Test: What summer did you get "unhip"?

[SMPTE]

'97 for me too.

Though I offer up this hypothesis:
1997 is right about when popular music took a nose dive in quality. The majority before '97 wrote and recorded their own music. The majority after '97 didn't...

[Mark Moore]

I started losing them in 1988 and was completely out of it by 1992, putting me in the 28-32 range.

From what I'm reading here it looks like 30 is the "magic number" -- confirming what the hippies always warned us about.

[Telarkaster]

There are songs on this list that I know, others that I don't. For example I know Macarena from 1996 (who doesn't?) but I don't know anything from 1989-1995. Just because I know "Roll With It" doesn't mean that I liked it.

PennyCentury said it for me: being hip is meaningless when you have kids. Nothing more pathetic than "Daddy Cool".

[BillyC]

1988 for me.

[woodman]

good lord, i fell off in 1970 when the Carpenters ruled. my excuse is that i was living in San Francisco then and they didn't play that crap on FM radio! this means next year will mark 40 years of unhipness for me — oooh, the agony! the humanity!

[930vet]

3/4s of this stuff is not now nor was it ever hip. The question really being asked is, "When did you lose track of current pop music?" For testing hipness, I think the question would be more like, "When did you lose track of the best and most interesting output of the contemporary music scene?" The converse might be, "What was the last year that the music you listened to was actually current at the time?" Not as objective as the test in the link, but the test doesn't measure what it says it's measuring. A test for hipness should probably should be subdivided by genre as well- you could be hip to garage revival but clueless about hip hop, for example. I guess it's also complicated by the dinosaurs whose music is newly released but can't be considered current.

For me, using my definition of hipness, it has usually been related to my ability to find media that provides exposure to hip music as opposed to radio that plays mostly Top 40- when I find a new media-type, my hipness level increases for a while. Over the years it has been "underground radio", alternative radio (WHFS), some nightclubs with hip DJs, college radio, some free and legal download sites, and frequently wasteful spending on CDs and vinyl unheard (not necessarily in that order chronologically). I'll find a good way to hear good new music, and then something happens to it, and I lose track.

[Dave_O]

Originally Posted by studio1087

1997 according to the test.

I am no longer cool because I think texting is silly, video games are silly and I refuse to wear baggy pants that let the whole world view my boxer shorts. If you are younger than twenty and reading this.....don't text while driving and pull your dang pants up. You're making me feel like Hank Hill. Come to think of it, I admire Hank Hill.

John

BWAHAHAHA!!!
With you there, ol' fella.
1992...

[JPark]

Originally Posted by Lerb21

Hell, I wasn't even born!

Lerb, you're not alone.

[tcadam]

1997. Seems about right, I guess.

[F6_FullMelt]

that list has more songs that I do not know than songs I do... not complaining.

Remember when they got everybody at Yankees (99%sure) stadium to do the Macarena for some type of world record? I was but a wee lad, yet was damn sure able to recognize the world's largest collection of un-hip people

[HOBBSTER01]

It was the summer of '69 when I bought my first real 6 string.

[Joel Terry]

I can hum the melody to all of those tunes (well, except for "Baby Got Back"...I mean, how do you hum rap? ), if for no other reason than their ubiquitousness. Frankly, the words "pummeled," and the phrase "at every turn" come to mind. (Unless you live on a deserted island, I'll guaranteed that everyone here has heard every one of those tunes sometime, someplace; you probably just aren't aware of it.)

Thus, just because I'm familiar with them doesn't mean that I like them; in fact, more than half of them I find utterly banal. (If "serendipity" is "the discovery of valuable or agreeable things not sought," then what is the word for "the discovery of insipid things not sought"?)

So, my question is: Is it enough just to be familiar with those tunes to be "hip" (I despise that word and all it stands for with a passion that cannot be measured), or does one have to like them?

Oh, well--it doesn't matter, really. After all, in my 41 years, I've empirically observed that those who actively seek to be "hip" are simply looking for some sort of existential validation from society because they have little, if any, sense of self identity or esteem--which, of course, presupposes the ability to arrive at personal preferences.

Joel

[linklater]

If I can use Lisa Loeb as my starting point (age 7), then I am still very hip.

