Does some of the pop culture of the 20th century start to feel ancient?

I sometimes feel that much of pop culture from the past decades is heading for oblivion.

Consider the Beatles, arguably the greatest, the most untouchable act in the history of pop music. I’m all-consuming in my love of pop music, but I never liked the Beatles in the first place. I’d never purposefully listen to them, and if I hear a song by them on some classic rock radio station, I rarely experience joy. Not my thing.

Even my preferences aside, who listens to the Beatles these days? I know they still appear in the charts, but I wonder — if they sound outdated to me, in my forties, would the younger generation ever have them on their playlist, let alone listen to their records in their entirety?

It’s probably the same with the Rolling Stones, though I love the Stones a lot more. My father listened to them a lot, and though I never liked them as a child, I loved Keith Richard’s memoir and, in my grown-up years, developed a genuine fondness for the band. Exile on Main Street is the only album on my playlist that pre-dates my birth by almost two decades, and yet I love it in its entirety. I’m also a fan of Scorcese’s movies, and for me, “Gimme Shelter,” used both in Goodfellas and The Departed, is the soundtrack for the decades I never witnessed, yet whose immense…