CAN'T STOP THIS THING CALLED NOSTALGIA

The other day my wife and I went to see Bryan Adams in concert.

This guy really rocks. And I don’t just mean in a 'good for his age' sense – which is usually polite shorthand for 'still upright and not entirely embarrassing'. No, he genuinely rocks. Especially when you consider that he’s 66.

Sixty-six! An age where most people start complaining about their knees, their eyesight, and music all sounds the same these days. Meanwhile, Bryan Adams is on stage, strutting around like he accidentally drank from a bottle of youth potion sometime in 1982and never looked back.

Some people just get better with age. Sadly, this is not a universal condition.

My wife confessed – without the slightest hint of shame – that she’s been his number one fan since the early 80s. Along with, presumably, several million other 'number one' fans worldwide. Teenage me back in Switzerland was also very much aware of his existence, because unless you were living in a remote Alpine bunker without electricity, you couldn’t really avoid him.

And that’s when it struck me: despite growing up on opposite sides of the planet, my wife and I share an alarming number of musical memories.

Most of the songs we hear from that era on the UK radio station we listen to trigger identical reactions. A knowing nod. A smile. Sometimes an involuntary Oh wow, I haven’t heard this in ages.' Music, it turns out, travelled remarkably well across borders.

Then, every once in a while, a song comes on that emotionally catapults me back about four decades – straight into my teenage bedroom in Switzerland, complete with questionable wallpaper and an even more questionable haircut. I start humming along enthusiastically, fully expecting a shared moment.

I glance at my wife.

Nothing.

No flicker of recognition. No spark. Just polite confusion.

Apparently, not every song that was huge in Switzerland back then made it all the way to Japan. Which is fair. Not all cultural exports are strong enough to survive the journey.

Back then, music wasn’t something you consumed. It was something you worked for.

I spent an unreasonable amount of time in record shops – and later CD shops – long before streaming services existed and before algorithms decided what I should like next. You browsed. You compared. You judged album covers harshly. And if you were serious, you asked a shop assistant to put a vinyl on the player so you could sample a few tracks before making a decision that felt financially and emotionally significant.

Buying an album was a commitment. Not like today, where you listen to 12 seconds of a song, decide it’s 'not for you,' and immediately move on with your life.

A few days ago, I read an article in a Swiss online newspaper announcing that yet another big high-street name was about to disappear. A music shop called Ex Libris – a place where I could happily lose entire Saturday afternoons in my youth.

In recent years, every time I went back to Switzerland, I had already watched their branches slowly vanish. At the last count, there were only 15 left in the whole country. Their selection had also shrunk to the point where a visit now lasted about five minutes. They still sold books, but CDs had become more of a symbolic gesture than an actual product.

Now they’ve closed completely. After about 80 years.

Less than two years ago, another institution disappeared: Franz Carl Weber, the legendary toy store that had been around since 1887. As a child, walking into that shop felt like entering paradise. After seeing all the toys on display, I never had any trouble writing a Santa list. The real challenge was editing it down to something vaguely realistic.

But brick-and-mortar shops are having a hard time these days. People buy things onlineand get them delivered to their doorstep without ever experiencing the joy of browsing in person. Either shops adapt – or they die. A long history and a famous name are no longer guarantees of survival.

When I was younger, I never really understood the phrase 'the good old days.'

Now I do.

I find myself firmly in the grip of nostalgia. Is it my age? Or were things genuinely better back then? Hard to say, in these slightly unhinged times we’re living in.

Then again, our parents probably thought exactly the same.

And somewhere out there, a 66-year-old rock star is still refusing to age properly – just to remind us that time is unfair, nostalgia is inevitable, and some people really did find that youth potion after all.