Stuff

[Ian Townsend]

In 20 years time young people will draw a sharp intake of breath hearing stories about the sheer volume of physical 'stuff' we Generation X-ers had the luxury of wading through in our spare time.

They'll bloody marvel, nay, FANTASIZE, about what it must have been like to be near piles and piles of 'things', when reading stories about 'digging' regardless of whether it's about records, CDs, books, clothes, furniture or bric a brac.

Just musing. I think they will consider the 80s and 90s to have been far and away more interesting than the 60s and 70s, but then maybe that's just the cyclical nature of humans.

Shedloads of 50 year olds slaver over the 60s and 70s now.
Shedloads of 50 year olds in twenty years time will slaver over the 80s and 90s.
I think they'll have way more to think about.

[Paul-K]

the 90s are already "cool" again.

it seems that kids like whatever was cool 10 years before they were born.

im looking forward to finding out if anything actually happened in the years 2000 - 2010.

[eine]

I was 13 in 1990, and 18 in 1995. A bit too young for rave, or so it always seemed at the time. I hated Britpop. In terms of youth culture and era I thought the 90s were shit and can vividly remember thinking they were shit at the time. There were loads of good things about growing up though. That was great.

In terms of digging though, there were more good records around. I still have some of my prizes from charity shop digging 1992–1995. Mostly punk.

[Agnes_Guano]

There probably still will be 'stuff' but it will be just that much rarer and harder to get hold of. Long after hard drives have died, web sites taken down, obsolete technology broken and mobile phones have been lost or forgotten, the kids of today will feel that same need to possess a physical reminder of their youth that many of us feel. If you haven't got a decent pension they you should probably stock up on Ed Sheeran records now.

[IAN]

im looking forward to finding out if anything actually happened in the years 2000 - 2010.

Me too. If someone asked me to sum up that decade in terms of music/films/art/books etc I couldn't do it. I didn't buy a single piece of music released in that period, and maybe only a handful of films/books made any kind of impact whatsoever.

Decades just aren't what they used to be.

[babycart]

I was recently thinking about digital bereavement after my partner was horrified to discover that the video of Mina singing Se Telefonando had disappeared from Youtube. (luckily it´s here) and musing on all the blogs and sites that I used to frequent which have disappeared.

Stuff isn´t nearly as precarious.

It was the 60s & 70s 20 years ago, I seem to remember, and although there´s more interest in the 80s now, that still seems to be the case. I reckon that´s because those decades dominate whatever canons still apply in terms of rock and pop.

[peretti]

Horny by Mousse-T vs Hot'n'Juicy was described to me as old time music by our 22yr old intern. Nostalgia's not what it used to be.

[treeboy]

Still "slavering" over the '60s and '70s down here. It's not as if it's the same old stuff though. The shear volume of new sounds that just keep coming, and being "discovered" is overwhelming at times. I started picking this sort of gear up nearly forty years ago, and I suppose the people who had it first time round weren't ready to get rid of it just yet. It was slim pickings where I live believe me. I speak to people who were in London early '70s and weep at the stories of second hand shops with allsorts of (nowadays/ even 20 years ago) desirable records cheap as chips. Do people have nostalgia for decades they actually lived through? I had a pretty marvellous time in the '80s, truth be told, but I don't wish to revisit it. 90s? Meh! Wasn't a hippity hop boy, nor a raver. Looking back, I don't think I've ever been fashionable.
Don't think I had much in the 80s & 90s that future nostalgists will slaver over. Oh yeah...cds.

[eine]

Where's the thread about how long decades went on for? babycart I seem to remember you saying it's been 90s eversince the 90s, but I think it's been 00s eversince the 00s (or since at least 98).

[babycart]

Where's the thread about how long decades went on for? babycart I seem to remember you saying it's been 90s eversince the 90s, but I think it's been 00s eversince the 00s (or since at least 98).

I think I proposed a 50s that lasted until about 1964, a 60s that went on until 1972, a brief 70s lasting from 1973 to 1978, 80s were 1979 to about 1991 and its been the 90s ever since.
It was music-related, not technology - we´ve had about 20 technology decades in the same time period, but music-wise it´s still boybands, R&B, foam party house and karaoke-friendly ballads. Gary Jules version of Mad World ushered in 15 fucking years of sad, twee cover versions, too.
Our brave new century is, I think, defined by someone singing Queen's Who Wants to Live Forever in a little-girl voice over a ukelele.

