Retrospective “Cool”

It’s a phenomenon I’ve observed with increasing amusement, particularly among my peers who, like me, are nudging the big 6-0. Suddenly, it seems everyone has always possessed an impeccably cool, cutting-edge taste in music, films, and books. This newfound (or perhaps, newly admitted) sophistication has been especially noticeable with the recent flurry of “Hottest 100” posts making the rounds from Triple J.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I wholeheartedly believe that tastes mature and develop over time. What we listen to, watch, and read in our youth often evolves as we gain new experiences, broaden our horizons, and are exposed to different influences. It’s natural for our preferences to shift from the bubblegum pop of our teenage years to more complex or nuanced genres as we age. Growth is good, and it’s wonderful to see people exploring new artistic avenues.

But there’s a particular flavour of this evolution that tickles me: the retrospective cool. It’s the almost instantaneous rewrite of personal history, where past dalliances with the decidedly un-hip are conveniently erased. Suddenly, the same people who swore allegiance to the likes of ABBA and the Bay City Rollers (for the girls) or Sherbet and AC/DC (for the boys) are now posting their “lifelong” love for obscure indie bands or avant-garde cinema.

Take my own relationship with ABBA, for instance. Growing up in Australia, they were undeniably cool in the mid-70s. You couldn’t escape “Mamma Mia” or “Dancing Queen.” Then, as the 80s dawned, they became the very definition of uncool, “daggy” even. Owning an ABBA record was social suicide. Fast forward to 1994, and suddenly, thanks to Muriel’s Wedding, they were cool again, a symbol of kitsch Australian pride. And then, well, the cycle seemed to repeat itself.

My point is, “cool” is a constantly shifting target, and our memories often adjust to fit the prevailing winds.

It’s as if, with the passage of time and the benefit of hindsight, we can all collectively decide to be the person who always appreciated the underground and the unconventional. The beauty of this retrospective rebrand is that it’s almost impossible to disprove. Who’s going to pull out our old cassette tapes or dusty diaries to fact-check our claims of early artistic discernment?

This phenomenon extends beyond individual memory, too. Have you noticed how many “hits and memories” radio stations in Australia currently play songs that were, frankly, never actually popular here at all? It’s as if certain international tracks, deemed “classics” elsewhere, have been retroactively implanted into our national consciousness. They fit the nostalgic vibe, so they get airplay, even if they barely scraped the bottom of the charts (or never charted!) back in the day. It’s a collective act of retrospective curation, reshaping our musical past to align with a more palatable, universally “cool” narrative.

Perhaps it’s a form of aspiration, a desire to align our past selves with the person we’ve become, or perhaps the person we wish we’d been. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s simply a bit of harmless fun, a collective wink and a nod to the fact that while our tastes may indeed have evolved, the journey there was probably a little less “cool” than we now care to admit.

What do you think?