Young Fans - Blessing or Curse?
 

It seems that a lot of young (i.e., 18 years or younger) people have been rejecting contemporary "pop" music and gaining an interesting in classic rock. Nothing wrong with that. Only so much Top 40 one can take without going insane, I suppose.

But I wonder, and I say this as someone who didn't realize that I was a FM fan until I was 19, if the onrush young fans isn't more of a curse than an actual blessing. A lot of younger fan seem to be painfully "green" and prone to lashing out at anyone who might disagree with them. I'm talking about the kind of folks who scream "**** you!" at the slightest grievance. There's a certain lack of maturity (okay, so I'm a hypocrite :rolleyes:) that I find distracting from the adolescent crowd. They latch onto the band for a couple of years, drive their fascination into the ground, and throw away their fandom right afterwards, and they just can't view anything from an objective viewpoint.

Am I just talking out of my ass? After all, I'm just a pretentious twat - who happens to have horrible taste in music! :lol:

Feh - I'm sixteen and have always been interested in "classic rock". :shrug: It's not only young people that have their obsessions and quickly throw them away, although a lot of young people are twats. I dunno.

I think youthful fans can only be a blessing, because of the enthusiasm and the time they have to spin on the interest. It's hard to attend every concert, buy every magazine, maintain the scrapbook and everything when you grow up, have a job, mortgage, car note, kids.

Just for the record sales they can bring you and the added exposure, I think from an artist's standpoint, having young fans has got to be a blessing, even if it doesn't last. It does give you sort of a blood transfusion. You know, I'm thinking of something like Santana here and the Smooth wave. Or Cher or Tina Turner, people who had a career resurgence when they happened to catch the attention of youthful listeners for a few minutes.

I know what you mean about burn out, but isn't that more likely to happen with contemporary music than with the classics? I mean, I could easily be wrong, but I don't think Miley Cyrus is going to have her same fans 10 years from now. Whereas, with classic music, its enduring power has already been proven.

While you'll find close-minded, smug, intolerant people of all ages, I do think you might get more of that in younger people than you do in older. On one hand, you think you know everything and, on the other, you have an aggressive disinterest in everything you don't know. If you don't know it, then it cannot possibly be interesting. I do tend to think that the tendency to rush to judgment (with very little fact to back it up) is most prevalent in the young.

Michele

I think young fans are great. It keeps the line going. Who'd care about Mozart or Bach, Sinatra, Elvis, The Beatles if new interest wasn't tapped with each generation. As "classic rock" performers from the 60s & 70s start to move into legend status, I think more young people will be appreciating their music, hopefully for many years to come.

Young fans bring fresh perspective & enthusiasm, as well as perceptive & illuminating points of view.

All art must generate appeal to each new generation if it is to be preserved.

However, new participants in an online forum should observe netiquette:

1. Get a feel for the spirit of the place before jumping in.
2. Remember that every post you make is a formal solicitation of others' attention. As such, always bear in mind: "Will others want to read this? Would I?"
3. Remember that an online forum like the Ledge attracts people for dozens of different reasons. Don't assume that everyone present loves what you love about the group. Expect the unexpected. Don't expect your pet notions & beliefs to be validated by constant agreement.

This is a great thread.

I, being 15, have had many phases with music.
I'll start at 10 years old, when I started discovering music. I was all about boybands and Britney.
Then at 11-12ish Maroon 5 came out, and it was like heaven for me. With Jason Mraz, Liz Phair and a couple other artists I had completely altered in a year.
In 8th grade I had a 6 month Beatles phase.
and then in the summer between 8-9th grade I discovered FM and was in LOVE with it, and they still are my fave artist.

And the kicker would be that To this day, I still like all of the artists I mentioned.
I still jam out to the Backstreet Boys occasionally, and I LOVE Maroon 5s new album. The beatles, not as much, but I love when thier songs come on the radio. I could not be more exicted to get my We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things CD tomorow [Jason Mraz]. So over the last 10 years my taste hasnt altered too much. Heck, I sitll listen to my Lion King soundtrack from when I was 3!

Other teenagers/young kids, sure I think that sometimes thier music tastes are so wishy washy. One day they say they love one band and the next day they hate them. Those kids are idoits, and I'm sure a majority of the world knows that.

I dont think that it gives bad press or anything to the band if thats the question at hand. Take FM. the Greatest Hits album is on the top 100 rock albums on iTunes everyday! and so many new artists can't even claim that. and Im sure young kids my age are liking it, cause they listen to those mix stations that play 'Landslide', 'GOYW' and 'Dreams'. And of course the new people like Desitnys Child that sampled EO17 shows the original song to a whole new generation so they get interested.

But I think that young kids liking older music is overall a good thing :)

I would say that I still like all of the artists I liked when I was young as well. For instance, I started liking Sonny and Cher when I was about 10 and by then their post popular music was about 5-7 years old already. But I liked it then. So fast forward to just last week when I saw Cher on Oprah with Tina Turner and I became annoyed that Sonny was being indirectly compared to Ike Turner as a husband. So, even after all these years, these decades:shocked:, my fan radar, defensive instincts are still up.

Also, I liked the Jacksons as a teen and even now I still enjoy the music, even if the personalities leave something to be desired. I was a teenager when Tusk came out and I became an FM fan. I still like them today.

You outgrow clothes and hairstyles, but even today I don't listen to the music and say, "What was I thinking??"

