in these venues makes me barf, I love their music, but I find that kind of a concert just greedy, money grubbing, bullsh*t. 
We took a bit of a train trip this weekend and on the train there was an Irish group on their way to Portland, Maine.  They were practicing on the train, I guess they thought everyone was just too pleased to listen to them, and they did a couple of Beatles.  They practiced over and over, and I wanted to get up and tell them that the reason the Beatles did it so well was because they didn't obsess over the exact notes to harmonize.  They just sang the damn songs, and that is what made them so great. 


Not sure I follow you, but you're saying cover versions are inferior to the originals? I guess I can agree with that. And yeah, some of those soundsystems are lousy.


For a personal relation, I'm almost exactly the same age as Britney Spears. While I like some of her earlier songs, when she hit the scene around early 1999, I didn't think of her as being "my generation". Sure it was in the technical sense, but it didn't define my tastes the way in which '80s and early-mid '90s music before it had already done. So I guess it makes a shred of sense, lol.

I can agree about that. I mean, I think Paul Adbul's music was definetly aimed at younger audiences, but then artists such as Celine Dion or Barbra Striesand have appealed more to older audiences, than themselves (and maybe for Barbra, since she's been around longer has a more varied audience - both younger and older than herself.)

Random thought, but Steven Tyler of Aerosmith has almost the exact same birthday as Al Gore. Again, quite a difference, lol.




Rock/pop music is youth-oriented.  If people who are under 30 (or wish they still were) can't relate to Aerosmith, the band is doomed. 

On that note, no pun intended, I notice the Baby Boomers still listening to the same music they listened to when they were kids.*  Fair enough.  I listen to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, but I decided 15 years ago that I would not live into my 40s listening to the music I liked in the '80s.  A Gen-X comic most astutely observed, "In the '60s, you had sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll.  In the '80s, we had AIDS, crack, and Madonna." 

Anybody who checks out the '80s board knows I still listen to '80s music and have a great fondness for it.  However, I did not want to my tastes to stall right where they were when I was 18.  I also want to keep a distance between myself and the '80s zeitgeist. 

The problem for me is the older I got, the more esoteric my tastes became.  I could chat with millions about Depeche Mode, some about Brian Eno, a few about Legendary Pink Dots, and almost nobody about Morton Feldman.  And that's the way the cookie crumbled!
http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/07/nixweiss.gif

Besides pop music being youth-oriented, our entire popular culture is youth-oriented.  This again is a holdover from the Baby-Boomers. 
The biggest drawback to this is an incentive not to grow up.  In fact, the concept of maturity seems to be disappearing!
::)

I can agree about that. I mean, I think Paul Adbul's music was definetly aimed at younger audiences, but then artists such as Celine Dion or Barbra Striesand have appealed more to older audiences, than themselves (and maybe for Barbra, since she's been around longer has a more varied audience - both younger and older than herself.)

Yeah, totally true. There were a few older people who probably liked it (my mom did), but the most hardcore fans were probably in Junior High or so. I ought to say that this woman I'm acquainted with had just become a teacher and was already married with a kid then. She wasn't like a partying type of young adult or anything. She's a nice lady, but always was a bit reserved from what I know and probably had a quite older image. Still, it's so bizarre when you think about it. Imagine this at the time:

Conservative 25-year old: I think you guys are a bad influence on today's youth.
27-year old Paula: Come on, respect your elders!
28-year old Hammer: Yeah, don't be dissin' us, kid!

;D


Seriously though, I sometimes notice a division like when they're doing a celebrity bio if they interview friends or peers. Like, some of Weird Al's college buddies seem much more like "typical" men in their mid 40s, whereas Al is like a big kid as far as personality goes. I know what you mean about the older appealing performers too. I remember alot of adults liked pop music in the '80s, like Hall and Oates, Bruce Springsteen or certain mainstream new wave songs, like "Karma Chameleon". So I guess it just depends on the individual as well as the artist, so age is kinda arbitrary really.


Rock/pop music is youth-oriented.  If people who are under 30 (or wish they still were) can't relate to Aerosmith, the band is doomed. 


