Should I feel like I missed out by not being a teenager in the 70's?

[Taverner]

I love the music, the clothing, the attitudes, the innocence. Perhaps I'm just naive, but I was a small child during the 70's, and back then I'd look at my cousins and think they were so cool, with their GTO's and 8-Tracks.

I also loved the whole innocence and naivete...an openly gay band could sing a song about fucking strangers in a health club and everyone would sing along and dance with them, completely oblivious.

There was no AIDS, but there was the pill, pot was everywhere and more accepted than it is today, and we had a president who cared about his country (at least in the last half.)

Gas was expensive, but hell gas is expensive TODAY! The music was amazing - I mean think of 10 great bands and I'll guarantee at least 5 of them come from the 70's.

Country music was even good - you had wacky artists doing country that wasn't just rah rah flag shit (Kinky Friedman, Country Porn, Flying Burrito Bros anybody?)

And even DISCO was better than the crap that we have today! It may have been endless pop repitition, but it was catchier than the Britney/Christina/Jessica shit out today.

[redqueen]

1. Hiya

Haven't seen you around anymore.

Are you just LOOKING for a reason to bitch? ;)

[flamingyouth]

2. ROFL - I have a Hit Parade mag from 1973 I should scan for you

I don't think you'd regret not wearing some of those clothes! :D

[Taverner]

3. Awww come on

Polyester stretch shirts are SOOO GROOVY!!!

[MuseRider]

6. No kidding!

I was a child in the 50's a teen in the 60's but when girls started with the mall hair and high heels with tight jeans I made my way out of the mainstream (or was 73 even before that?).

[Slit Skirt]

4. the 70's was....

some of the best times of my life....

[Cobalt Violet]

5. And one person working could support a whole family.

And not just the super rich.

[Taverner]

7. Very true!

n/t

[DBoon]

30. And an 18 year old could live on their own

right out of high school. No need to live with your parents until you were 30.

[chicagojoe]

46. Had my own place at 17.5 years old.

[Webster Green]

8. No!.....Feel left out by not being a teenager in the '60's....

Way cool decade!

[Taverner]

10. But the pill wasn't readily available until 69

Big event, IMO

[The Straight Story]

9. I was born in 65 - Ideas anyone???

And remember the 70's fondly.

Maybe we can bring em back, one last time. Anyone have any ideas (other then renting Billy Jack Movies)?

[McKenzie]

11. the 70's were the happiest years of my life

I know it's rose tinted spec syndrome and all that but it rocked. I just loved being a teenager in the mid to late 70's. It would take too long to explain why; let's just say it might well be the decade that taste forgot but by god did we have a good time.

Nostalgic blubber...sniffle...

[NoSheep]

15. Moo Aussie

Spell check version of what I tried to say in French!

[babylonsister]

12. I confess: I was a 70s teen.

My life wasn't great in the scheme of things, but fabulous compared to some people/kids now. There was an innocence. And the music was great! I challenge you to think of a song today that will 'support' you 20, nay, 30 years from now. You are correct, Tavener, in my opinion. In the 70s, there was so much possibility, and not near as much fear as there is today, even for me, a child of the 70s.

[Lizzie Borden]

13. It was better to be a teen in the second half of the 60's.

There was a sense of hope. We thought we could change things.

[NoSheep]

14. Probly

[Ruffhowse]

16. I went to High School and college during the 70's and it was a pretty

freakin' incredible ride. Sex, drugs and rock and roll don't even begin to describe it. The sex was so incredibly free and fantastic, everyone experimenting with everything under the sun. Ahhhh, those were the days my friend.

[Wapsie B]

22. Well, maybe it was free for some

but growing up in a repressed conservative home I felt like that whole decade just passed me by. Could be one reason why I deeply desire to do the things now that I didn't do back then.

[JimmyJazz]

17. I highly recommend watching "Boogie Nights" if you are so

determined to reminisce about an era you don't remember!

You have some valid points - the music was awesome. I have a clear recollection of punk bursting onto the scene and scaring the shit out of my parents - so, of course, I was immediately in love with it!

