Quote Originally Posted by Urbanized View Post
Funny, I was born in ‘67 and I’m incredibly conversant with the key artists and genre shifts of the ‘50s, 60s and early 70s. Good music is good music, and you’ll get better appreciation for the stuff that you love if you know where it came from.

I do think part of the problem here can be explained by the shift from radio to Internet-based listening. I personally like to explore and the Internet provides an incredible opportunity to discover new artists and new music (or at least new to you). But unlike radio it also allows you to completely wall yourself off from music you’re not interested in (or at least THINK you wouldn’t be interested in).

Artists like Talking Heads - while they became huge and mainstream during their own era - were not as exposed to the masses AFTER their prime in the same way that sixties era artists were. Meaning when I was a kid in the 70s and 80s I was exposed to classic rock era bands like The Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Who, The Doors - or even lesser-celebrated bands like Strawberry Alarm Clock, The Guess Who, Rare Earth, etc - whether I chose to be or not (I chose to be). If you listened to radio to hear the latest from Van Halen, you were also going to hear those bands.

I think eighties era bands probably suffer from the listening public’s ability to limit their own music exposure. It’s a shame, because that was also a pretty special time for music.
To be fair, I grew up on the radio in the '90s and I was exposed to a lot of bands. Again, I feel fairly well versed in a lot of music. Just not the Talking Heads. Having said that, maybe it's partly because I never really got into the punk scene. I explored most major 60s and 70s acts and grew up on 90s groups, but I never got into 80s music to the same degree. I've never been much for hair bands or punk. But, again, my larger point is that my friends and I constantly talked about music, went to lots of concerts, shared groups we liked from all eras from middle school through college, and I can't ever remember someone mentioning the Talking Heads. It's an interesting disconnect. I've certainly found this thread informative and I'll certainly review the links and suggestions provided.