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The “I was born in the wrong generation” Generation

The “I was born in the wrong generation” Generation

The “I was born in the wrong generation” Generation

Every generation has a soundtrack. We all have songs that take us back. But what happens when they take us somewhere or some time we've never actually been?

by

Agota Marija

2 min read

2 min read

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The Smiths, Louder Than Bombs (1987)

The Smiths, Louder Than Bombs (1987)

The Smiths, Louder Than Bombs (1987)




I recently was in the car with my mom and put on The Smiths, to which she humoured me with the memories she herself holds with the English indie rock band. And this isn’t the first time this has happened. Maybe not this exact moment, but the same idea. Of sharing music with someone of a different generation yet somehow both relating to it. Differently, yet also so familiarly. To my mom, The Smiths are reminiscent of going through one of her first breakups. To me, hearing “Back to the Old House”, as someone who no longer lives with my family, I am immediately reminded of a time I’ll never get back.


The memories attached to these songs are different, yet one thing is the same - the sole fact that we tie certain senses and feelings to a song.



Memory rarely arrives alone, though. More often than not, it comes with a soundtrack. The connection between music and memory, scientifically, is so strong that just hearing the first few notes of a song can elicit memories associated with every single one of your senses. Recently, there’s been a video going around of a man and his wife going to a Take That concert. The man, Gary, suffers from dementia, yet the video shows him reciting the words to his favourite song. Watching Gary recall lyrics to a song while so much else has slipped away is a reminder of just how powerful the connection between memory and music is. After many other cognitive abilities begin to fail, musical memory stays with us for so much longer, it becomes our medicine.


But not all musical memories are created equally. Some songs stay with us more deeply than others, and much of that has to do with when we first hear them. Our brains are most receptive to forming long-lasting memories in the period of our teenage years to our early twenties. It's no coincidence, then, that the soundtrack of adolescence often becomes the soundtrack of nostalgia.


The Chainsmokers, Roses (2015)

Woodstock Poster by Arnold Skolnick (1969)


Think of the rise of 2016 and the music associated with this era.


There seems to be a reminiscence of a certain period of time within Gen Z, however, I believe this is mostly tied to the fact that our brains simply take in memories more closely within that age and time frame, yet part of it also comes from a sense of fear. Growing up is scary, especially at a time when the age to own a home went from roughly 28 years old in the early 1990s to now being 40 years old on average. Fear mingles in the air more and more, so I think it’s completely rational that after a long day spent in the library or serving drinks to ungrateful customers, one would want to crank up “Roses” by the Chainsmokers. It’s easy, it’s nostalgic, and, most of all, it reminds you of simpler times.


However, there’s a different type of musical nostalgia that’s been creeping up in the air. One that has absolutely nothing to do with memory. Or at least not memories that we can call our own. It’s the “I was born in the wrong generation” music. The “they don’t make music like this anymore” crowd. Rather than nostalgia being linked to our adolescent years, the type of nostalgia that’s emerging involves a life and feelings that we’ve never actually experienced.



This isn't just something I've noticed online or in passing conversations. Researchers are beginning to describe it as "borrowed nostalgia”. A study by Vevo, the world’s leading music video network, has recently come out about the role of nostalgia in music videos specifically. The study, which surveyed almost 2000 Gen Z, Millennial and Gen X consumers, revealed that music is the strongest driver of nostalgic feelings, pointing out how it then also heavily alters consumer behaviour. Most strikingly, 65% of Gen Z respondents said they identified with borrowed nostalgia: a psychological and cultural phenomenon describing a deep longing for an era or cultural moment they never actually experienced.


There’s nothing wrong with listening to Fleetwood Mac or Jimi Hendrix and reminiscing on the days of Woodstock and ‘Flower Power’. Personally, I would pay a whole lot of money to be able to witness the legendary Woodstock 69’ or to hear the iconic 1997 performance of “Silver Springs". Borrowed nostalgia allows us to imagine a time that seems easier, safer, or more manageable. But that’s all it is at the end of the day - imagination.


The main issue, then, arises with the phrase “I was born in the wrong generation”. I think most of us would be quite disappointed to actually go back to the late 1960s only to find a much more misogynistic, racist and war-inflicted world. Keep in mind that in the US, for example, the Civil Rights Act, which officially outlawed segregation as well as banned voting and workplace racial discrimination, was only passed in 1964.