Besides pop music being youth-oriented, our entire popular culture is youth-oriented.  This again is a holdover from the Baby-Boomers. 
The biggest drawback to this is an incentive not to grow up.  In fact, the concept of maturity seems to be disappearing!
::)

Yeah, Boomers and even the late period Silent Generation seem like "old young people" in many ways. I think to really reach the more traditional old-timers you have to look to people born before, like 1935. As sad as it is when you think about mortality, you can't deny even the youngest of that group are getting a bit up there in age. I think people are just so used to youth culture now, that it kinda goes into our personality without us even realizing it. To some extent I think it's cool that people seem younger longer now, but you also don't want to go too far with it either. Like avoiding responsibility to go party all day.

The stereotypical image I get of Boomers kinda comes from The Big Chill, like they gave up their hippie lives to settle down and become the establishment, but at the same time, still listened to the same music. Much like yourself, I've tended to only go one way with music or anything else - liking new stuff. I'll never stop being a fan of anything I once was, but it can be kinda boring to never advance your tastes either.

Not sure I follow you, but you're saying cover versions are inferior to the originals? I guess I can agree with that. And yeah, some of those soundsystems are lousy.


For a personal relation, I'm almost exactly the same age as Britney Spears. While I like some of her earlier songs, when she hit the scene around early 1999, I didn't think of her as being "my generation". Sure it was in the technical sense, but it didn't define my tastes the way in which '80s and early-mid '90s music before it had already done. So I guess it makes a shred of sense, lol.
As a person who is a couple years younger than you Marty I was totally lost when the teen-pop thing was big in 1999-2000 because it was so different from the 1994-1998 musical sound that I was used too and I did graduate in June of 1998 and at 19 but I had a hard time relating to the music scene in 1999-2000. Now, music in 2007 again I can't relate to it because its all just too boring: T-Pain, Akon, Huey, Shop Boyz and of course late 2005/early 2006 music scene I couldn;t relate to either with the snap rap like Dem Franchise Boyz or DL 4. Give me 90's artists  Stone Temple Pilots, Soul Asylum, Lisa Loeb, Collective Soul, Soundgarden or even R&B artists like Montell Jordan, Blackstreet, Tevin Campbell or Brian McKnight than 97% of the music thats out now.

Btw, Isn't rapper 50 Cent like 30 or 31 years old I mean how many people his age listen to his music? I doubt many.

Ironically this is true. Britney Spears for example, at the height of her popularity in 2001 she was 21 years old, basically an adult, yet many of her fans were age 8-12. Eventually given the age disparity the argument comes into question just who's generation she is representing.

I have to say I agree, the whole youth, trendiness factor with pop culture is a big factor in celebrities seeming younger than most average joes.

Ironically this is true. Britney Spears for example, at the height of her popularity in 2001 she was 21 years old, basically an adult, yet many of her fans were age 8-12. Eventually given the age disparity the argument comes into question just who's generation she is representing..
Well I'm sure there were people that were 12 years old in 1999 that were fans of Britney but when they turned 14 in 2001 I think they grew out of Britney. As for Britney at what generation she represents I think she represented the late Generation Yers born anywhere from 1987-1989 and maybe 1990 or 1991 maybe. I don;t think Britney had many fans that were born in say 1984. I would say people born in 1984 were listening to a band like "The Deftones" in 1999. OMG Thats alarming right people born in 1987 are now in college that used to like Britney.

As a person who is a couple years younger than you Marty I was totally lost when the teen-pop thing was big in 1999-2000 because it was so different from the 1994-1998 musical sound that I was used too and I did graduate in June of 1998 and at 19 but I had a hard time relating to the music scene in 1999-2000. Now, music in 2007 again I can't relate to it because its all just too boring: T-Pain, Akon, Huey, Shop Boyz and of course late 2005/early 2006 music scene I couldn;t relate to either with the snap rap like Dem Franchise Boyz or DL 4. Give me 90's artists  Stone Temple Pilots, Soul Asylum, Lisa Loeb, Collective Soul, Soundgarden or even R&B artists like Montell Jordan, Blackstreet, Tevin Campbell or Brian McKnight than 97% of the music thats out now.

Btw, Isn't rapper 50 Cent like 30 or 31 years old I mean how many people his age listen to his music? I doubt many.

Yeah, you're about 2 years older (didn't you say you were born towards the end of '79? I'm Fall of 1981).

I'm not sure exactly when I started to feel displaced (at least compared to before) with current music, but I guess it was around 1999 or 2000. I didn't like nu metal and stuff like that too much. I should say that it depends on which aspect of pop culture or music it is, though. I still like some songs, but more the mainstream pop or rock. When I was 17-20 I began feeling like there was an equal amount I couldn't quite relate to compared to when I was a kid or an early teen.

