The concept of generations, as we currently use the term, would have
made no sense to people living throughout most of human history.
"Before the 19th century," writes Sarah Leskow at The Atlantic,
"generations were thought of as (generally male) biological
relationships within families-grandfathers, sons, grandchildren and so
forth." The word did not describe common traits shared by, "as one lexicographer put it in 1863, ‘all men living more or less at the
same time.'"

The theory was thoroughly ingested into mass culture, as anyone can
tell from social media wars and the fixations of newspaper columnists.
One such correspondent weighed in a few years ago with a contrarian
take: "Your generational identity is a lie," wrote Philip Bump at The Washington Post in 2015. (He makes an exception for Baby Boomers, for
reasons you'll have to read in his column.)

All this debunking is to the good. While scholars routinely investigate
the origins of contemporary ideas, too often the rest of us take for
granted that our present ways of seeing the world are timeless and
eternal.

Yet, whether generations are a real phenomenon or a cultural
construction, globalized mass media of the past several decades ensures
that no matter where we come from, most people born around the same
time will share some set of near-identical experiences-of listening to
the same music, watching the same films, TV shows, etc. Given the way
our thinking can be shaped by formative moments in pop culture, we're
bound to have a few things in common if we had access to Hollywood film
and MTV. Maybe what most defines generations as we know them now is
culture as commodity.

Take the video series featured here. Each one cuts together 50 songs
released in a single year, beginning in 1979, along with video montages
of some of the year's most popular artists. Created by The Hood
Internet, "a DJ and production duo from Chicago, known for their
expertise in mashups and remixes," the series could serve as a lab
experiment to test the emotional reactions of people born at different
times. We may have all heard these songs by now. But only those who
heard them in their youth will have the nostalgic reactions we
associate with generational memory, since music, as David Toop  writes
at The Quietus, is "a memory machine."

Everyone else could stand to learn something about what the 80s looked
and sounded like. As a historical period, it tends to get cast in a
fairly narrow mold, with synthpop and hair metal defining the extent of
80s music. The pop music of the decade was fabulously diverse, with
genres cross-pollinating in what turn out to be surprisingly harmonious
ways in these mashup videos. The creators of the series worked their
way up to 1987, and we get to see some dramatic shifts along the way
that further complicate the idea of 80s music, even for those who heard
these songs when they came out, and who have nine years of formative
moments to go with them. See all of the videos on The Hood Internet's
YouTube channel.

A Soul Train-Style Detroit Dance Show Gets Down to Kraftwerk's
"Numbers" in the Late 80s

How a Recording Studio Mishap Created the Famous Drum Sound That
Defined 80s Music & Beyond

Josh Jones is a writer and musician based in Durham, NC. Follow him at @jdmagness

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