This isn't just something I've noticed online or in passing conversations. Researchers are beginning to describe it as "borrowed nostalgia”. A study by Vevo, the world’s leading music video network, has recently come out about the role of nostalgia in music videos specifically. The study, which surveyed almost 2000 Gen Z, Millennial and Gen X consumers, revealed that music is the strongest driver of nostalgic feelings, pointing out how it then also heavily alters consumer behaviour. Most strikingly, 65% of Gen Z respondents said they identified with borrowed nostalgia: a psychological and cultural phenomenon describing a deep longing for an era or cultural moment they never actually experienced.


There’s nothing wrong with listening to Fleetwood Mac or Jimi Hendrix and reminiscing on the days of Woodstock and ‘Flower Power’. Personally, I would pay a whole lot of money to be able to witness the legendary Woodstock 69’ or to hear the iconic 1997 performance of “Silver Springs". Borrowed nostalgia allows us to imagine a time that seems easier, safer, or more manageable. But that’s all it is at the end of the day - imagination.


The main issue, then, arises with the phrase “I was born in the wrong generation”. I think most of us would be quite disappointed to actually go back to the late 1960s only to find a much more misogynistic, racist and war-inflicted world. Keep in mind that in the US, for example, the Civil Rights Act, which officially outlawed segregation as well as banned voting and workplace racial discrimination, was only passed in 1964.



See, that’s the thing with borrowing nostalgia, you’re playing around with a past you never really knew. At a time when the future feels increasingly uncertain, it's comforting to imagine another era as simpler than our own, it helps eliminate some of that fear. But nostalgia has a funny way of picking and choosing. It remembers guitar solos more vividly than segregation, flower crowns more distinctly than the Vietnam War.


Nostalgia in music can play a beautifully powerful role, sparking memories back up, uniting different generations, and allowing us to reminisce on times we can never get back. But it can also be dangerous when it encourages us to confuse imagination with history. A song can transport us to another era, but it cannot tell us what that era truly felt like to everyone who lived through it. Music has the power to preserve emotion, not objective reality.


This is exactly what made listening to The Smiths with my mom so special. Our memories were different, born from our own lived experiences, in completely different periods of time. But at the end of the day, they’re ours, and there’s no need to borrow from anyone else.


So swim in your nostalgia, just don’t drown.


Woodstock Poster by Arnold Skolnick (1969)

Piece by Hollis Brown Thornton

Piece by Hollis Brown Thornton

The Chainsmokers, Roses (2015)


See, that’s the thing with borrowing nostalgia, you’re playing around with a past you never really knew. At a time when the future feels increasingly uncertain, it's comforting to imagine another era as simpler than our own, it helps eliminate some of that fear. But nostalgia has a funny way of picking and choosing. It remembers guitar solos more vividly than segregation, flower crowns more distinctly than the Vietnam War.


Nostalgia in music can play a beautifully powerful role, sparking memories back up, uniting different generations, and allowing us to reminisce on times we can never get back. But it can also be dangerous when it encourages us to confuse imagination with history. A song can transport us to another era, but it cannot tell us what that era truly felt like to everyone who lived through it. Music has the power to preserve emotion, not objective reality.


This is exactly what made listening to The Smiths with my mom so special. Our memories were different, born from our own lived experiences, in completely different periods of time. But at the end of the day, they’re ours, and there’s no need to borrow from anyone else.


So swim in your nostalgia, just don’t drown.



Think of the rise of 2016 and the music associated with this era.


There seems to be a reminiscence of a certain period of time within Gen Z, however, I believe this is mostly tied to the fact that our brains simply take in memories more closely within that age and time frame, yet part of it also comes from a sense of fear. Growing up is scary, especially at a time when the age to own a home went from roughly 28 years old in the early 1990s to now being 40 years old on average. Fear mingles in the air more and more, so I think it’s completely rational that after a long day spent in the library or serving drinks to ungrateful customers, one would want to crank up “Roses” by the Chainsmokers. It’s easy, it’s nostalgic, and, most of all, it reminds you of simpler times.


However, there’s a different type of musical nostalgia that’s been creeping up in the air. One that has absolutely nothing to do with memory. Or at least not memories that we can call our own. It’s the “I was born in the wrong generation” music. The “they don’t make music like this anymore” crowd. Rather than nostalgia being linked to our adolescent years, the type of nostalgia that’s emerging involves a life and feelings that we’ve never actually experienced.


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