Bridging the generation gap

Friday, Aug. 14, 2009 | 2:06 a.m.

A study released last week on the differences among Americans of varying ages found common ground on one subject that was one of the biggest generational battlegrounds of the 1960s — rock music.

Many parents back then couldn’t tolerate their children’s love affair with rock. Those adults weren’t exactly thrilled when their kids attended wild concerts and brought home albums that were often played at loud volumes. A national study in 1966 found that 44 percent of adults despised rock music.

The nonpartisan Pew Research Center in Washington discovered something quite different in today’s America when it conducted a nationally representative sample of 1,815 people 16 and older. Pew found that rock — a broad label that ranges from the mainstream Beatles to the punk group The Clash — was the most popular form of music among people aged 16 to 64.

Beyond rock, the generations differ sharply in music taste. People 16 to 29 years old made rap and hip-hop their second choice, whereas it was the fourth preference among 30- to 49-year-olds and the seventh choice among those aged 50 to 64.

What the study proves, if anything, is rock’s endurance as a popular art form. The difference from the 1960s is that today’s parents grew up with rock and then maintained their interest in the music as adults.

Rock today represents a music form that can help bridge the differences between younger people and their elders. And, yes, those differences still exist.

Pew discovered that a generation gap continues to exist on values, use of technology, work ethic and tolerance of others. But the differences between younger Americans and their parents are not as prone to divisive conflicts — within families or society at large — as they were in the 1960s.

This can be viewed as a healthy trend because it makes a case that today’s youths and middle-aged adults are getting along better overall than was the case years ago.

It would defy reason to suggest that rock helped bring families closer together in the 1960s but maybe it’s not so crazy to believe that the opposite is the case today.