ABSTRACT
Introduction Chapters 2 and 3 have sketched approaches to aging and retro culture in music. They have suggested some modifications to existing conceptions, most importantly through the concept of the generation unit and by treating retro culture as a structure of feeling. The question then is how far does this revisionist perspective correspond to the experience and practice of actual music fans, and this is what Chapter 4 now queries through its commencement of the presentation of the case study that occupies the rest of the book. The aim from here on in is to test and elaborate ideas and themes presented in Chapters 2 and 3 . In this chapter, then, I first set about examining the fans’ musical tastes and the meanings of music for them in relation to their generational cultures. I contrast how the older fans discuss listening to the contemporaneous music of their youth with how the younger fans report listening to the popular music of their parents’ youth, that is, typically music from the 1960s to the 1990s. I analyze the older fans’ quotes, which detail how they bonded with peers over a shared taste in music, and compare this to the younger fans’ quotes, which detail how shared musical experiences tend to be enjoyed with older male influences rather than with peers.