[babycart]

Shedloads of 50 year olds slaver over the 60s and 70s now.
Shedloads of 50 year olds in twenty years time will slaver over the 80s and 90s.
I think they'll have way more to think about.

I think there´s plenty to think about whatever time period you choose.
I´m a firm believer in the idea that you could choose any item of stuff - a Hot Hits lp, a copy of the Daily Mirror, a tracksuit top, an N64 cartridge of Blast Corps, a packet of mouldering Mini Kievs - and write an immense reference book about how and why it arrived in the world and its cultural significance.

[Sonovox]

Our brave new century is, I think, defined by someone singing Queen's Who Wants to Live Forever in a little-girl voice over a ukelele.

WANT.

[treeboy]

I think there´s plenty to think about whatever time period you choose.
I´m a firm believer in the idea that you could choose any item of stuff - a Hot Hits lp, a copy of the Daily Mirror, a tracksuit top, an N64 cartridge of Blast Corps, a packet of mouldering Mini Kievs - and write an immense reference book about how and why it arrived in the world and its cultural significance.

Mrs Treeboy works for Pearson Education where books is a dirty word nowadays (used to be Longmans FFS!), to the extent they are downsizing the book warehouse, because, apparently they won't need it for much longer. Never mind records, the day that a physical book is something from the dim and distant past is a sad day indeed in mine.

[Sonovox]

Close enough.

[someblokecalledfuz]

In 20 years time young people will draw a sharp intake of breath hearing stories about the sheer volume of physical 'stuff' we Generation X-ers had the luxury of wading through in our spare time.

They'll bloody marvel, nay, FANTASIZE, about what it must have been like to be near piles and piles of 'things', when reading stories about 'digging' regardless of whether it's about records, CDs, books, clothes, furniture or bric a brac.

Just musing. I think they will consider the 80s and 90s to have been far and away more interesting than the 60s and 70s, but then maybe that's just the cyclical nature of humans.

Shedloads of 50 year olds slaver over the 60s and 70s now.
Shedloads of 50 year olds in twenty years time will slaver over the 80s and 90s.
I think they'll have way more to think about.

While I know you're just musing Ian, where do you think all this stuff is going to disappear to? Or how... unless we jetison it into space...

Seems to me that we have too much stuff in general at the moment, but I can't see that stopping anytime soon. Although minimalist homes look wonderful in glossy magazines or in TV adverts, I don't think people in real life are ready to ditch everything in favour of an online clutter free world...

I may just be talking as a techophobe here but I wouldn't trust it to a) keep my details safe b) not sell them on c) target me with all sorts of things I don't need / want / care for, d) use it to control me and my movements and activities.

People are very capable of hoarding all sorts of things / items / junk / art / stuff... I bet we all know someone who collects something we consider a bit of a waste of time, just as they probably view us in much the same way. Unless we abandon capitalism en masse there will always be the next must have item that we have to aquire / own / possess.

The rich are looked up to in capitalism and they spend their lives and money accumulating, London properties, Picasso paintings even Million dollar White albums... and so it follows that if they are owning stuff the rest of us will aspire to own stuff too or imitations of it...

How do you figure we will not need furniture? Kindles are on the way out are they not? Personally most of the books I want to read are not easily found on Kindle which is a tool of mass consumption rather than access to the worlds most precious tomes, a format change just like CD's / minidiscs / MP3's. Just as most of the music I want to listen to isn't on youtube / itunes or on CD... and bric a brac gives people or homes character, mystery and colour surely we won't as a race chose to live without at least some things / stuff which we have an attachment to (art, nostalgia, investment)...

I totally hear you on the 20 year cyclical notion of nostalgia... I'm sure someone else has put it nore eloquently than me but isn't it to do with kids maturing and discovering their parents clothes / pictures / record or CD collections all based on when they were cool young free and single and living it up - 20 years previously?

Others in the thread have wondered what the decade after the turn of the millenium will be remembered for, and I don't have an answer.

But I see it as a decade when we embraced the beginings of online life... gleefully abandoning paper for the utopian online lifestyle. All the correspondance that took place through Email, how much of that will be preserved for future generations to sift through to try and work us out in centuries to come? When they sit down and try to make sense of us they'll have very little physical hardcopy to read... it just takes one cyber malfunction for all that online stuff to evaporate. Just as Vinyl is making a comeback, I feel a (measured) backlash is due against the online world (it is the future afterall), especially if the world gets caught up in a maga destructive religious war...

Interesting post Ian - sorry if I got a bit carried away, just musing as you say...