[Rabog]

40 this year and I know every one of those tunes, and a lot of the stuff that was around before I was born. I like all sorts of music and try to keep informed and up to date of what's new. I see no reason at all to turn your back on modern music and sit back and just live in what was once your era. Now that would be a shame. Lots of great stuff out there - lots.

[ibobunot]

Originally Posted by Rabog

Lots of great stuff out there - lots.

That's true but not much of it is on that list...

[Rabog]

Originally Posted by ibobunot

That's true but not much of it is on that list...

Very true........popular doesn't often equate to being 'good'.

[emiller45]

The summer I was born. I have always had off the wall tastes. I would not know a hit song if it hit me with a brick. When I had my own band, I would usually get someone else's opinion on which songs to learn because I was lousy at gauging the public whim.

[drewsblues]

I fizzed at 2003. After that, I don't even know who half the artists are, nevermind the songs... I was never hip anyway. Not that I think I missed much.

[JPark]

Originally Posted by HOBBSTER01

It was the summer of '69 when I bought my first real 6 string.

BRYAN ADAMS! :D

[ThreePlyGuy]

July '48 and who you calling hippie?

[Paul in Colorado]

It looks like 1989 was the year for me. I was 36.

[ToadLC]

1997 for me too.

But I still maintain that I am getting cooler all the time.....it's the rest of the world that's moving in the wrong direction!

[tjalla]

"I used to be with it. Then they changed what it was, and what I was with, wasn't it anymore. And what it was seems strange and scary to me..."

[TelZilla]

Hip is an invention of the OP.

I'd say the article is getting at when you stopped listening to (or, if you prefer, being aware of) what was on the AT40.

As an example, I hated Richard Marx with a white hot passion when I was 19 (in 1989), but I can't help but remember that piece of sh1te song "Right Here Waiting" .

I recognize all of them from '75 (when I was 5) until 1998 (when I was 28), with a select few after that. I guess that seems about right.

I actually love a couple of the later tunes on there- C Aguilerra can really sing, and I like that Genie in a bottle tune. I also think Bootylicious and Crazy in Love are fantastic, and I dig the hell out of Hot in Herre.

Also, interesting that good old sting is collecting royalties on the '83 song and the '97 song (which samples the '83 song). I can remember hearing Every breath... for the first time. I had been away at camp (i was 13), and heard it on the radio in the 'rents van as we drove back to civilization. I remember thinking "That sounds like Sting, but this is a Police song?" It sounded like a hige departure from their earlier stuff then, and it still does. Not a good departure IMO, but a departure...

[Telarkaster]

Originally Posted by Joel Terry

I can hum the melody to all of those tunes (well, except for "Baby Got Back"...I mean, how do you hum rap? ), if for no other reason than their ubiquitousness. Frankly, the words "pummeled," and the phrase "at every turn" come to mind. (Unless you live on a deserted island, I'll guaranteed that everyone here has heard every one of those tunes sometime, someplace; you probably just aren't aware of it.)

Thus, just because I'm familiar with them doesn't mean that I like them; in fact, more than half of them I find utterly banal. (If "serendipity" is "the discovery of valuable or agreeable things not sought," then what is the word for "the discovery of insipid things not sought"?)

So, my question is: Is it enough just to be familiar with those tunes to be "hip" (I despise that word and all it stands for with a passion that cannot be measured), or does one have to like them?

Oh, well--it doesn't matter, really. After all, in my 41 years, I've empirically observed that those who actively seek to be "hip" are simply looking for some sort of existential validation from society because they have little, if any, sense of self identity or esteem--which, of course, presupposes the ability to arrive at personal preferences.

Joel

Thanks Joel for a really well written post, well done!

[TG]

Seems I hit middle age at 27. I've said for a few years now that my teenage angst lingered on and blended seamlessly with my mid life crisis, so it might be right.

But seriously, I stopped caring for the so-called 'mainstream' years ago. Who gets to be famous and successful is no longer up to us...too often it's decided by some executives somewhere and we get it rammed down our throats. I don't like that so I tend to avoid the radio now. I'm happy exploring music from the past...which there is enough of to fill a lifetime...but if I hear something new that catches my ear that's cool too. But it has to just happen. I've not enough time, nor the inclination, to trawl through all the crap looking for it.

[marshman]

1988.

Just turned 20.

Just bought my first guitar and shortly thereafter discovered SRV.