I agree, 50 Cent is probably quite older than most of his fanbase, even if he probably has an occasional few around his age.

Well I'm sure there were people that were 12 years old in 1999 that were fans of Britney but when they turned 14 in 2001 I think they grew out of Britney. As for Britney at what generation she represents I think she represented the late Generation Yers born anywhere from 1987-1989 and maybe 1990 or 1991 maybe. I don;t think Britney had many fans that were born in say 1984. I would say people born in 1984 were listening to a band like "The Deftones" in 1999. OMG Thats alarming right people born in 1987 are now in college that used to like Britney.




I agree, although for that same age group I believe the 2010s will be what truely comes to define generation y.

Seriously though, I sometimes notice a division like when they're doing a celebrity bio if they interview friends or peers. Like, some of Weird Al's college buddies seem much more like "typical" men in their mid 40s, whereas Al is like a big kid as far as personality goes. I know what you mean about the older appealing performers too. I remember alot of adults liked pop music in the '80s, like Hall and Oates, Bruce Springsteen or certain mainstream new wave songs, like "Karma Chameleon". So I guess it just depends on the individual as well as the artist, so age is kinda arbitrary really.

Yeah, Boomers and even the late period Silent Generation seem like "old young people" in many ways. I think to really reach the more traditional old-timers you have to look to people born before, like 1935. As sad as it is when you think about mortality, you can't deny even the youngest of that group are getting a bit up there in age. I think people are just so used to youth culture now, that it kinda goes into our personality without us even realizing it. To some extent I think it's cool that people seem younger longer now, but you also don't want to go too far with it either. Like avoiding responsibility to go party all day.

The stereotypical image I get of Boomers kinda comes from The Big Chill, like they gave up their hippie lives to settle down and become the establishment, but at the same time, still listened to the same music. Much like yourself, I've tended to only go one way with music or anything else - liking new stuff. I'll never stop being a fan of anything I once was, but it can be kinda boring to never advance your tastes either.

I despise The Big Chill to this day!  It is the emblem of self-absored, self-congratulatory yuppiedom; the last vestiges of sixties counterculture died with John Lennon; The Big Chill was a zombie; The Big Chill was a coming-of-age film for frikkin' 35-year-olds!!!!  And they-they-they...they abducted "Heard It Through the Grapevine" as their anthem.  It's not that you guys ain't black that's the problem, it's you guys have no soul!  You have MBAs and BMWs and stock portfolios.  And the next year the great Marvin Gaye is tragically murdered by his own father, and these self-serving yuppies didn't even show enough respect to quit exploiting that song; noooo!, the yuppies of Madison Avenue turned it into a raisin commercial!

But I say time and again, most Gen-X-ers didn't see the sick side of the counterculture the way I did.  Linda Kasabian was my babysitter, I sh*t you not!  Most did not witness the post-Woodstock smithereens---drug dealers, bikers, petty thieves, free-loading rock bands who lived in tent cities, burnt-out acidheads sleeping in the hayloft, Stephen Gaskin disciples, self-professed "free spirits" who were little more than hashish-smoking hangdog hoboes who wore moccasins and never bathed....and that ain't the worst of it!  I saw it all.  Too early.  Too young.  Too much .

And there I was in my own adolescence a decade later waiting for the backlash that never came.

The repressive, conformist American temper of the Joe McCarthy/Howdy-Doody was universal.  However, most people only saw the counterculture from afar; I saw into the depths of its corrupted soul. 

BUT WAIT...P.J. O'Rourke got it wrong.  I didn't see that it was all bad from the start, just that cultural turmoil and self-serving leadership (Timothy Leary, Abbie Hoffman, Ken Kesey, Mark Rudd) caused so much to go awry so quickly.

I wanted to adopt the good things and kill off that which was harmful.  Alas, I was alone.  I found no ideology in my generation, only hedonism.

Sure, there was the Clash....but my peers wanted to drop acid and follow the Dead.  I know where that was at when I was six!
http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/06/jinnwink.gif

And that gets back to the topic at hand.  My father was an ex-hippie by the mid-80s.  What was he?  Other than being a flaming azzwhole, he was Leftist.  He taught Spanish at a prep school and designed his lesson plans around the struggles of the Sandanistas!  One weekend the students were throwing a Woodstock-tribute festival on the campus athletic fields.  Flowerchild garb.  Student bands doing CSNY covers.  My father remarked, "This is like my generationg throwing a Coconut Grove party!"  He was referring to the Boston nightclub that burned in 1942, and implying further that he couldn't get away fast enough from the inane pop culture of his parents' time, and how curious it was that my generation glommed onto their parents' pop culture!