:hi:

[Taverner]

18. Absolutely LOVED boogie nights

Awesome movie...

"Are these snakeskin?"

"No They're Italian!"

[JimmyJazz]

19. I know I'm not supposed to find this funny, but I laughed every

time the guy said, "have you seen my wife?"

That and the vans with the bubble window on the side! :hi:

[DBoon]

28. My parents thought the same about Jimi Hendrix..

eom

[JimmyJazz]

29. What? that he was a great way to piss off their parents? Oh I

totally agree!

[DBoon]

31. To my parents

Who grew up on 1940's big band music, Hendrix was incomprehensible noise and a total affront to their values. Drugs, sex, rebellion, and African Americans with an Attitude.

Like what your parents thought about punk?

Punk came too late to mean anything to MY parents - the music of the 1960's had already done them in!

[JimmyJazz]

32. BWHHAHAHAHAHAHA - Didn't Hendrix start out in a BIG BAND?

or am i hallucinating? Either could be right, ya know.

[DBoon]

36. I think he started with the Isley Brothers

in the early 1960's. He was the warm up for the Monkees, believe it or not. Lots of pissed off teeny-boppers on that tour.

[Ruffhowse]

20. Now THIS is a 70's guitar!!

[RagingInMiami]

24. I recongize that as Phoenix

[shesemsmom]

21. Oh yeah.......

to have those days back again. Life was simpler. Clothes and music was there best there was.Teenager didn't look like they came from some other planet. I used to long for the day my daughter would be one.......now..... I wish she was a baby again.Love was free and people were easier to get along with. None of this rage shit and acting out in public places. And in 20 or thirty years some will look back on today and say......those were the days!!!!!!:hippie:

[lumberingbear]

23. 70's were great!!!

Ahhhh, good memories!!!:party: :bounce:

[bearfan454]

25. I was 18 in 1974

We did it all. Sometimes I wish we could be back in the day.

[RFKHumphreyObama]

26. I wish I'd been alive and old enough in that decade as well

I've always wished I was old enough to appreciate the 70s and 80s

Having said that, I'm pretty grateful to have spent my teenage years enjoying the environment of peace and prosperity that the Clinton Administration provided us with. It is one of the things I am most grateful to Clinton for -that he allowed me to grow up in an atmosphere where I could be optimstic, confident and hopeful for the future. Where there were no major wars, where peace seemed to be emerging from all quarters from the globe and where we could go to sleep every night knowing there was a good man leading the free world.

[DBoon]

27. We thought we could win back then

I remember working at a fast food place when soemone came off their break and announced Nixon had resigned.

The music was amazing. Progressive Rock, Glam/Glitter Rock, and Punk were all there.

Tom Hayden ran for senate and gave Alan Cranston a run for his money. Tome Hayden! Of the Chicago 7!

And the Alliance for Survival, and the campaign for Economic Democracy...

[SW FL Dem]

33. I started high school at 13 in 1972

I would never want to relive that time. It sucked big time being a smart, progressive kid in a small school in a red state.

[salin]

34. while I enjoyed the teen years in the 70s

(and early 80s) I had much more fun in my twenties in the 80s (and early 90s).

[Kat45]

35. I went to high school and college in the seventies.

It was lots of fun. Back then, we thought that pot would be decriminalized in the near future. Boy, have things changed!

[brentspeak]

37. I was a child during the 70's

(and an adolescent during the 80's), so my perspective might be skewed due to nostalgic, happy thoughts of 70's suburban childhood:

There were things in pop culture, innocent, naive things, that I can't help but look back on fondly, and that are difficult to convey to those who weren't there: 8-track tapes, yellow smiley stickers, Saturday morning kids' TV (much, much better than what's on today), the purple-colored 70's muscle cars coated with cheesy 70's sparkle that the teenagers would drive, the flourescent colors and black-lightbulbs in rooms, the Slinkys, the weird blowtube toy that you put this gasoline-smelling putty on that blew large, psychedelic "bubbles", the Scholastic Book Club, the PET computers, the fact that kids still Trick-or-Treated on Halloween (and even without their parents!)...

