people will be aware of Dylan, Elvis and The Beatles.

That's probably it.

....to some work buddies, in their early 40s so, whilst younger than me, clearly not striplings.
"Who's he then?"

Not in our lifetime anyway. They say authors should trade 100 readers today for one reader in 100 years time. The same is true of rock music.

Funny you should mention Hendrix. A few years back a co-worker told me his son was learning the guitar so I made him a best of Hendrix disc. The kid went berserk when he heard it. He apparently demanded to know, "Where did you get that disc from?" Jimi will be blowing peoples heads off for a long time to come, just fewer of them.

I wouldn't worry about rock music vanishing. Just the other day I was in a second hand record shop and I saw a couple of teenage boys oohing and aahing over a vinyl copy of Rust Never Sleeps. I didn't have the heart to tell them it was common as muck and could be found just about anywhere. They purchased it and proudly walked off brandishing it like a trophy.

..things are any different now than they ever were.people with an active interest in music will take the time to learn about what came before whilst those with just a casual affection for one or two bands will be happy to continue in their ignorance.It's no different to sport,cinema or books really.

It may be an unpopular post but somebody has to say this. One of Mark's target sample is a girl, and, no matter how things have changed over the decades since Jimi and Phil, girls still don't inhabit Planet Rock in the same fashion. Likely Jackie will move on as her twenties fade away and other more pressing interests preoccupy her. Sure, there may be glorious exceptions like Kate and Juliet, for example, on the Word team, but that is still an eight man and two girl team. I'm sure the demographics of the Word readership would confirm my suspicion - that there has not been a significant shift in the gender of rock's champions. Please, let us share them, I'd be happy to be proven wrong. A few years in the late teens or early twenties of fashionable hanging-on to the ephemeral likes of The Killers or The Feeling does not make a lifelong enthusiasm. Cookieboy's story about boys salivating over a vinyl copy of Rust Never Sleeps - I'm sorry, but I can't picture that scene with a couple of girls.

On a slightly different tack and probably entirely irrelevant, does anybody remember how important tales of sexual derring-do were in the careers of both men? The oft-told schoolyard tale - a HORA for sure - of the tube that Jimi wore on stage attached to his penis to syphon off the excess love juice generated during frenzies of guitar soloing?

My son, who is 15, loves Jimi Hendrix, as do most of his friends. I get the impression that among the guitar-playing section of teenage boys, a knowledge of Hendrix's work is just assumed. In fact, most of their guitar heroes are people from the sixties & seventies; the great exception being John Frusiante, who, as far as I can see, is worshipped by every guitar-playing male between the ages of 15 and 25.

At a recent musical fancy dress night at our local, two of our thirty-something neighbours (one male, one female) genuinely couldn't identify the Beatles from the four picture on the front of 'Let It Be'. I was stunned.

The boys and girls that I share an office with often discuss the music they like – and I simply have no idea what they’re on about. They mention groups that I’ve kind of heard of, and records that are apparently in the top ten and are really catchy but that I have never heard.

This despite having two teenage daughters.

But when, on the odd occasion they ask me who it is that I like again, I introduce Steely Dan, or Ry Cooder or Wilco or even Marvin Gaye or the Beach Boys to the conversation – it’s blank looks ahoy.

So now I consider myself a bloke who knows a bit about music, but who is excluded from the debate.

Hoping for a connection recently, I announced that I was going to see Eli ‘Paperboy’ Reed and The Trueloves soon – and still got nothing.

Thank God for this website, is all I can say...

A couple of years ago I was sat on a bus and overheard two (I presume) students talking about that "Lazy" song, and going "It's got that bloke on it David... Bryan or something. No I haven't heard of him either"

Every fibre in my being was screaming at me to stand up and loudly proclaim in my best Dewey Finn, comic-but-not-really "OH GOOD GOD WHAT ARE THEY TEACHING KIDS IN SCHOOLS THESE DAYS!?!?"

But I didn't, obviously.

Thing is, when I was 18, I'd never heard a Talking Heads album (or even any of their songs other than Once in a Lifetime and Road To Nowhere) but I sure as hell knew who David Byrne was (if you don't know, he's that bloke in that big suit!).

But I guess the thing is, there are some people (usually blokes - they're better at being nerds) who are just interested in music (or film, sport etc etc) in general whether they like, or are even familiar with the artist.

Mrs. F is a fan of the X Factor and such shows. I rarely watch but was reduced to a fit of stuttering, flabbergasted exasperation a little while ago. Some act or other was introduced, "Singing the Pet Shop Boys classic, 'Always On My Mind' please welcome..." Now, the PSBs did a jolly good version of the song but didn't anyone on the show realise this was a cover of a cover of a cover... I mean no offence to the PSBs but isn't there the small matter of Willy Nelson and Elvis Presley, among others?

In 1993, I walked into a room with a recently purchased copy of Neil Young's Unplugged. "Who's Neil Young?" someone said. I didn't want to appear facetious, but I just held up the CD cover and said "That is". I mean, what do you say in those circumstances? I could reduce him to a musical category - or try - but if anyone deserves to be spared that, it's Neil Young.

You're right in the sense that there's no "should" about it: if anyone is ignorant of good art that's not really a crime. There's no doubt a ton of superb stuff (music, books, films etc) which I'm happily completely unaware of.

However, if they're genuinely trying to take any real interest in music then "should" becomes a more justifiable word.

