Writing thought.

[randomling]

If your characters had their formative teenage years during the 80s or later, and they are music fans, and they grew up in the US or UK the Now! That's What I Call Music series is a really excellent resource for finding out what kind of music they might have enjoyed as a youngster. All the track listings for both series (the US and UK versions) are on Wikipedia, and so far I haven't had trouble finding any of the songs on Youtube.

I'm currently using this to do some deep background on my current characters, whose teen years were in the late 90s/early 00s. (Yes, I was a teenager myself in 1999. My memory is terrible, and actually hearing the tracks helps.)

Comments

[ephemera]

Even if they're not musical fans, it's the sort of thing they're likely to have grown up marinaded in in school / shops / etc. Good tip!

[randomling]

Yes, that's a very good point!

Also, happy birthday! Have you had a good day?

[ephemera]

Thank you - it's been a nice, low key day, coming home from my birthday weekend away, having had a very good time indeed ;)

[dancefloorlandmine]

The "Now ..." series will reflect what was in the charts (and thus in the backgrounds) more than necessarily what people liked. Though there are admittedly some unexpected gems in some of the early albums. And Now 6 was one of the first tapes I bought ...

[randomling]

It's still a good starting point, I think - you get a good idea of what was going on musically, and the albums have a reasonable variety of musical styles, though obviously they don't have everything. And it's certainly doing a good job of pointing me towards genres and bands that I wouldn't have thought of otherwise.

[dancefloorlandmine]

Oh, yes, definitely a good starting point, and gives you a good idea of at least the background music for the period.