Even though I was dimly aware that there was a nuclear arms race going on between the US and the Soviet Union, I don't recall ever thinking that we were all going to die in a mushroom cloud. (I did sometimes think that in the 80's, but I still loved the 80's). I felt safe. I think other kids felt safe, too. Current events did not oppress and confuse a kid's mind the way they almost certainly do today.

[RetroLounge]

38. I graduated in 1979 from High School

but the fun for me didn't start until 1980, and the next 10 years are just a nasty blur and a faded memory of debauchery and lewdness and total fucking alcohol-fueled and drug-addled insanity, leaving behind a bewildered family, a bitter ex-wife, too many jobs and not enough college credits strewn across the midwest.

Man, I barely made it out of the 80's alive, and that is not an exageration.

So yeah, the 70's were cool for me, I hadn't lost control yet...

RL

[RevCheesehead]

39. Oh my God, are you serious?

I was a 70's teen, and I despised nearly every minute of it. The clothes sucked (polyester that never breathed). The running joke was that JELLO was polyester in its raw form.

And DISCO? please. IMO, it died way too late.

I watched "That 70's Show" once - and it brought back way too many bad memories. Of course, some of that may have come from growing up in a heavily repuke city of 10,000. Small minds, snottiness if you didn't belong in the right groups (and I'm talking adults as well as kids), intolerance of just about everything. No, I said "good riddance" to the 70's on Jan. 1, 1980.

I was born in 1962, and felt like I missed a generation. I am at heart a child of the 60's. Even love the music.

[Philostopher]

40. Well, let's be honest, here.

I was fifteen years old when 'YMCA' came out, and there wasn't anybody I knew, in my li'l rural, southern Ohio town who saw a picture of the Village People who didn't know they were gay, or that YMCA was about ... well, being gay.

People have remarkable cultural amnesia, that's all I'm sayin' ...

But 'Brick House' was a great tune.

And even Nixon cared more about some things than any of this crew, I'll give you that. He didn't appear to believe he could actually bring on the apocalypse while he was in office, though I expec after the plumbing blunder at the Watergate, he probably wished he believed Armageddon was on its way.

But most of us who grew up in the sixties and seventies did have that mushroom cloud hovering in the backs of our heads -- we were constantly threatened with nuclear annihilation by our leadership, however unlikely it may have been.

The one thing I'm glad I'm old enough to remember was seeing Apollo 11 take off in Florida in 1969. We parked on the side of a road with about a thousand other people, that early morning in early summer, about three miles from Cape Canaveral and my brother, my older sister and my folks and I watched the rocket take off. I remember my folks worrying it would explode. It didn't though.

That's one of the few things in my life that's actually struck me as worth having lived when I did -- I got to see Apollo 11 take off, and was old enough (barely, I think I was four years old) to remember it.

[fortyfeetunder]

41. One thing about the 70's

people were acting like they wanted to get along. Racial barriers were starting to melt ever so slightly until Ray-gun came in 80 and turned back up the gain.

Yes, the 70's and high school were great. College sucked. That part of the 70's I would not want to repeat.

[WCGreen]

42. Graduated High School in 1975

Ditto fro everything everyone else said...

But where you are is all relative to what you are...
Please don't waste your prescious time pinning for something that will never be...

I remember what i hated most about the 70's was this obsecion with the 50's that started with American Grafitti and Greece...

Hated all that nonsense....

Anyway, I think the music is just fine today, more diverse and far more available....

But really, for every Allman Bros you had and Afternoon Delight
For Every More Than A Feeling you had twnety Starbright.......

Remember Cher went solo back then and she dominated the charts just like that Spears child.....

[ariesgem]

43. As a black girl born in 63

I loved the 70's. As a little girl in the early 70's, I remember getting up every Sat. morning to watch Soul Train and American Bandstand. If the Jackson 5 was on - I put the world on pause. I know how most people feel about Michael Jackson today but as a little boy he had a powerful stage presense with the singing/dancing talent of a grown man. Later as a teenager, funk music ruled my world. Parliament/Funkedelic, Bootsy's Rubberband, Cameo, Isley Brothers, Bar Kays, Rick James RULED.

