I woke up today to a movie, one of those teenager love story movies that have a real band soundtrack. I specifically woke up just before one of the characters in the movie was awing over facts regarding 70s glam and progressive rock bands.

Nevermind the irony of the movie being about supposedly good music when the soundtrack is fucking disposable garbage... This struck me in an entirely different way.

A few years ago I was at work having a group conversation about music. The conversation hog of the day was talking about an interview or article he'd read about Jim Morrison. I don't personally give a fuck about the guy, but that's the general case with me and musicians/vocalists. I like music, not musicians. Nevertheless, I was listening and following along. The other two guys were also there, listening - but they were normally the type to eventually jump in conversations, and were instead being quiet. The guy talking suddenly stopped and said, "what am I talking about? None of you are even old enough to know who the fuck Jim Morrison is."

My response was akin to "whatever". Sorry for being too young to converse with your cultured ways, grandpa. Let me go fetch you your cane. Don't want JIMMAY's biggest fan to break a hip.

Me not knowing at least famous musicians is kind of ridiculous. Yes, I'll go through periods of ridiculous ignorance, especially regarding genres/bands I don't care about, but... come on. It wasn't like I was a twelve year old cave dweller or something. I had to be at least 22 and showed up to work every day in band shirts - at very least the Pink Floyd one I wore a lot should have tripped a switch that I wasn't a complete rock music history retard.

The other two guys, not so much. They listened to music, but it was all fairly new or overplayed via radio. To a point, such things are expected as a teenager, and they were around 17-19 years old. I remember the radio being on, Nirvana playing, and one of them made a comment about the song that was so fucking oblivious that I'm pretty sure the guy had never listened to Nirvana before (I know - what? really? I can't believe it myself). I could definitely see him having no clue whatsoever who Jim Morrison was.

I did have a conversation once with the other about 90s bands, and he did have a background in one overrated 60s artist, so maybe he MIGHT have known... but all the same. I'd guess no.

I remember thinking the old convo hog was a jerk, and maybe I'd do well not to insult others' intelligence and personal experience in the future like that.

Waking up today to that movie, my thought was... how the flying fuck does this asshole even know who David Bowie is? He's playing a teenager. Even if he had been exposed to said music by parents or friends or choice, where would the idolization come in? Why would this kid even care?

Ditto about Juno, where there's this whole scene in the movie where she's awing over music she, as a teenager, would not make sense to have been exposed to enough to be able to have conversation with someone who was there, then on. Especially considering she was too stupid to wear a condom, I don't see how she'd be intelligent enough to recall ridiculous facts about bands.

...And then I was thinking of another younger friend I had for a while, someone who had plenty of musical experience and bragged to me that he picked up the band Tool when he was young. I think he said 12. I was about 15, so we picked the band up at the same time - the release of Aenima. While I can picture him being exposed to Tool (heh), I have difficulty conceptualizing someone that young being capable of understanding them enough to carry them beyond that age. There's so much mental and social and emotional development during your teen years that it seems weird to me that a band you're exposed to before you're even in high school would still find you ten years later except through nostalgia (or maybe social over-saturation).

But that's Tool, a generation-relevant band for both of us, not a band that made its way ten or thirty years before we were even born as would be the case with some of these movie characters.

I'm going to get sidetracked before I find the point, here.

Yep.

Perhaps in minor cases it does make sense that an individual of whatever youthful age would like a particular artist or overdo an entire genre that wasn't actually related to them socially. Or, perhaps, I am just a "gemini" who needs to lightly touch on everything and it takes me years to properly consume any one thing entirely, hence why I can't understand how a teenager would know SHIT about music.

And I'm not even 30 yet. I wonder what kind of rude shit I'll be saying to 18 year olds when I'm 50.

Er, besides "I have candy back in my van!" ... Okay, that was yesterday.