This reminds me of something I saw a few years ago on 'The X Factor' . In the early knockout stages, all the wannabe singers were given Beatles songs to rehearse then sing, and none of them had heard of any of them. One of the singers then complained that The Beatles song she was given to sing was far too obscure. Even questioning whether it really was a Beatles song at all? At home, as a Beatle obsessive, I'm starting to think "they've not given her Wild Honey Pie or The Inner Light to sing have they? Not The X Factor?" So anyway, the interviewer asks her to sing the first line of this "obscure" Beatles song to see whether she had a point. The girl agrees and starts singing "Yesterday, All my troubles seemed so far away!!" Unbelievable!

Sometimes I hear younger people not knowing who The Sex Pistols or The Beatles were. My first thought is "ah well, different generation". My second thought is "to hell with you, I grew up in the seventies and I knew who Buddy Holly and Scott Joplin were".

My sister-in-law's partner, fine chap that he is, is 50 & has apparently never heard of anyone despite being a builder and having Radio 2 on all day. His beloved was off to see Leonard Cohen the other week but he had not an inkling who Lenny was & couldn't have cared less. Like most people.

I feel sorry for a new generation who for whom the lyrics of Half Man Half Biscuit will be met with nothing but bafflement.

Well, I once - in another lifetime - met a few A & R people. One 'knew who Led Zeppelin were' but had never heard them. Another knew the name but hadn't heard the Smiths and had never even heard of Prefab Sprout. They worked for major labels. Can't remember which - was about ten years ago. Made me wonder if they're people working for book publishers who've 'heard of Shakespeare but never read him' etc etc

This is a bit similar to my earlier thread...

http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/can-you-name-all-four-beatles

As I get older, I realise most people don't care about music. Which is worse than not knowing.

There was a golden era, apparently, mostly before my time, where music had a hegemony on the public attention: From about 1955 to the late 70's, music was the only timeshiftable, user-controlled entertainment medium. And it flourished because of that. Evolving out of this technology came a generation of music artists who appeared to be gods. The artists were on top of the technology and blowing people's minds whether it was Dave Davies' bladed amp or the Beatles reversing a tape. That's why they should be remembered. However, these things don't amaze us now when experienced de novo in our modern world. I can record and mix in four track on my phone.

And so it has come to pass that there is much media trying to grab our attention. The Mama Mia DVD sold 1.5million copies on day one of its release this week. The cumulative UK sales of The Office DVD is apparently around 10 million. No cd/lp has ever approached those numbers.

Music requires an emotional response in order to entertain the listener. It is not entertainment for the sake of it unlike TV, movies, video games. How we emotionally respond to music is often an unfathomable wonder, but one that makes it worthwhile being a fan every single time it happens.

And that's the sad thing: Back when music was the sole medium that the user could start, stop, own, bring to a friend's, etc, it still required that emotional response. In these easy entertainment, multi-media days, the emotional investment needed for on-demand telly or the latest shoot-'em-up is zero.

Music takes time to appreciate, but we now live in a world where everybody wants instant gratification from their media.

If a popular musician of the day makes a comment about, or covers, a classic song unknown to their following, then there may well be a quick upturn in the sales of that song via iTunes, (Buckley's version of Hallelujah being a great example) but the chances are that less than 5% will incestigate the music any further.

The only people likely to delve into past masters are those who've developed a real love for music as a youth, often driven by their parents large collections as myself, and as previously stated these will be mostly male for some unknown chromosome related reason.

Unless an old band/artist has a vocal following within todays hip young things, then labels won't bother trying to sell best ofs and the like via the usual medium of tv/radio advertising, particularly around youth music related programs, as this isn't likely (in their eyes at least) to yield much of a result, instead they stick to publications such as Word wherein they have a readymade fanbase. Of course they're selling younger music fans short and not giving them any credit for having minds of their own, but then they don't seem to think they possess these anyway.

Could we all stop being so superior? People posting on this site are a very small minority of music lovers/obsessives and we frankly probably take it all far too seriously. We are the minority of all our respective generations and no doubt there are similar minorities in the generations below us, probably always will be.

Music is supposed to be for enjoyment first and foremost and no doubt for the vast majority that is purely what it is – there’s nothing wrong with not knowing about the rich and varied history of popular music and just listening to the new Dido record. Just as there's nothing wrong with watching the new Spiderman movie and not knowing anything about Billy Wilder or Powell and Pressburger. Those who want to investigate further will, those who don't won't.

Also, when you’re young your not supposed to care about old stuff – me and my mates couldn’t have given a monkeys about the ‘classics’ when we were 18, we just automatically assumed everything new we listened to was better, even if it was Neds Atomic Dustbin for christ’s sake – we were clearly wrong, but it’s a normal way of behaving at that age. The investigating of the past comes later if the music obsession continues.

And what’s this about movies or TV being entertainment for the sake of it. Excuse my French but what a load of b******.

......mes braves, boules.....

that in 100 years NO ONE will remember JoBoxers?

i don't f***ing believe that.

...was at the drinks machine just now. He encouraged the machine by nudging it with his shoulder. "Just like the Fonz," he said. He must be about 23.

...health and safety at work. Perhaps by casually explaining what happened to the Fonz?

...I used to work at a Virgin Megastore. Some of the guys were out the back discussing music. Someone mentioned Phil Spector. "Who?" said someone else. "He's the guy that produced Let It Be" came the reply.

I agree that it will be Elvis, Dylan and The Beatles. But they were all both critically acclaimed and hugely popular. Worry about the other names that might survive just because they were popular or had lots of press. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the most important band of the 90s - The Spice Girls!