In pop culture, there’s just no parallel in the amount of political content, darkness and skepticism we grew up with. First-half boomers got all of those things, but later in life, and they were new and challenging; for us, they were part of the landscape. The early boomers were born into a world without rock ‘n’ roll, swearing in the media or even much in the way of really harsh satire. A lot of us late boomers can’t remember a time before the British Invasion, Hunter S. Thompson and George Carlin.
The gap between the two halves of the baby boom might be best summed up by some of the staples of radio and TV when we were kids. The classic boomers had “Mr. Sandman” and “Leave It to Beaver.” We rebooted boomers? “Sympathy for the Devil” and “All in the Family.”
I never “had” “Sympathy for the Devil” — that was already “older brother,” “hippie” music, like The Doors. The soundtrack for someone else’s movies.
(Anyone know what happened to the awful poser at the start of this, who apparently we can blame, like so much else, on The Stranglers?)