   Not to be too simplistic, but isn't most music made since, say, the 40s, directed at a younger demographic..?

   I thought that was generally the way it worked...

   For instance, I never thought Kurt Cobain or Beck or their ilk was speaking to us (my age group...), but to, well, teenagers...

   Beck has, for instance, stated "Loser" was not what Gen X thought it was or embraced it as - an anthem for a generation...

Well I'm sure there were people that were 12 years old in 1999 that were fans of Britney but when they turned 14 in 2001 I think they grew out of Britney. As for Britney at what generation she represents I think she represented the late Generation Yers born anywhere from 1987-1989 and maybe 1990 or 1991 maybe. I don;t think Britney had many fans that were born in say 1984. I would say people born in 1984 were listening to a band like "The Deftones" in 1999. OMG Thats alarming right people born in 1987 are now in college that used to like Britney.



Yeah, I was born in 1987, and although I didn't like Britney, alot of people I was going to school with around that time did. It was around 2001 or early '02 that her popularity started to diminish among my classmates, that was right around the time I started High School.

Conservative 25-year old: I think you guys are a bad influence on today's youth.
27-year old Paula: Come on, respect your elders!
28-year old Hammer: Yeah, don't be dissin' us, kid!


You know, there really isn't anything shocking or scandalous about MC Hammer and Paula Abdul. Their music is pretty safe and middle of the road, if you think about it. There aren't any references to violence, aggression, raunchy sex or drug use in any of their songs.

If you want to hear something truly subversive, go listen to NWA, Lil' Kim, Slipknot, Nine Inch Nails and Slayer!

You know, there really isn't anything shocking or scandalous about MC Hammer and Paula Abdul. Their music is pretty safe and middle of the road, if you think about it. There aren't any references to violence, aggression, raunchy sex or drug use in any of their songs.

If you want to hear something truly subversive, go listen to NWA, Lil' Kim, Slipknot, Nine Inch Nails and Slayer!


Oh I definitely agree, dude. For the record, I was just totally kidding around with that, pointing out the irony of someone younger than them feeling too old to like their music. ;)

Even for that time, yes I think it was quite breezy and innocent. That's one thing I loved about early '90s pop music (as well as the real 1980s). Hammer seems like a cool guy who never took his music too seriously and was an easygoing pop-rapper (more of a dance artist technically). I definitely think Paula is a nice person and a good role model from what I've seen/heard, and her music is well-produced light fun...with a few romantic ballads thrown in for good measure.

P.S. One artist from that period who I think probably DID have mostly older fans, is Michael Bolton (well I liked him and I was 9-10 in 1991 but I'm a geek). ;D

That's one thing I loved about early '90s pop music (as well as the real 1980s). Hammer seems like a cool guy who never took his music too seriously and was an easygoing pop-rapper (more of a dance artist technically).
Yeah Hammer was a cool guy looking back on it but wasn;t his song "Pray" trying to get a message across unlike his other music that he put out in the early 90's which was basically as you said pop-rap stuff.

It's no surprise that the people who make that kind of pop music don't have too many fans their age. That kind of light, innocent pop music(stuff like Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys, N'Sync etc.) usually appeals mainly to very young kids, say from age 9 to 14, or so. Once people reach the age of 15 or 16, they start to find that sort of music kiddie and immature, and they want to listen to something more complex.

Look at Barney the Dinosaur, for instance. The guy inside the suit might be 35 years old, but you wouldn't expect Barney to have any 35 year old fans!

Look at Barney the Dinosaur, for instance. The guy inside the suit might be 35 years old, but you wouldn't expect Barney to have any 35 year old fans!


hey now..you just wait a second....LOLOL....nah, just kidding! ;) ;D

It's no surprise that the people who make that kind of pop music don't have too many fans their age. That kind of light, innocent pop music(stuff like Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys, N'Sync etc.) usually appeals mainly to very young kids, say from age 9 to 14, or so. Once people reach the age of 15 or 16, they start to find that sort of music kiddie and immature, and they want to listen to something more complex.

Look at Barney the Dinosaur, for instance. The guy inside the suit might be 35 years old, but you wouldn't expect Barney to have any 35 year old fans!

Some to be sure, for reasons I don't want to begin to understand!