You can’t help it – it’s not your fault. It’s not that your taste in music changed, it’s that music changed. You can pinpoint it (give or take a few months): 1964. Around the time The Beatles went on Ed Sullivan. It took you a while, but you finally warmed to them – and then they lost you for good around Rubber Soul. That was your cut-off. It stopped after that.
You really never forgave Bob Dylan for going Electric – you miss Doo-Wop every day. You remember exactly where you were when you heard Buddy Holly and Richie Valens died. You still wonder why Little Richard got religion. You think The Mothers Of Invention are awful.
Confusing times for you – in a way, you feel lost, like you don’t fit in anymore. You still buy records, but you haven’t bought a 45 since The Christy Minstrels released Today. You like Simon & Garfunkle. You still listen to the radio but not as much as you used to. You get tired of switching stations all the time. You’re in that weird spot that doesn’t care for Steve Lawrence and Edie Gormé but miss the point of Cream.
You haven’t turned into a Luddite but you can’t wrap your head around Haight-Ashbury or Love-Ins or Jimi Hendrix. You tried Marijuana once and didn’t like it – you drink Scotch. You still wear after shave and you haven’t worn jeans since you were twelve. You still buy Ban-lon shirts and get your hair cut once a month (okay, it’s just over your collar and it’s flipping up in back) – you’ve had the same barber since you were six.
The old Folk clubs have turned into Rock n’ Roll clubs; places where the music is too loud and people smile a lot for no reason at all. The girls are too young and they look past you most of the time. Somewhere in your late twenties and already you’re invisible.
Life got weird and it got weird fast.
And that’s why in 1967 FM Radio, when it wasn’t going Underground, was adopting The Young Sound; Rock without the hard-edge, so you could feel moderately hip without having your mind blown. CBS Radio originated The Young Sound and it was designed for Automated Stations owned by CBS – no hardcore personalities, nothing jarring – hit artists and bands, only the less seismic and more subtle hits just mixed in with smoothed out versions for those who still liked Rock n’Roll but were feeling abandoned. It’s audience was 25-50; the ones who stopped going to concerts and staying out all night – that new demographic “The Young Adult”.
Here’s an hour of The Young Sound – from WCBS New York, just as it sounded on KCBS-FM San Francisco and KNX-FM in Los Angeles.