New Age
New Age was . . . "What's your sign?" accompanied by
the words 'rising' and 'moon'. It was ESP tests where a friend
would hold a playing card face down and you had to correctly
identify which suit it was.
New Age was also about auras; pyramid power; Primal Scream
Therapy; Zero Gravity equipment; Immersion tanks; Dolphins; Esalen;
Group Therapy; Encounter Groups; Astral Projection/ Astral
Travelling; Crystals; Sensitivity Training; Biorhythms;
Vegetarians; Fruitarians; Whale songs and "Re-birthing".
By 1985, New Age music was becoming a big-selling genre. MTV
wouldn't touch it, radio ignored it, and the rock press wrote it
off as Yuppie dinner party muzak,
upmarket musical wallpaper with intellectual pretensions. In spite
of such opposition, this floaty, pastoral, vaguely cosmic,
meditative, grown-up's music increasingly gained popularity.
New Age was always designed to appeal to an older, richer, more
leisured audience, who were raised on but had now outgrown
traditional pop and rock music (the odd Dire
Straits album excepted).
California was at the forefront of the movement and the main
source of New Age music was Californian label Wyndham Hill,
founded by guitarist Will Ackerman. Top sellers included Michael
Hedges, Liz Storey and Japanese musician, Kitaro.
Fortunately most of the really annoying 80s practitioners of
New Age are now in their old age.
Some New Age Pastimes
Primal Scream
Therapy
Arthur Janov's invention, made famous by rock stars and other
celebrities. Basic program was to go into an empty room and get
way depressed and then really cut loose and yell like there's no
tomorrow at your parents or whoever screwed you up most when you
were a kid.
Zero Gravity
Equipment
There was a hanging-upside-down-by-your-ankles fad in the 80s
(Richard Gere did it very sexily in American
Gigolo).
Astral
Projection/Astral Travelling
Robert Monroe wrote a book explaining how to fly around outside
your body while it's still in bed. My mum read it and now she
won't stop!
Vegetarians
The no-meat brigade fall under the general rubric of New Age
because their driving force is arrogant superiority. Me? I'm going
to become a vegetarian too. Not because I love animals, but
because I hate plants!
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