who is 25yrs old, wouldn't thank me for my collection when i pop off. In fact i don't really know who would want it except my best mate.

The youth of today have so many different things vying for their attention, and unfortunately music is one of the less important ones. Many, my son included, have hardly bought any physical product and download everything, sign of the times i guess.

who is three years old, jumps around the room to "I Like To Move It" by Reel To Reel featuring the Mad Stuntman. I have a wall of vinyl and a load of cd's packed away in boxes somewhere which will be museum pieces by the time he grows up.

The music I sought as a teenager, rare recordings/remixes/live bootlegs etc., are all readily available for consumption now (mostly through SimonL's blog!). Did I learn anything from having to save and find these precious recordings as a youth or should I rejoice in "all" music being available now?

16-19 yr olds

i asked a group of them a few weeks ago whether they bought bought music...

almost none

they download it, or get it from youtube, and see it as disposable, ephemeral, easily replaced.

some, of course, are really into a band or a genre, but even they don't really seem to value the 'artefact'. they listen to the tunes on their phones, or ipods, and don't need to 'collect' or 'possess' the stuff.

the way i see it, music is becoming less of a cultural product to own, keep, collect, and feel smug about, and more of a cultural product to use as we see fit, to rejoice in, without the baggage of possession, ownership, money, whatever.

i admit to having concerns about this - if i bought an album in the past, and didn't 'get' it, i'd keep trying, keep listening, try to like it - after all, i;d shelled out a tenner or whatever, and maybe today becuase there is no financial transaction involved, people value music less... i dunno.

but at the mo i'm listening to spotify. most of the stuff i own on cd is on there, free.

my cd's, records, tapes, all being made obsolete in front of my eyes and ears.

maybe it's not the music that your son's kids aren't interested in, maybe it's just the way it's packaged.

it'll all be free online eventually.

and anyway, don't all kids, and grandlids, reject the cultural legacy of the previous generations?

things change, and to be honest, getting stuff online, enjoying it for a while, then deleting it, might turn out to be a much more healthy state of affairs in some ways than having to collect every recording peter gabriel ever made, or every clash vinyl release, or the back catalogue of the stone roses or the beatles or the stones or oasis or whoever, endlessly repackaged to keep the wheels of commerce grinding on. i sometimes think the cultural value we put on these things is skewed.

as someone elsewhere said, feel free to disagree, i know not of what i speak... or something

My two (6,8) have Abba the definitive collection on permanent repeat, they also went through a phase of listening to Sparky's Dream by Teenage Fanclub 20 times a day. Both also have a Spotify playlist. But pocket money is for lego kits (fair enough).

but I think I put as much value on music as the majority of those here. I may not have an encyclopaedic knowledge or collection, but I'm just as likely to listen to John Martyn and Joni Mitchell as I am The Mummers and St. Vincent, for example.

I'm in the minority, sure, and I often get called prematurely middle-aged (though that's generally for non-muso related idiosyncracies!), but as pointed out above, everyone on the site is in the minority. Everyone likes music, but few take it as far as those who read Word. I'd say there's just as many of us from my generation who love and cherish music and there could hardly be a better time to do so: the whole history of recorded music is at your fingertips so you can have a voyage of discovery whenever you wish!

I have an 18 year old. My music collection, CD and Vinyl means nothing to him although as his music listening widens, slightly, he proudly tells me when he recognises the odd Stones or Hendrix track I play. Everything he wants is downloaded, immediately, and for free if possible. I have to convince him that for the bands he loves (currently The Twang and The Enemy), he needs to buy their stuff or they won't exist. So he compromises, still downloads it for free as soon as its released on a blogspot, but also downloads it from iTunes or occasionally orders the CD from Amazon as recognition to them of their value to him. The concept of waiting, even for a few hours for the official release is beyond him, let alone the old style saving up your pocket money for a saturday trip to the record shop to buy the album. Current case in point Reverend and the Makers, he quite likes them, has downloaded new album for free, likes it, but not quite enough to consider actually paying them for it. Slightly off the actual topic, but I think it shows there's still some elements of a 'music collection' out there, but not for much longer. Other son is 15 and Spotify meets all of his needs, one of which is not to actually own anything - 'what's the point'?

I was sitting in the sunshine on the grassy knoll that's part of the Liverpool One shopping mall, observing the teenage tribe who congregate there - good natured, the odd emo fringe or Winehouse-updo, lots of goth black teamed with bright colours. Not sure what to call them - Zutonian?

Couldn't help spotting the kid (15/16?) in the middle of a chirpy mixed sex group, lovingly taking his vinyl out of the yellowing inner sleeve and poring over the label - looking to see if there was a message in the run-off grove or just trying to absorb the music directly by some sort of osmosis?

Maybe we need Word business cards which we can silently hand out whenever we see another potential convert - "If you've been affected by anything in this long playing record, please see our helpline at www.wordmagazine.co.uk"

at the front of his 'autobiography' (which he acknowledges was dictated by him but someone else wrote up and edited). He says he likes the idea of books and he's glad that people still bother to write them and read them but that he just doesn't feel the need to do either himself. I think a lot of other people have felt the same way about books for a long time, albeit without admitting it, and that we're now seeing music go down a similar path.

1) (Stolen from Todd Rundgren) It's only since the invention of the wax cylinder and record (or arguably with sheet music) that music has actually been considered a product rather than a service. Maybe we're heading back to the "Service" mindset again?

2) It's only been about 30 years that we've been able to "own" films & TV series - before VHS came along, unless you were a 8mm home-movie buff, you had to wait for films to be shown at the cinema or be broadcast in order to see them at all. The idea of a "Film Collection" is a very recent phenomenon, and it's likely to go the same way as music before too long, and this 30-year window of collecting will just seem like a strange anomaly...

They stop you using you eyes for anything else. They are completely immersive. This is, I suppose, what gives the finer examples of the genre their appeal. But I would much rather occupy my eyes with a good book, my ears with some nice music and my gustatory organs with a drop of something appealing from the southern Rhone.

Kerrang !! With a side order of emo.

System Of A Down, Slipknot, Lamb of God, Iron Maiden , Rage Against the Machine, Trivium, My Chemical Romance. To name the ones vaguely famous.

Feeling old yet ?

Though, to be fair , mostly not what we used to call "commercial", i.e. to be played by Scott Mills.

I bought my nephew an Iggy Pop album for Christmas, and he thanked me politely but told me he had not heard of him.

They have their own thing. We are the people they are rebelling again, if they can be arsed. Let them get on with it.

.. maybe the idea of not paying for it is the only antithetical behaviour left?