Philosophy is characterized as the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Who today, other than rock musicians, get these concepts of thought across to the masses? Is musical artistic statement not today’s modern philosophy? Music influences our formative years and often serves a backdoor guide through our journey through life.
Will history consider our generation’s philosophers to be a select group of young musician/poets who deliver their visions of existence and being in song? Hundreds of years from now will college students be learning in class about our generation's life situations and theory, usually portrayed in the form of hope, delivered by the likes of John Lennon and George Harrison of the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Cat Stevens, Pete Townshend of The Who, Bruce Springsteen, Roger Waters of Pink Floyd, Bono of U2, and Michael Stipes of R.E.M.?
(A lucid, non-dumba$$, post... There must be something wrong with me today. 
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That's an interesting topic; I read an article for work recently that pontificated quite profoundly on the subject. Chances are, I won't be able to find the link, rendering it irrelevant. The problem is that even the music of twenty or thirty years ago had more organic, cultural roots than it does today.
I'm not old enough to speak from experience, but careful observation of history leads me to believe that there the majority of today's youth do not, now will they ever, have any musical context to connect with culturally. (This will lead up to the point that technology is creating a generation of scattered thinkers)
The week the Beatles landed in America for the first time, they were, indeed, revolutionary. American music was suffering a bit of a drought, bourne of more than a generational gap. The British Invasion marked a point in global history, pre Vietnam, post Korean conflict, Kennedy's assassination, etc. . .in other words, reality was real. If that's not the stupidest thing I've ever written I don't know what is.
I'm trying to articulate a point amidst a number of distractions so bear with me, this is only way I can.
I meant young people throughout the majority of the 20th century had more connectivity with culture and current events than most people do today. The Great Depression was etched into the minds of everyone I've ever heard discuss it. The music of that time connected people to a memory of suffering, rallying together, and facing gritty reality as a unified nation (family).
WWII - my dad, a Navy vet stationed in Okinawa, will never let me forget the upbeat, big band music that meant so much to him.
Bang- baby boomers.
They are unprecedented in sheer number, so it makes sense that they would feel a sense of entitlement and power behind the music of the sixties and seventies. They were born of war, grew up with the looming shadow of imminent communist threat, and were thrust into war again. There is no escaping the symbiotic effect of musical evolution.
The eighties were part retro; an homage to the music of twenty years before, part Nuevo, part rebellion in its own right. We had finally progressed to a point of civil tolerance as a nation. Rap, metal, punk: all in its heyday and the truly great, synergistic combinations of chord work and lyric are Pink Floyd, U2, Zeppelin. . (I'm not naming them all. . . Bruce and who else? Prince evidentially?) the rest of it has merit, but can easily be pigeonholed into an obsolete genre.
Enter Gen X. Here we are with the great grunge movement, launching unforgettable mediocrity and putting the Pacific Northwest on the map of musical history. I remember the first time I heard Tori Amos and Lorena McKennit in college. Everyone else was listening to Peter Gabriel and intent owning a Volkswagen (something). By grad school, I had attended two Tori concerts, a Greenday concert (where I tried crowdsurfing for the first time) two by Primus(where I accidentally got squished by a crowd pushing into a mosh pit) one Candlebox, and a Celine Dion post titanic extravaganza.
Today, young people have so much access to technology that they are not able to immerse themselves into any one subject long enough to understand it. They have very little frame of reference for what life was like. Part of how we begin to appreciate music is socially. I don't think that earbuds and individually held communication devices offer quite the same experience as does singing along with the car radio cranked up, gas pedal down, all your friends on the same wrong note, giggling hysterically. "Every now and then I fall apart" and the parts where no one knows the lyrics so you fill it in with what you think it is, memorializing the wrong lyric. .or the infamous "mixing up the lines" fiascos : "life is a mystery, everyone must call my name?
" that still makes me laugh.
I think I've offered a meandering and somewhat historically inaccurate reply!
That's not where I meant to go with that. I really wanted to delve into Imagine, and the ideology of communi . . .the commons. (I'm growing a tiny filter!)
I think this is a good stopping point because I doubt anyone can hang on to my train of thought this long.
