"The business has changed greatly since my day"
About this Quote
"The business has changed greatly since my day" lands like a soft-spoken shrug, which is exactly why it cuts. Coming from Perry Como, the king of relaxed, living-room charisma, it’s a line that carries nostalgia without begging for sympathy. He’s not lamenting a lost golden age so much as marking a cultural tectonic shift: the moment when music stopped being primarily a craft practiced within a stable system and became an always-on marketplace.
Como came up in an era of gatekeepers you could name - radio programmers, network variety shows, label executives who operated like monarchs. Success depended on fitting the medium: a voice that could glide through a microphone, a persona that could reassure America during dinner. By the time he’s looking back, the center of gravity has moved from broadcast to fragmentation, from a few mass channels to countless niches, from “a career” to a constant hustle. The subtext isn’t just generational; it’s structural. He’s quietly acknowledging that the rules he mastered aren’t the rules anymore.
The genius of the sentence is its vagueness. "The business" could mean recording, touring, publicity, even the basic exchange between artist and audience. That ambiguity makes it expandable: listeners fill in the blanks with their own sense of cultural acceleration. And "since my day" signals resignation more than bitterness, a recognition that stardom isn’t merely earned; it’s also engineered by the era’s machinery. In Como’s mouth, change isn’t tragedy. It’s weather.
Como came up in an era of gatekeepers you could name - radio programmers, network variety shows, label executives who operated like monarchs. Success depended on fitting the medium: a voice that could glide through a microphone, a persona that could reassure America during dinner. By the time he’s looking back, the center of gravity has moved from broadcast to fragmentation, from a few mass channels to countless niches, from “a career” to a constant hustle. The subtext isn’t just generational; it’s structural. He’s quietly acknowledging that the rules he mastered aren’t the rules anymore.
The genius of the sentence is its vagueness. "The business" could mean recording, touring, publicity, even the basic exchange between artist and audience. That ambiguity makes it expandable: listeners fill in the blanks with their own sense of cultural acceleration. And "since my day" signals resignation more than bitterness, a recognition that stardom isn’t merely earned; it’s also engineered by the era’s machinery. In Como’s mouth, change isn’t tragedy. It’s weather.
Quote Details
| Topic | Nostalgia |
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