----- Original Message ----- 
From: <Scotthomewood@cs.com>
> But I am just wondering if music itself hasn't sort of lost ground 
> to other
> forms of recreation, in effect if we as a culture are "moving past 
> music" to
> embrace other forms. As music moves more and more toward a niche as 
> other things
> take it's place (note I am not speaking about simply the delivery of 
> the
> music as a previous poster but more about the general appreciation 
> of and use as a
> gathering or community aspect) I am wondering if four kids gathering 
> over a
> cool video game is replacing what we (or I) used to do as kids when 
> we would
> gather over a new album.

I get what you're saying, it's just that I don't think it's a matter
of These Kids Today.  I mean, music was obviously a big part of my
adolescence, but teenagers are born multi-taskers, and the list of
activities you ascribe to the teens of today are all things my friends
and I spent hours doing in the '80s, just in lower-tech ways.  (Video
games? Atari, Coleco, Nintendo, in that order.  Texting? Okay, we
didn't have cells, but we had phones in our bedrooms, and what you'd
think would be a 30-second call from Gina who sat next to me in
algebra about which problems Mrs. Armstrong had assigned would
regularly stretch into two or three hours of ever-forking
conversational paths. Online social networks?  Dude, that's what the
mall was for.  It's not like we were shopping for anything.)  And
personally, my experience was always that when my friends and I were
gathering, music was more of a background activity anyway: I mean, we
might have the new R.E.M. record on, but we were primarily drinking
stolen beer and playing cards (guy friends) or making out on the day
bed in the study (girl friends) while we were doing it.  It wasn't
like we were all solemnly facing the stereo in quiet contemplation or
anything.

S

NP: CAREFREE -- Devon Williams