Michele

I was 15 when I started liking Fleetwood Mac. I was just like all of my friends who loved the things that people our age were liking, I just liked Fleetwood Mac as much as they loved the Backstreet Boys, N'Sync and everything that was really popular when I was in high school. I came to these forums and was probably annoying but ultimately, being accepted by fans who had liked the band for much longer than I did kept my mind open and kept me interested. I've ALWAYS liked music of another era better than the music of my own, though I appreciate a pretty large scope. What I've been finding as I've grown up is the groups that I loved when I was a teenager are still my favorite bands. I still fall back onto those bands every now and then and get really immersed in their music and culture for awhile. Fleetwood Mac is my prime example, I went a few years without them while I was in college and really into other things, but found myself right back where I left off a few years ago. I think there's something to the idea of what you like helps build you into who you are, and having a place to come and explore music that I found to be much more real and easier to relate to and lose myself in at 15 was a wonderful thing.

Though David really has a point there too!

I started as a fan when I was 7 and I am now 18. Loved them every minute.

I wanted to make the point that ever since I went to College, I was shocked at how many people owned Fleetwood Mac CD's. I think everyone knows rumours and can name Edge of Seventeen at the bat of an eye.

Well I'm 18. I've had my obssessions with bands over the years but the mac and Stevie ALWAYS shine through. The first album's I ever owned were Abba Gold, Rumours, Mirage and The Other Side Of The Mirror all on cassette. I was about 4 or 5 when I got them. I used to love hearing my Dad play the mac and so when he replaced the cassette's he had with CD's, i inherited them. And I've loved the mac and stevie ever since. I think having younger fans is a brilliant thing. No offence to ANYONE, but well we are all going to die. At some point down the lie, we all kick the bucket. What will happen if the "mac generation" snuff it and there are no younger fans left? The mac will go with you and be forgotten and that should never happen.

Well, I think most people certainly know the song when they hear it. But I think a lot of people really don't know the title. Some might think it's called "Oooh, oooh, Said oooh."

Michele

Like others have said,it is a good thing getting new and young fans.
There's no way of telling how long someones interest remains,
new or old to the act.
Those that remain active fans through thick and thin are very thin on the ground.
Getting new fans is essential since everybody's interest comes and goes.

The behavior of the fans is hardly the question of age.
There are million different ways of being a fan.
Being insanely protective towards your idol isn't a matter of age.
Look at Ledge,we all claim to be fans of Fleetwood mac,
yet there are clear divisions between fans of certain members of the group.
"I love FM's music,but i hate that member.":confused:

There's also the question of how do you define a fan?
I always remember from school a guy from my younger brothers class said he was a fan of a certain band.
He had only heard two songs by them.
I felt insulted at such suggestion,but many many years later
i've come to think,
we all have to start somewhere and there's no way of telling if that interest grows or fades.

Quite a rambling post,but there's a point,sort of...

I may tell you I'm a huge fan of Roberta Flack. Killing Me Softly is one of my all time favorite songs and I know one or two more and that's it. I know most of Fleetwood Mac's and Stevie's music and consider myself one of their biggest fans. People have happily told me they were huge fans of Stevie Nicks' and then referred to Edge of 17 as One Winged Dove.

Most responses I've heard from strangers is White Winged Dove.
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...sharon/z34.gif

Yes, you have that problem whenever the title is not the most oft-repeated phrase in the song. That's why people don't know Dreams is Dreams.

When I was growing up, there was a funk song by Parliament called "Tear the Roof off the Mother," but they didn't say that in the song. And I wanted to buy the 45 and asked my mother for money. When I called it by it's actual song title, my mother thought I was being fresh.

Michele

True, but I was totally blown away when I went to college in the fall because so many people had Fleetwood mac and Stevie Nicks CD's. And when I played a song at a party or something, it was totally ok. One kid I ran into even had Say You Will and Bella Donna on his Ipod.

I'm 18 and I've always been into older music since I was 8 or 9. Being the twelve year old who thought Elton John was the coolest thing since sliced bread wasn't easy...! I actually fell out with a really good friend because she was into following the crowd and I wasn't ... I suppose Elton sort of epitomised that. But it taught me a lot about being your own person, doing your thing and not minding what other people are doing.

The 'non-conformity is the new conformity' trend really bugs me, and more and more teenagers in my country are latching onto it. Some of my schoolmates wouldn't be seen dead listening to a record in the charts ... others wouldn't be seen dead listening to one that isn't in the charts! Each position is as bad as the other, as far as I'm concerned ... if it's good music and you enjoy it, go for it and who cares what anyone else says, good or bad?

But I think most copped-on young people recognise good music when they hear it. :)

Me too. I used to wash dishes with the oldies station on and my mother would hear the music and say, "Why are you listening to that? That song was popular when I was your age." I can't say I have good taste in music though. I do tend towards the kind of cheesy. But even so, any kind of history is good history. So much of today's music is derivative and if you like something, I think it always adds to your appreciation to know what inspired what you like. All it can do is lead to the discovery of more things you might like that you wouldn't have been aware of otherwise.

Michele

THis never stopps amazing me either, walking around campus last symester with my rumors shirt on started many random FM conversations. and i was actually pleasently surprized.:)

The popularity of older music in the college crowd has always interested me. I never found people who were quite as into the older bands I liked when I was in college, it tended toward the "popular" old bands to like, such as Pink Floyd, Led Zepplin, Grateful Dead, basically all the bands that the poster companies could make a lot of money on. But essentially, I was pretty surprised by how much more open minded everyone was to more classic rock when I went to college.

Also, it doesn't matter how old the band is, if you play a college town, I think you have a great chance to have your show well attended there. I think students like the concert experience almost as much as the music. They have disposable income and are willing to experiment, like you said. So, they can be counted on to go to concerts with artists old enough to be their grand parents. Michele