Listening to Music as a Kid (He Said)

I have fantasies about how my life was before adulthood.  I'd love to be able to tell you how my friends and I went into the basement and spun Dark Side of the Moon and rocked out.

I never did this

But I never did that.  You see, I was very very straight laced - and was more interested in slaying imaginary dragons playing D&D than scoring Missouri ditchweed and listening to Pink Floyd (though I am certain some of my acquaintances did just that).

70's and 80's audio streaming
at its finest

I have pretty good memories of my parent's buying me a "boom box" or "ghetto blaster" or whatever else they were called at the time, and I recorded American Top 40 every week on cassette tape - it was a highlight of the week!  The radio was always on when I was with friends playing K-SHE 95 or KMOX (St Louis, MO for those of you wondering) which played what later became known as Classic Rock, which was just Rock at the time.

My main source of music in the 80's

So as a vinyl-guy as an adult, I am not one of those audiophiles reliving childhood memories.  But we did have cassette tape.  And Mtv.  A LOT of Mtv.  In fact most of my formative memories were surrounding watching Loverboy (Or Billy Idol, or Rick Springfield, or David Bowie ...),  singing their songs chasing down mutants Mad Max style in the desert - never mind it has nothing to do with the songs they were singing.  I have a very clear memory of a whole band posing with headbands and pleather jackets against the side of a cliff wall in a desert, one of them drinking some water and artfully spitting it out in a very cool way.  Don't recall the song at all.  I also recall the Dire Straits video "Money for Nothing" with a computer animation that would be able to be run on a typical toaster these days, and we thought is was so cool.  But music was as much a visual experience when I was growing up as it was audio.

American Top 40 ... all mine!
Bwa ha haaa!

But my listening diet as a kid was radio (a lot), cassette tape (when I could afford it) and Mtv which was free and very cool.  You could watch live action dramas played out as you heard the songs you were being exposed to.

But I never listened to vinyl.  And CD was for too early-adopter expensive.  Headphones?  Yeah, sorta, but mostly it was radio, Mtv and cassette tape.

My folks had one of these ...
I rarely used it. 

There is a point to these stories.  The way I listen to music as an adult has changed - I stopped watching music videos about the time Mtv, VH-1, MuchMusic (remember that one?)  stopped playing videos.  I got a CD player in college, but really never listened to much music at all until I was nearly 30.  When I bought my first audio system, it was CD based - and we added SACD capability, computer audio and Vinyl later. If I could see my adult self, I might wonder what's going on with all the computer audio (though I would definitely think it is cool because that part of me hasn't changed much) - but I am pretty sure the now-me would appear as a stranger to the then-me as far as how we listened to and related to music.  With the exception of vinyl - and the proliferation of ways of music distribution, I think it is pretty common for your formative years for musical taste to be a little different than the way you listen to it as an adult.

How I would have seen my now-self.

I look at my stepkids, and see them, once homework is done (ahem!) - on the computer, texts streaming in, watching Hulu, YouTube (or playing an online game or two) with the TV on, with earbuds or headphones on as well - immersed in  media tornado.

I wonder how they will listen and relate to music as adults?