Friday, 03 July, 2009

1. By Bisbonian. Comment posted 03-Jul-2009 @05:24pm:

   I'm really old. It was 1971, and the Beegees. A few after that, but they thin out quickly.
2. By Curtis. Comment posted 03-Jul-2009 @05:36pm:

   I got old in 1973, then young again in 1978, old in 1980, young in 1981, old in 1982, young in 1983, old in 1987, then young in 1992 and finally old in 1993.
3. By Dash Ripoff. Comment posted 03-Jul-2009 @05:47pm:

   For me it was 1973. But I left the country in 1972 for 12 years.
4. By Nik. Comment posted 03-Jul-2009 @05:52pm:

   Wow, 1997 and I'm only 28. And I have to go back to 1983 to find a song I actually like.
5. By chip. Comment posted 03-Jul-2009 @05:54pm:

   shoot, 1990--I was only 28! But people have told me I'm like a 40-year-old since I was 18, so I've caught up at least.
   
   I only recognize two after that. "Macarena", which I knew from people at my office who made fun of it. And "Hot in Here" which I learned while trying to better understand urban culture (and listened to rap and R&B for about 2 months straight.) And who can't like a song that has the lyrics "It's getting hot in here, so take off all your clothes" and the woman responds "hot in here, so I'm gonna take my clothes off"? I better go lie down for a bit now.
6. By Nik. Comment posted 03-Jul-2009 @05:56pm:

   Oh I lied. I can hum "hot in herre" (I wish that I couldn't though), so make it 2002.
7. By chip. Comment posted 03-Jul-2009 @05:59pm:

   BTW, it's disturbing how often the Bee Gee's/Andy Gibb had top songs in August in the 1970s. No wonder those summers seemed so long when I was a kid.
8. By Nik. Comment posted 03-Jul-2009 @06:03pm:

   I misread it. The first year for which you can't hum the song, as opposed to the last year for which you can. That makes it 1968. 12 years before I was born :)
9. By Namowal. Comment posted 03-Jul-2009 @06:19pm:

   Oh that's too funny.
   I apparently hit the Old Wall in 1997 at age 29. It was so binary:
   Yeah, I know that one... yeah, I know that one...
   and suddenly ...huh?
10. By Gar. Comment posted 03-Jul-2009 @06:20pm:

    Middle age in 92, I'll take that.
11. By . Comment posted 03-Jul-2009 @06:24pm:

    Middle age in 84. So when does "old" start?
12. By . Comment posted 03-Jul-2009 @06:26pm:

    J-Walk, I think I hate you.
    
    No, wait... Yes, I'm sure I hate you.
    
    Here I am at 57 thinking I'm about middle age now, and it turns out I got middle-aged at 25. Sheesh!
13. By . Comment posted 03-Jul-2009 @06:44pm:

    1987 was the last year that I recognize. I was 36. Pretty accurate!
14. By . Comment posted 03-Jul-2009 @07:04pm:

    1991 after that I don't even know the artists.
15. By . Comment posted 03-Jul-2009 @07:07pm:

    C'mon!
    I'm only 22 but the selection from 1999 and onward is comprised of terrible music, I can only hum one of them! And that I can hum It's getting hot in here makes me want to hide my face in shame.
16. By . Comment posted 03-Jul-2009 @07:10pm:

    Pretty much hit the nail on the head for me. I turned middled aged at 32 in '90. I couldn't hum "Vision of Love" by Mariah Carey if my life depended on it.
17. By ...pat.. Comment posted 03-Jul-2009 @07:26pm:

    Hmm. 87. Know a few after that, but not many. Was 30. sigh. Oh, to be 30 with the confidence of 50+.
18. By . Comment posted 03-Jul-2009 @07:36pm:

    No wonder I always feel tired these days
    I hit middle ages at age 1, in 1964
19. By . Comment posted 03-Jul-2009 @07:37pm:

    Heinz, Old age starts when you can't remember any of the songs
20. By Andie. Comment posted 03-Jul-2009 @07:43pm:

    It's 1987 for me as well. I was 37 which doesn't make sense since I thought I was 3 years older than JW.
    
    I'm ancient now btw.
    
    My fav is 1966. I can remember one part of that summer just thinking about that song.
21. By Phillip. Comment posted 03-Jul-2009 @07:54pm:

    August 1988 "Roll With It" Steve Winwood.
    
    No clue what that song sounds like.
    
