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The Forum > Article Comments > We’re so pretty, oh so pretty … vacant > Comments

We’re so pretty, oh so pretty … vacant : Comments

By Ross Buncle, published 3/8/2007

The 60's dream and Beatlemania was sold out virtually overnight by the baby boomers. Now marketing, packaging, branding are everything: where is the substance?

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Pretty vacant? the kids of today? running round in witches hats etc?

However vacant they might be - they cannot compete with the baby-boomers in the vacancy stakes.
I know that there are some intelligent, thinking baby boomers out there - but they don't get much of a go in the face of the massive media & financial machine aimed at baby boomers.
Much as I hate to knock "The Age" which is surely Australia's best daily newspaper - it give sme the "annoyances" when they come out with a supplement dedicated to the baby boomers - and projecting the most vacuous lifestyle possible for baby boomers.

I understand why The Age - and every other media outlet, has to do this. the baby boomers are the ones with the money and the time to spend it.

On financial "advisers", (ripoff merchants) on golf, on trips around Australia, or overseas, on luxury apartments with every mod con in them - as they supposedly "downsize", on every possible kind of leisure wear, leisure activity - because - after all - what is their role in society ? It is Leisure.
The baby boomers are out to pasture, and enjoying it - they are the consumers par excellence. They've forgotten John Lennon. At least this is the media picture of baby boomers. And, I fear - life is imitating media.
Posted by ChristinaMac, Friday, 3 August 2007 10:10:11 AM
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When I was a kid, fully into the Beatles/Stones/CCR etc etc, my father, who was a musician, often complained that the musicality of these people was low and compared unfavorably with the real musicians of the Sinatra/Crosby/Como era.

And here we are, the open minded baby boomers, doing exactly as our parents did -decrying the vacuous nature of the present culture as compared to the imagined halcyon days when things were "real, man". The more things change....

Ok, if you're going to compare Aguilera to the Beatles then things look grim for the current crop. But a fairer comparison is Aguilera with Little Pattie - besides, according to Eminem, Aguilera literally fellated her way to the top and that's gotta count for something in my book. Compare The Beatles/Stones with U2/Oasis. Compare Dylan to Marshall Mathers. The true giants of each era.

The music world today is just as diverse and just as talented as always. It’s a shame that the "children of the revolution" have become so staid in their thinking that they see anything different as worse.
Posted by mhaze, Friday, 3 August 2007 11:04:47 AM
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Those were the days , my friend ... and weren't they great. We all thought that our generation were going to make the world a better place.

With macrame.

They were great years. And I agree with the author of the article - all we have left now are re-assuring brochures. There is no government in Queensland. It vanishes as soon as you have any kind of problem. We are living and working in a steamy jungle, being hunted down and devoured by public service psychopaths who are being "merit selected" because of their skills in smiling with all of their teeth, gossipping and secretly putting undated and unsigned sticky notes on the Departmental files of their fellow union members.

Hey, wasn't that the way Russia was being run back in the 1970's?

We have come so far.

http://www.badapplebullies.com/mobtheory.htm
Posted by Dealing With The Mob, Friday, 3 August 2007 11:30:35 AM
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These days we have no substance it has been overrun by US consumerism, along with Australian values, language, customs, and attitudes.
Posted by SHONGA, Friday, 3 August 2007 12:47:07 PM
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I don't know what you are saying Mr H.

Are you simply pining for your youth? I think so as today's "music" means the same to today's youth as our music did for us. It's the age, not the music, that makes that time, and fashions etc, memorable and precious as we age. Teenage years are the most exciting and involved there are. Before we are followers of Mum and Dad and after we are worker bees. Too busy and committed to simply go wild and have fun like we did when free, young and strong.

As to rock n roll being dead, don't you get out at all Mr H? Try going out and see some live music. It ain't like the TV or radio. It's still R and R. Live, the best of all.
Posted by RobbyH, Friday, 3 August 2007 1:59:40 PM
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Beautiful piece of writing Mr Buncle. Very clever, very funny and hugely enjoyable.

Odd though, that pretty much like the toothbrush, the message is a familiar argument wrapped in a labyrinthine linguistic package.

So it's a toothbrush, so entertainment these days is depthless, big deal. If the packaging is as impressive as Mr Buncle's wording I can understand why it sells.
Posted by chainsmoker, Friday, 3 August 2007 2:23:40 PM
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