Vol. 11: Everyone Thinks Their Era Was Better
At some point, almost everybody says it.
Music today just isn’t the same.
It’s one of the few arguments that seems to survive every generation. Parents say it. Grandparents say it. Older siblings say it. Eventually, even the people who once defended the new wave become the ones criticizing whatever came after them.
Fans of 70s rock swear music peaked with raw musicianship and songwriting. People who grew up in the 80s remember the arrival of MTV and larger-than-life pop stars. Hip hop fans defend the 90s like nothing before or after could ever touch it. Others insist the 2000s were the last great era before streaming changed everything.
And now, somewhere out there, teenagers are creating memories to songs that older generations are already dismissing.
The cycle never ends.
But maybe the real question isn’t whether one era was objectively better than another.
Maybe the better question is this:
Why do people become so emotionally attached to the music they grew up with in the first place?
Because when you really think about it, people are rarely just defending songs.
They’re defending a time in their lives.
The Soundtrack of Becoming Yourself
Music arrives during some of our most formative years. It’s there when we start discovering who we are. It follows us through high school, parties, relationships, heartbreak, late-night drives, first jobs, family road trips, and moments we didn’t even realize would become memories at the time.
Years later, hearing certain songs can feel less like listening and more like reopening a chapter of your life.
That’s part of why these debates become so personal.
When someone says your era of music wasn’t great, it can almost feel like they’re dismissing your memories along with it.
I pride myself on not being the type of guy who automatically hates on the younger generation’s music because I remember what that felt like.
Years ago, I remember emailing a writer from a Toronto newspaper after he gave Eminem a bad review. I was young, passionate, and convinced he simply didn’t understand hip hop. I clearly remember typing something along the lines of:
Excuse me if I don’t take a middle-aged man’s opinion on hip hop seriously.
To his credit, he actually replied.
I’m paraphrasing here, but his response was basically:
One day, you’ll be a middle-aged man too.
I remember reading that and immediately feeling a little stupid because deep down, I knew he was right.
And here I am now.
A middle-aged man with a lot of opinions about my forever favorite genre: hip hop.
That experience stuck with me because it reminds me how easy it is to dismiss newer generations without really listening to what they’re trying to say. That’s partly why I challenge myself to stay open-minded and actually pay attention to the music my kids listen to.
The funny thing is, they put me onto new music all the time.
My dad was never the type to trash my generation’s music. You would never catch him saying what I always considered one of the corniest phrases of the 1990s:
“I don’t call it rap music. I call it crap music.”
He wasn’t like that.
When I’d get in his car, he’d let me throw on my Eminem or Beastie Boys CDs without complaining. Sure, he’d probably rather listen to Bachman-Turner Overdrive or The Big Bopper, but he was never opposed to hearing what I was into at any given time.
Looking back, I think that openness stayed with me.
It taught me that you don’t have to fully understand a younger generation’s music to respect the connection they have with it.
I’ve realized that many people who say things like “hip hop sucks nowadays” often haven’t truly tried to engage with it. They compare modern music to the classics they grew up with, but those older songs are attached to something much bigger than music itself.
The 90s weren’t just an era of great hip hop to them.
They were youth. Freedom. Friends. Parties. Memories. A completely different period of life.
And most people spend at least part of their lives wishing they could revisit those years again.
That’s just human nature.
Did Every Era Feel Bigger Than Life?
For older generations, music also carried a different kind of anticipation.
People waited for albums. They lined up outside stores. They watched music video countdowns. Friends passed records, CDs, and mixtapes to each other like treasure. Entire schools, cities, and generations often experienced the same songs together at the same time.
I also remember ordering a printed copy of the lyrics for Check Your Head by Beastie Boys through either their fan club or Grand Royal Records. I honestly can’t even remember exactly how I found it now. Probably through something written inside the CD booklet.
That feels almost impossible to explain today when lyrics appear online seconds after a song drops.
But back then, part of loving music was chasing it. You studied liner notes. You replayed verses trying to figure out what was being said. You mailed away for merchandise, lyrics, magazines, or fan club material. Music demanded more patience, and maybe that patience made the connection feel deeper.
Today, music is everywhere all at once.
Streaming has made discovery easier than ever, but it has also changed the experience. Algorithms replaced much of the waiting. Playlists replaced many full album experiences. Instead of everybody watching the same countdown show or hearing the same radio hit, listeners now disappear into thousands of personalized feeds and recommendations.
Maybe older generations don’t only miss the music itself.
Maybe they miss the feeling of the world slowing down long enough for music to truly take over.
Was the Music Actually Better?
That doesn’t mean today’s music lacks value.
Every era believes it lived through the most authentic version of music history, but nostalgia has a way of editing things. People tend to remember the masterpieces while forgetting the disposable songs that filled the charts at the same time.
History filters music differently than real time.
The 70s gave us legendary albums, but they also gave us plenty of forgettable records nobody talks about anymore. The same is true for the 80s, the 90s, the 2000s, and today.
In every decade, older generations criticized what younger people were listening to. Rock fans mocked disco. Traditional musicians dismissed hip hop in its early years. Some people believed synthesizers would ruin music forever. Entire genres that were once treated like trends eventually became classics.
Even now, younger listeners are rediscovering artists from decades before they were born. Vinyl has returned. Old songs find new audiences online. Teenagers wear shirts from bands they never experienced in real time. Albums continue finding listeners long after the original era has passed.
Good music survives.
The Generation Gap Never Ends
Every generation eventually becomes the generation that says music used to be better because music becomes tied to identity. We attach songs to moments, people, and versions of ourselves that no longer exist in quite the same way.
Sometimes we aren’t only missing the music.
Sometimes we’re missing who we were when we first heard it.
That doesn’t mean there’s no such thing as a great era of music. Every decade contributes something unique. Some push songwriting forward. Others change culture entirely. Some create larger-than-life stars while others create underground movements that slowly reshape everything that follows.
But maybe there was never meant to be one definitive “best” era.
Maybe the best era of music is simply the one that arrived when you needed it most.
And maybe that’s why the debate never truly gets settled.
Accompanying Playlist
I put together an accompanying Spotify playlist for this week’s piece, featuring songs from different eras that people continue to defend, revisit, debate, and pass down.
Question: What era of music do you find yourself defending the most, and do you think it’s because the music was better, or because of what that time meant to you?