Just curious about a trend I've noticed with black folks...?

I'd say this applies to more than half the people I've met/seen on Y! A R&P over the last 3 year or so. Some like to pretend they've had this knowledge all along to impress their followers (which I find hilarious), whilst others are quick to admit where they obtained their new found musical tastes/knowledge...from their fellow users here in R&P.

I have a cousin 15 years my junior, and he discovered his favorite bands in the same way you describe, though long before the internet. I remember during the very early 70's (he would have been about 7 or 8 years old) when I bought him a vinyl copy of the movie soundtrack for 'American Graffiti'. It contained many classics from the 1950's...Fats Domino, Chuck Berry, The Beach Boys, The Coasters, etc etc. He immediately fell in love with it.

From there (around 1973-78) I slowly introduced him to bands like The Beatles The Stones, The Who, The Kinks, The Doors, Cream, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Jethro Tull, Pink Floyd, etc etc...in that order...the very same order those bands appeared on the scene ten years earlier! I found this amazing to be able to witness this first hand. It was like my own little experiment, Lol.

He eventually discovered several other bands of the same era, that weren't as familiar to people his age at the time like...Electric Prunes, Vanilla Fudge, Iron Butterfly, It's A Beautiful Day, Velvet Underground, Strawbs, Blue Cheer, etc etc etc...from there he was on his own. His fascination with the Hard Rock and Progressive Rock of the 70's grew (nearly 10 year after the fact)...with the meat and potatoes bands such as; Yes, Aerosmith, King Crimson, Boston, ELP, Genesis...then encompassed the lesser known bands from those genres like; PFM, Agnes Strange, Gentle Giant, Banco del Mutuo Soccorso, Budgie, Van der Graaf Generator, Cactus, etc. He was constantly discovering new (old) bands that I had been a fan of for many years at that point. His tastes inevitably led him towards Krautrock after I played him Thirsty Moon's debut album.

He wanted more...so I taped him many albums by bands of that genre...at first he didn't really care for the more experimental Krautrock bands like Faust, Kraftwerk, Kluster, Tangerine Dream, Neu etc, and preferred the more hard rock, and progressive sounds of Krautrock bands like Jane, Novalis, Eloy, Grobshnitt, Satin Whale to name a few. Though over time he learned to appreciate the more experimental stuff as well. He used to get teased a fair bit in school, as most High School students during the early 1980's were listening to a variety of mainstream bands...everything from Judas Priest, Nazareth, Aerosmith, Iron Maiden, Def Leppard etc...to Duran Duran, Tears For Fears, Ultravox, The Police, etc. Nobody had ever heard of the bands he was listening to.

Though at that time, some did know of the classic old school bands from the 60's...but not to the extent of my cousin. Outside of the people who teased him, he did make many friends who were sort of like retro-hippies living in the 80's, and they helped carry the music of my generation (the 60's/70's) and bring it to the next generation. All this happened long before the internet...as did my exposure to music.

These days all a young person has to do is log into their Yahoo account, or visit the vast array of music related websites out there and be turned on to a horde of excellent music. This is a good thing I suppose...but something is lost during this type of process/exposure I think. Call me old fashioned, Lol.

If you switch the bands around, that's basically me :D So what you said is basically a natural progression. People need change in their lives, people will get bored from even their favorite things, in this case, the Beatles. So naturally we will try to look into similar artists and sounds from that era.

As we discover more bands we like, we will grow more confident in our musical tastes and seek out more obscure or different sounding bands. We may find some amazing bands from...let's say the 90's (Nirvana, Soundgarden, Mudhoney) and try out different alternative or grunge bands. Or we may discover disco bands (Bee Gees, Donna Summer, Kool and the Gang) and despise this, this way, we know that person generally prefers rock music.

So as we keep expanding our knowledge, we feel the need to improve, to sharpen and hone our musical knowledge. So by testing different genres, eras, and artists, we can create a taste unique to ourselves. Phew!

PS: It's nice to see you back here!

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.