Back then, everyone either knew someone that played in a garage band or was in one. The music bar was raised HIGH for black kids back then. In my hood, kids I knew wanted to play bass like Larry Graham (from Graham Cental Station, inventor of the "thumbing technique") or be the next Bootsy Collins. If you wanted to be a singer back then, Chaka Khan was the sh*t.

Today, sadly the music bar fell to the curb. The kids in r & B and hip hop today don't want to play instruments or put together a band that kicks ass. Singing groups are now called "bands". Most of the "singers" lipsync their way through their careers.

[faithnotgreed]

47. man - michael jackson and chaka khan. they were so sweet

sounding back then. i loved the jackson 5 and michael was so cute and such amazing talent. i remember chaka in the early 80s and she was still pretty good. michael, not so much. not for me anyway. when he blew up, he left me behind.

im a marvin gaye person now that was some 70s music

all music has fallen thats for sure. the 70s were IT

[ariesgem]

49. I love Marvin Gaye!

I was too young to really appreciate his music during the time he was cranking out those timeless songs. My parents would BLAST Marvin and Al Green records when they had their Saturday night basement parties.

[faithnotgreed]

50. i would have loooved your parents parties!

though i was way young too. they probably would have kicked me upstairs though. im a few yrs younger than you so my love for marvin wasnt in real time i have to say but i love him nonetheless. whats going on (ecology song) is pure beauty. and those duets were way outta sight.

al green is something else too. hes still belting it out

wow.. thanks for the great time warp
(grabbing cds)

[ariesgem]

53. and don't forget the movies

Do you remember Cooley High, Claudine, Cornbread Earl & Me, and Sounder? As a kid those movies just warmed my heart. Pops took me to EVERY kung-fu flick that came out during that time. I was too young for the Super Fly type movies. When I was older I checked them out. They had me cracking up.

[faithnotgreed]

54. like you i checked those out when i was a little older

and yeah i saw cooley high, cornbread. a couple years ago i saw "black girl" with leslie uggams. it was from 1972 so i had to watch it.

i just ordered a used movie called "brother john" with sidney poitier. i think it was also 1972. cant wait to watch it though im giving it to myself for Christmas so i have to wait a few weeks!

i saw some of the kung fu movies since i had older brothers. thats cool your dad took you to see them. bet they were wild on large screen. i didnt see much of the super fly/shaft movies because i just cant watch violence. a lot of that stuff was too real for me to watch

now see, thats one reason i was into the godzilla movies. they were great and a lot of fun. i love all that late 60s/early 70s stuff and even when it was poorly dubbed or written, its still a great time!

[Seabiscuit]

44. Believe me, you missed out by not being a teenager in the 50's/60's.

Those were wonderful times to be a teenager. Class of '63.

[intheflow]

45. The 70's were shellshock from the 60's.

Americans could't wrap their full skulls around Vietnam (did we lose? draw? were we the bad guys?) and so went into a decadelong mindless disco pot/coke/heroin/drunk. When they "came to" in the 80's, sobered by AIDS and the realization they party can't go on forever, they felt like they had to make up for lost time. So began the downward slide from compassionate society to a country of greedy, materialist individualists.

That's what I witnesed in the 70's. I don't think you missed much.

[chicagojoe]

48. Well, let's see...

No urinalysis. 18 y.o. drinking age. Plenty of DECENT PAYING jobs, even with a H.S. education. Cars that were more fun. Cheap concerts--
for example, in 1975 I saw Kiss, UFO and a band called Hydra for $6.50 at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago. Cheap smoke; cheap gas.
Jimmy Carter. 'Nam ended. So on and so forth.

[kodi]

51. kid, you would have to had been there

that is all i can say.

[warrens]

52. Punk

The real thing

[HuskiesHowls]

55. 70's weren't bad

but being 4-F in the late 60's was even better!!

Times were better, people got along, music was great, and to top it off, my parents were pretty liberal about everything!!!

There was most definitely not an attitude of fear, but one of great hopefulness, a looking forward to the great things that this country could be and do.