    I've heard of "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You" by Bryan Adams (and that's it), but I've never purposely listened to it (which is the case for most of the songs on the list that I've heard).
    
    So I was 18 when I hit middle excellent. Yup. That's about right.
22. By Median. Comment posted 03-Jul-2009 @07:54pm:

    identifying the first song on the list for which you can't kind of hum the melody.

    
    
    The first one I don't know at all is 1977. I might know it if I heard it. Then, after 1988 they get real spotty up to 2002. Don't know anything after that.
    
    So, I guess middle age set in for me in 1977 when I was 20 yrs old.
23. By Phillip. Comment posted 03-Jul-2009 @07:56pm:

    excellent = age. Nice typo.
    
    Interesting that J-Walk and I hit "middle age" musically around the same time.
24. By Hans. Comment posted 03-Jul-2009 @08:37pm:

    Wow, for me it was apparently 1988, at 30 years old. Like going off a cliff, I remember every one of the hits before then, but not a single one since.
25. By . Comment posted 03-Jul-2009 @09:59pm:

    I reckon what we can infer from this is that only old people read this blog. Or something.
    
    I'm only 45 and I have no recollection of any song on that list past 1987. Of the songs listed for the decade prior, I recognize six but loathe them all. I guess I was just born old. Either that or just not inclined to appreciate popular culture. On the other hand, I listen to and play music all the time. I just don't like crappy music is all.
26. By Daniel FR. Comment posted 04-Jul-2009 @01:22am:

    My middle age began when I was five years old. Do I have to see the doctor?
27. By Miss Cellania. Comment posted 04-Jul-2009 @06:16am:

    I know them all to 1997. Then I became a mother and lost all track of everything. Still, I believe middle age kicked in earlier.
    
    As an aside, 1971-74 were wonderful years for songs (I was 13-16) but the biggest ones of each summer listed here just sucked.
28. By . Comment posted 04-Jul-2009 @06:27am:

    Middle age for me was in 1988 at age 20. That was the summer before I went to Europe for a year. Never did pay much attention to pop culture after that.
29. By . Comment posted 04-Jul-2009 @06:33am:

    That's interesting. He's got his terms wrong. It's not a function of middle age. I have long maintained that most people (musicians excepted) become unreceptive to new music at age 35. They lock into their musical tastes at that age. So for my parents generation big band swing was the thing, for mine it's rock n roll, for my unfortunate children, they're stuck with "house".
30. By . Comment posted 04-Jul-2009 @07:06am:

    Where is Linkin Park? Or Placebo? Or Weezer ?
    No Beth Ditto or Ida Maria?
    The Killers and Franz Ferdinand would be appalled!
    
    Aproaching 50 this October, I'm still listening to contemporary Alt Rock, and eschew all top 40 claptrap, although I'm aware of some. People half my age are always surprised when I turn them onto new music.
    
    I am not old.
    
    And get off my Lawn!
    Punks.
31. By . Comment posted 04-Jul-2009 @07:15am:

    Well according to this list middle age hit in 1982. I was six years old. I'm living on borrowed time!
32. By Volt. Comment posted 04-Jul-2009 @08:56am:

    I think the real test is this:
    
    If you can hum any song on that list then you don't get out enough. Too much of the music of your life has been packaged and delivered for you like some acoustical "meals on wheels" by pimps who think they can define and own human experience.
    
    The sooner the conventional music industry dies, the better. The world will be a much better place when the musical vacuum left is filled by creations of men, not industries and music is restored to its high place on the pantheon of human experience.
33. By Don Coyote. Comment posted 04-Jul-2009 @08:56am:

    If not for Mariah Carey and Madonna, I would've made it to geezerdom at 36 in '91. Still tallying up the costs of being an acid casualty, I guess. Think it's one of the benefits of middle age with its waning memory and fading eyesight. At some point, you've got to start filtering the crap out and age just does that naturally.
34. By Shel-tone. Comment posted 04-Jul-2009 @09:02am:

    I stopped listening to mainstream radio in 1985 when I discovered punk rock and all the related genres. I was 17 at the time. I guess I hit my middle age at 17 years old. Sounds about right.
35. By Don Coyote. Comment posted 04-Jul-2009 @09:20am:

    I can't believe I downloaded some REO Speedwagon last week. "Take it on the run, baby..." What a decade.
    
