Whatever you say, Bob.“Fourteen is a sort of magic age for the development of musical tastes,” says Daniel J. Levitin, a professor of psychology and the director of the Laboratory for Music Perception, Cognition and Expertise at McGill University. “Pubertal growth hormones make everything we’re experiencing, including music, seem very important. We’re just reaching a point in our cognitive development when we’re developing our own tastes. And musical tastes become a badge of identity.”
Biography seems to bear this out. When Robert Zimmerman (the future Bob Dylan) turned 14 as a freshman at Hibbing High School in Minnesota, Elvis Presley was releasing his early records, including “Mystery Train,” and Mr. Dylan discovered a way to channel his gestating creativity and ambition. “When I first heard Elvis’s voice I just knew that I wasn’t going to work for anybody, and nobody was going to be my boss,” Mr. Dylan once said. “Hearing him for the first time was like busting out of jail.”
What? Oh, our musical taste was formed around 1962, by Phil Spector productions & "oldies." We were one precocious little bastard.
14, eh? Jeebus. I think I was a Monkees fan at 14.
ReplyDeleteShall I just kill myself now?
Doctor Editor Types:
ReplyDeleteHey, you made it through the appendectomy &c., enjoy the lie-down time & don't do anything rash!
To make you feel worse, The Monkees were subjects of intense debate as to "authenticity" in our youth, mostly because they didn't write much of their material. (If we'd known it was mostly studio cats besides, well ....)
Kinda like them now, & the show holds up pretty well, so you're absolved!
My musical tastes were formed when I was a fetus. That's how hip I am.
ReplyDeleteHep Editor Wonders:
ReplyDeleteOne of those "Make the baby smart by applying headphones to the mother's stomach & playing Bach" deals?