We Baby Boomers have lived through more “end of an era” experiences than most other generations. John Fogerty’s song “I Saw It On TV” covers some of the biggies: JFK’s assassination, Watergate, the end of the Vietnam War: the end of innocence.
My end-of-an-era list is a hodgepodge of “Whew! Glad that’s over!” and “Oh, no, this can’t be happening!” I think you can tell which of the following fit into which category:
The Beatles broke up, when we thought they’d be around forever, and left a huge hole in our lives.
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College students (well, some of us) started participating in reality—and got expelled, arrested, beat up, tear-gassed, jailed, and even killed for taking the Constitution seriously. I had only one and a half of those things happen to me.
Girdles went away. (Unfortunately, now they’re back, under the creepy name “Spanx.” I don’t care if those things could make me look like a size 2, you couldn’t pay me to wear something that says none too subtly that women want to be spanked. Ugh.)
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Single-gender colleges (all but a few) gender-integrated. Bonus for the boys: we raised the academic bar at their institutions.
The Donna Reed/June Cleaver hallucination of womanhood was banished. I can’t wait for the end of this era where we’re valued at 77¢ on the male dollar.
Someone invented the term “Ms.” Now if only they'd stop making us check those little boxes that ask Marital Status: Married? Single? Divorced? (I love the episode of The Nanny when Fran Fine fills out a form that asks her marital status, and she writes, “Disgusted.”)
John Lennon was murdered.
Nelson Mandela was freed from jail.
We found out we don’t really live in a democracy. The Writ of Habeas Corpus was revoked, corporations can buy Presidential elections, voting methods can be tampered with, and the Supreme Court won’t come down on the side of justice.
Technological inventions put an end to letter writing, standing in line for Stones tickets, and sending film to Kodak for processing. I’m happy about the no-standing- in-line thing. Not so happy about convenience charges, facility fees, handling charges, surcharges, and all those other charges that make Stones tickets cost 20% more.
The latest end of an era—a scary, symbolic one for me—is that U2 has changed managers. It doesn’t sound earthshaking, but believe me, it’s a sad day.
Since 1979, farsighted, fair-minded, anti-music piracy warrior Paul McGuinness has managed U2; he’s pretty much their fifth member. Their management company is called Principle Management—and not just because of Bono’s ethics. McGuinness got U2 their first record deal and ownership of their master recordings, so no one could exploit their music. He convinced them to share songwriting revenue equally—because the most common reason bands break up is fighting over money. McGuinness made the band rich, not just himself.
He’s always been on the artist’s side. He stood up in an international music industry conference and called out the major social media players who enable people to download music illegally—and was crucified on the internet (along with Bono). He called on governments to shut them down, and he’s won some battles.
But David has been swallowed by Goliath.
Live Nation, the behemoth that has absorbed more than half the music industry, bought out McGuinness and now has U2 under their umbrella. It owns their merchandising, sponsoring deals, official website, and who knows what else. It also manages 250 artists, produces 22,000 events a year, owns all the House of Blues U.S. locations, has a stranglehold on more than 130 venues, and owns Ticketmonster (you know who I mean), i.e., 80% of the U.S. ticketing business.
One guy with first-hand experience of Live Nation had this to say five years ago:
"...the one thing that would make the current ticket situation even worse for the fan than it is now would be Ticketmaster and Live Nation coming up with a single system, thereby returning us to a near monopoly situation in music ticketing." ("Bruce Springsteen "Furious" At Ticketmaster, Rails Against Live Nation Merger," Rolling Stone, February 4, 2009)
One of the first and few artist management companies with integrity is gone; U2 is now managed by the guy who manages Madonna. It’s Mergers & Acquisitions to the nth degree. U2 have always been a law unto themselves, but they’ve made a deal with the devil.
It’s the end of an era.
