If I say “the 'Seventies”, whether you were alive or not during that decade, you'll probably get a fairly specific set of images in your mind: disco and its fashion, long, shaggy hair, big, bloated cars, Trudeau (Sr.), Nixon and Carter, bell-bottom blue jeans, patches and VW vans. If I specify music of that time, you'd likely think of disco, hard guitar-driven, blues-based rock, AM-flavoured light-rock and left-leaning Country. You might also think of Fusion if you like a sprinkling of Jazz. For better or worse, the decade has a pretty quick shorthand of images that clearly define it.Most other decades have the same shorthand images for pop culture, political events and music – even decades for which virtually none of us were yet present. From the Flappers, Dixieland and rum-runners of the '20's to the unkempt, grunge-laden, angst-ridden dot-com '90's, it's easy to draw a caricature of each decade of the last century.

This century, however, seems to be a different story.
How about those 'Noughties? The preceding decade might be remembered for 9/11 the 'War on Terror', the Wall Street crash and bail-out and the Americans' election of its first black president, but how about the music? The fashion? The general vibe and look?

That's a toughie, isn't it? From my perspective, there is no major musical or cultural movement that defines the decade. Sure, there were laptops, i-gadgets (phones, pods, pads), and woundedly-introspective acoustic folk as background music for TV and hipster playlists, but that hardly seems defining. Speaking of TV, there was lots of CSI, Dr. House and Dr. Who (which actually began in the '60's, I needn't point out), and the rise of doctrinaire current-events shows ranging from Jon Stewart to Fox “News”...and are any of these things enough to define a decade? Will most North Americans look back on the previous decade and see Glenn Beck, Hugh Laurie or Dick Fuld? Dave Matthews or Lady Gaga? George Dubya and Tony Blair? Kanye West and Eminem? Somehow, I can't picture cover bands of the future hearing many calls from the audience to 'play some Kanye!'.

Meanwhile, we're a third of the way through the current decade – is there anything by which we might all remember it? Nothing seems big enough so far – and in the case of Ukraine, that's probably a good thing. Musically – Gangnam Style? The Biebs? Skrillex? The gods help us...

So why have the more recent decades proven difficult to sum up, let alone look back upon with any fondness? Perhaps the dust hasn't settled enough, perhaps we just happened to live in a time with fewer defining moments, but I think there's more to the story here – two factors that are somewhat related.

The first is technology: the 'noughties were the first decade in which a very small number of broadcasters were no longer gate-keeping broadcast content, thanks to the internet. From radio and TV throughout the Twentieth Century, trends became nation-wide relatively easily because there was not a crowded field of competition for your attention. You had only two or three spigots from which to pour. Baby boomers so often refer to the Beatles' TV performance on the Ed Sullivan show as a galvanizing moment for their generation. One television broadcast for a whole generation. Sure, there are viral videos aplenty today, but that's just it - there are so, so many. Can the current generation of youth point to one YouTube clip and say “I remember where I was when I first saw that clip. That clip changed my life.” I don't think so. Maybe many clips, maybe none – but not one. There may have been a dozen bands as imaginatively catchy and original as the Beatles making TV appearances in the 'noughties, but who'd know? The field is too crowded for a critical mass of audience to develop.

Ironically, the other factor at work that has prevented the 'Noughties from having its own cultural fingerprint has been the reduced number of players running the record business. While it is theoretically possible today to reach the whole world from the comfort of your home (impossible until this century), the number of major-label record companies has shrunk from dozens to three over the last thirty years, and radio has been scooped into two or three giant pairs of hands as well. These Big Three are actually Massive, Bloated, Completely Un-maneuverable Three due to their size, their resulting overriding priority of Stockholder Perpetual Happiness and indifference to long-term results or musical quality. They take no risks, and put their considerable promotions resources behind only that which has already proven itself a commercial success. How can today's generation define itself culturally when radio and record labels are still putting most of their promotion money behind the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen and the most recent Backstreet Boys lookalikes? Weirdly, there may be many whose most vivid cultural memories of the 'noughties include Aerosmith, U2, Kiss, Leonard Cohen, Paul McCartney or Tony Bennett concerts. Hey, they put on great shows and their records still sell. Are you okay with remembering the 'noughties with leftovers from the 'sixties and 'seventies?

Add to that the small matter of demographics. In sheer numbers, in concentration of wealth and in attitude, the Baby Boomers still hold sway. Advertisers and media target them, and their tastes remain the be-all and end-all. The Stones can sell out stadium tours with very pricey tickets for a reason, and it's not because teenagers are hot for Ron Wood (his wife excepted) or the song “Has Anybody Seen My Baby?”. The Boomers still demand Satisfaction.

I should provide one last detail that is as much caveat as reinforcement to my argument: I no longer watch TV. I haven't subscribed to cable in a couple of years, and for the decades before that, I watched very few shows (the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica, House, Stewart/Colbert, CBC News...little else). While this does disconnect me from the tides of pop culture, it's also as much an indicator that TV is no longer a major source of pop culture. As a kid, I watched a lot of TV – probably too much – and my home only received two stations, Canadian at that. I knew what songs, what clothes, shows and cars were “hot” (though my opinion invariably differed). These days, it took a week for me to discover that my elementary students were not, in fact, listening to someone named “Squirrelex”. Sure, age has a way of easing you slowly out of the cultural mainstream, and further back from its leading edge...but I'm not hallucinating all these teenagers wearing Beatles, Neil Young, Nirvana, Pink Floyd and even Kiss T-shirts (well...I suppose it could be early dementia...). I certainly never saw any of my teenage contemporaries wearing Glenn Miller or Guy Lombardo logos back in the early 'eighties. The times, they are a-changing, 'cause we're not letting go of the past the way we used to. Although I treasure my '70's-'80's-centric music collection, I'd dearly love to fall in love with heaps of current music as I did back in the day. Vain hope, perhaps – but unlike the Boomers, I aspire to higher hopes than mere “Satisfaction”.