Now we ( me born 1960 ) are to old to wear denim but still do !

Dream of an entire nights sleep unbroken by the need to piss .

Know first hand (sic) what a proctologist does .

Have been to at least one school / uni mates funeral .

Wondered why Dylan did adds .

Had to explain to a young bass player who Noel Redding was !

Been called " sir " by a copper whilst daydreaming you could " join the dots " on his / her spotty face .

Found platform shoes in parents loft , whilst moving them to sheltered housing .

Wondered where Spangles and Manners went .

And vented by blog .

Departed, now; but he was born in 1942. This made him roughly the same age as Paul McCartney, Brian Wilson or Bob Dylan: 14 when Heartbreak Hotel came out, 17 when Buddy Holly died, 21 when The Beatles took off, 23-25 in the golden pop years of 1965-1967, and nodding sagely at the age of 30 when Don McLean observed in 1972 that, for that generation, it was all over, in American Pie.

Personally, I'd say that's better than being born in, say, 1965 and missing it all; or, God forbid, being born in 1971- like me - and being unable to ascertain the true cause of teenage depression: simple chronology, or the music of the mid to late 1980s.

Those of us who had our jobs in the late sixties and early seventies (i.e. we were born in the FIFTIES) were the ones whose overdrafts and plastic funded the heyday of the physical artifact.

Long Playing records with extravagant sleeves, photo inserts, lyric books, origami and God knows what else were the high point, and the second flourish came with the magnificent outpouring of creativity on the sleevs of 7 and 12 inch inch punk and new wave vinyl.

If you were born in the late sixties, you were too young to fund anything like the "golden heydays of the physical format".

Sorry. History's a bitch.

I was born in 63 and we didn't have Walkmans at school.You would have to have been born in mid to late 60's to have seen Walkmans as commonplace. Sorry to be so picky but great post nonetheless.

I was born in 63 and we didn't have Walkmans at school.You would have to have been born in mid to late 60's to have seen Walkmans as commonplace. Sorry to be so picky but great post nonetheless.

If you were born in 1965 you didnt come of age in the punk era which began by all accounts in 1976. An 11 year old punk doesn't cut much mustard i am afraid.
i was born in 1956 and missed it by about 2 years by my reckoning - ie. you need to be about 18 to have come of age!!
I also missed the height of the flower power era by about 4 years but have an abiding memory of that time from the music but unfortunately not from the free love that was around.

I am glad to have been born when I was but more importantly glad to be enjoying the greatest amount of music so readily available and probably the most vibrant live scene in many many years.

Born in '58 so all of Paul's comments apply to me and I thoroughly agree!

BUT I can still remember visiting my hippy older cousin in 72 and listening agog to him describing a Led Zeppelin concert he had just been to. So maybe 55 would be the optimal time, always assuming I wouldn't feel too old to see Ian Dury in his pomp in the late 70's

I feel nothing but pity for anyone who wasn't born into the glorious cultural utopia that was Great Britain in the early 1970s.

At this juncture I can hear disgruntled mutterings from those who are slightly more advanced in years than myself, and who are now wondering out loud what exactly is wrong with The Carter Family, Scott Joplin and The Glenn Miller Orchestra. I like all these acts - may they continue to enjoy fruitful careers - however being born in the 70s, a kid in the 80s and a young adult in 90s was still awesome for the following reasons:

• Watching with amazement as conventional musical instruments were made obsolete by a new generation of flat, hexagonal drum kits and synthesiser/guitar hybrids!
• Growing up in the golden age of pop music, when it was acceptable for bands to don war paint and wear tea towels around their heads, thereby directly appealing to the dressing-up-box fashion sense of small children.
• Watching Kim Wilde perform The Kids In America (the greatest pop song ever written) on Top of the Pops. Pleasant songs about heroin and po-faced ruminations on impending nuclear war, all charting.
• Listening to the pirate radio station Laser 558, with its exotic usage of American DJs, on my red Panasonic radio/cassette player. New singles from Madonna and Prince appearing seemingly out of thin air, in the days before I knew about release schedules. Also We Built This City by Starship.
• My grandmother describing The Human League’s Phil Oakey as a “miserable sod” after watching the video for Don’t You Want Me? on Top of the Pops.
• Enjoying Madness’s run of glorious hit singles from the perspective of a child, back when House of Fun was about nothing more than hi-jinks at a fairground (as opposed to the social embarrassment of purchasing condoms for the first time).
• Slap bass
• Smash Hits and Look-in magazine. Following the fictionalised, comic book adventures of Eurovision song contest winners, Bucks Fizz, in the latter.
• Growing up in an era when Shaddap You Face by Joe Dolce was considered the height of social commentary and the funniest song ever written!
• Hearing a snippet of Landscape’s - Einstein a GoGo on Top of the Pops.

  “One day all music will sound like this,” I remarked to the assemblage of stuffed animals who used to watch television with me.

• Roller-skating around Great Wakering Sports Centre to Rio by Duran Duran and All I Have To Do is Dream by The Everly Brothers. Even in today’s eclectic dancehall climate, few DJs would attempt such an audacious combination.
• My hyperactive, Tizer and red-Smartie-fuelled, playground renditions of Toyah’s - I Want To Be Free.
• Becoming aware of Abba as they entered their divorce years.
• Me and my brothers dancing like lunatics to The Special AKA’s - Free Nelson Mandela, at a time when we had no idea of who Nelson Mandela was, nor of the grim political situation in South Africa.
• Being vaguely aware that there was something a bit pervy about Soft Cell, before I had any inkling that sex or drugs existed.
• The way that my late teens perfectly coincided with the rise of grunge, as if it were part of some grand universal plan!. Last night I ran downstairs to the kitchen, where my parents were eating, brandishing a copy of Nevermind by Nirvana.

  “It was like you knew!” I cried, excitedly waving the CD case in the air, while they stared nervously at their food and diligently avoided making eye contact.

• Watching The Chart Show (an hour of pop videos and state of the art computer graphics). The monthly prospect of the Indie chart (back when the term Indie still meant something) in which bands too poor to make videos were represented by still, black and white photographs.
• Growing up to see compact discs become the beloved format of discerning audiophiles everywhere.

I'm of the same vintage as Plimsoul, having been born in March 67, and surely only need to remind him how horrible 80s music was to make him realise that our youth was hardly a golden age.
80s music was so dreaful that I spent a large part of my teens convinced that Marillion were a great band, and the scary thing is that by the standards of the day they probably were.

This whole thread appears a bit like bragging rights, and in terms of technology surely my kids (aged 6 and 4) have come along at the best ever time. But in terms of being born in the middle of the sixties here's my

One of my earliest memories is the moon landings in 69 watched at school on one of those tellies in a metal frame that held it 12 feet in the air...

Aged 12 in 1977 my early record buying and gigging was in the golden era of punk/new wave

Just about young enough to go clubbing for the last true musical revolution in 1989 with acid (it's been basically all retro since then - discuss)

Experiencing pre-PL footie (cheap, standing, terrifyingly violent),and post-PL (sitting down, terrifyingly expensive)

But do agree with eighties music somewhat, there was lots of good music but it was on the margins marginal: New Order, Smiths, Pogues were the only ones we saw headlining big gigs...

to this song which i think we can all agree isn't a good thing.
curious point even though Sandi thom was a "internet" phenomenom you can't imbed her you tube clip.
so here's someone else doing it. Enjoy is probably not the word.