Did no-one tell the author what Gen Xers were waiting for?
For the Boomers to make room. Which they never did until the Millennials arrived.
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Indeed! All the while they proclaimed that we were just lazy slackers! 
Millennials forced them to do so, by sheer numbers, if nothing else - and that boomers did finally starting retiring.
But part of the reason I think Gen X got lost in the shuffle is that we were a much smaller cohort, for a number of reasons (women’s rights, birth control pill, rising divorce rates, etc).
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The detail about the Berlin Wall was telling too. For Boomers, Kennedy getting shot was impactful partly because he was the first president they could vote for (or against if that was their preference).
Whereas the Berlin Wall did feel like the end of an era for Gen X… but it was an era which started in 1945.
The author also managed to leave out the entire subculture around nuclear holocaust and the protests to prevent it. Granted, that didn’t show up very much, if at all, on sitcom TV, and even less in teen shows.
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Yeah, there was a lot more going on with Gen Xers than she notes, but it could be that she was just narrowly focused on the show, and what that show was attempting to project, rather than arguing that’s how we actually were… If that’s the case, it’s not really clear, though.
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Ahh, how I miss some good old fashioned MAD.
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I think I’d like the destruction to be less assured at this point.
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To each their own, I suppose.
An especially long read if you follow all the links.
As someone who is not religious and yet sings contemporary gospel music, among MANY other genres, I particularly appreciated this piece.
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I’m sorry, but I am even less convinced that I want to listen to contemporary gospel after reading that article than I was going in.
Maybe it’s because any music from the last 20 years that he uses as a comparison is stuff that I find actively distasteful (primarily rap and hip-hop).
Maybe it’s because the argument “…but you’ll miss out!” applies to everything you can possibly take in, and there is no way to take it all in.
Maybe it’s because I profoundly disagree with the idea that “Whatever a work of art is nominally ‘about’ is minuscule compared to what it does, how it creates its unpredictable effects,” and “You won’t be sweating whether you endorse the message when the groove transports you out the window and into a better day.” Yes, the medium is the message, but the message is also the message.
And then there’s the problem that when I was religious, choir music formed the largest part of my connection with a sense of the divine, and I’m just really not interested in taking myself back there.
It would be stupid for me to say that there isn’t value in contemporary gospel music. Obviously, there is a great deal of value there, or so many people wouldn’t enjoy it. But I think it’s equally problematic for someone to claim that everyone should find enjoyment in something. That’s just not how personal taste works.
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This. Funny the author used Bach and Michaelangelo as examples of art people appreciate despite as well as because of the “God stuff”, because I dislike both of them on exactly those grounds. Appreciate their importance, sure, but they’re not exactly “transporting” on an emotional level.
Same thing with gospel music. Appreciate its importance, and that it means a lot to other people. Certainly some songs I like are gospel-influenced, or have sampling of gospel songs in them.
That does not inexorably lead to liking gospel.
I’m actually not sure the author is as atheist as he thinks he is. Given how the Catholic Church likes to mix up faith in God with faith in the church, this is not surprising.
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I guess I’m 3 of 3 - I just don’t like how gospel (or opera for that matter) sounds. But I also don’t see how listening to something not of one’s taste is supposed to elicit a positive emotional state. Maybe a state of gritting one’s teeth, perhaps, but not positive.
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That part, I kind of get. Sometimes you don’t know you’ll like something until you hear it. If the article had gone on from the childhood anecdote to say that gospel had adopted the folk-choir vibe of my youth, and had ditched the problematic praise and thanks for messages of service and charity, then I’d have had a completely different reaction.
But instead of folk, the piece offers hip-hop as the influence on contemporary gospel; instead of drawing me in with messages of protest, the article glosses over the meaning of the words being sung as unimportant, and then it all gets wrapped up with an air of “So, if you don’t want to go down that rabbit hole, there’s a problem with you.”
“Try it, because gospel’s not what you think it is, and you might like it,” would be one thing. “If you have any interest in how music evolves from one generation to the next, you’d be remiss to ignore an incubator for new trends like gospel is” might even get me on the author’s side, despite everything, if I had any interest in music history.
But “Casting objectionable religious material out of your cultural diet is too similar to the ‘forbidden’ lists of artwork that churches have imposed on their constituents, leaving teens hiding books and records under their beds,” as if making a personal decision not to give your time, money, or attention to someone producing art in a genre you don’t like, and whose ideas you positively abhor, is somehow equivalent to imposing censorship on others… If the article hadn’t already lost me by then, that line itself would probably have done it.
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I’m afraid to see it.
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Is that the one where Lex Luthor steals Superman’s hair from a museum to clone an evil Superman? And somehow strand Superman on the moon?
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There’s always this:
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About 20 years ago a good friend was discussing her lawyer job at the government and said “Let’s face it; we’ve all sold out.” My wife was particularly offended because she was (and is) doing exactly what she wanted to do in college – make some effort (she would say “however small,” but I disagree) in the fight against cancer. With her background she could have done a lot better working for DOD or a contractor (she has past experience with Ada, for example), but chose what she chose.
I am really proud of her, and tell her so often.
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