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkzeZb2E62U&feature=related
36. By Gar. Comment posted 04-Jul-2009 @09:58am:

    Volt, what a load of crap. If you are familiar with the songs on the list, you don't get out enough? What happens when your unknown indie group has a platinum hit? They drop off your listing list because, to use Don Coyote's phrase, they are no longer uber cool? Sure, there are a lot of talented unknowns out there but that doesn't mean that a lot those who have become known stopped making good music.
37. By Volt. Comment posted 04-Jul-2009 @10:04am:

    Gar,
    
    You don't get out enough.
38. By . Comment posted 04-Jul-2009 @11:58am:

    By Sue Dunham:
    I have long maintained that most people (musicians excepted) become unreceptive to new music at age 35. They lock into their musical tastes at that age.
    
    Charlie Kendall, a well respected radio programmer, told me that for the majority of people, the music they listened to when they are 23 is the music they will listen to for the rest of their life.
39. By . Comment posted 04-Jul-2009 @11:59am:

    By Volt:
    
    The sooner the conventional music industry dies, the better. The world will be a much better place when the musical vacuum left is filled by creations of men, not industries and music is restored to its high place on the pantheon of human experience.
    
    My sentiments exactly!
40. By Bisbonian. Comment posted 04-Jul-2009 @12:09pm:

    The sooner the conventional music industry dies, the better. The world will be a much better place when the musical vacuum left is filled by creations of men, not industries and music is restored to its high place on the pantheon of human experience.
    
    My sentiments exactly!

    
    Count me in.
41. By . Comment posted 04-Jul-2009 @12:53pm:

    This test is rigged--if you only listened to top 40 music you could stay "young" forever. And I mean young in a perjorative way :) However, once we all had better options than a tinny transistor radio our access could and slowly did expand.
    
    I would say this test was a more accurate predictor of when you stopped having to listen to what you were sold.
42. By Banjo Brad. Comment posted 04-Jul-2009 @01:16pm:

    1967 for me, I think. I can sorta hum the line of the title, but I'm not even sure there is anything else to that song.
    
    So, maybe it's really 1966, which would mean I hit middle age at 23.
    
    Except - when I reached 50 years old a "few" years ago I began to think that possibly I might have to start considering the fact that I might eventually have to begin the process of accepting the idea that I would begin to approach middle age in a few years.
    
    (I have finally accepted the fact that I might now actually be close to entering middle age)
43. By Linda. Comment posted 04-Jul-2009 @01:18pm:

    Are you sure it's not the music got stale, not us? I got to 1989 but I notice that's close to where alot of us ended up. And I notice all these young 20-somethings I work with seem to know more about 70's and 80's music and lyrics than I do.
44. By . Comment posted 04-Jul-2009 @02:20pm:

    1973 for me - I was 27; that was an interesting post.
45. By Guy. Comment posted 04-Jul-2009 @02:36pm:

    Oh that's too funny.
    I apparently hit the Old Wall in 1997 at age 29. It was so binary:
    Yeah, I know that one... yeah, I know that one...
    and suddenly ...huh?

    
    
    Same brick wall, 10 years older...
46. By wally the duck. Comment posted 04-Jul-2009 @04:54pm:

    Was popular music always just the domain of young people, or is that a modern thing?
47. By Bisbonian. Comment posted 04-Jul-2009 @06:53pm:

    "Popular Music" is a modern thing.
48. By Mr.E. Comment posted 04-Jul-2009 @08:36pm:

    Either I became middle aged in 98' at the age of 21 or I actually have taste in music.
49. By . Comment posted 04-Jul-2009 @10:51pm:

    1999-2000, but I know the ones between 2001 and 2007. Maybe it's a blip. BTW, I'm 51. Have I hit it yet?
50. By Inti. Comment posted 05-Jul-2009 @03:00pm:

    I can't hum the tune of about 90% of all those songs, and the year doesn't seem to be a factor. Actually, I can hum more songs pre-1985 than more recent ones. I'm 28 by the way.
51. By exp_err. Comment posted 05-Jul-2009 @06:42pm:

    I hit middle age in 1966, 7 years before I was born.
52. By anaceofkidneys. Comment posted 05-Jul-2009 @08:15pm:

    Um, looks like 1998 for me, which means I was middle aged at 13. However, considering 1998 is in fact the year I stopped paying attention to the Top 40, this is scarily accurate.
53. By LJW. Comment posted 06-Jul-2009 @10:20am:

    I got all the way to August 1978, whe I was born. Then I could go all the way to 2007, when I was 29 years old! I knew turning 30 was the begining of the end!

Original content © 2009, John Walkenbach