Yes, Harvey, i was just kidding with the "Old Fogey" thing. I don't really think of anyone that way!

I would agree with your cigarette analogy. The fact is, if nicotine is the "content," the main difference between brands IS the packs. That would suggest that people buy the brand they buy because of the pack and its artwork/graphics/slogans etc. And so they do. This is well recognized within industry, and is not really a "generation gap" issue when it comes to consumer goods, except perhaps between 110 year olds and 100 year olds, because industry recognized this in the 1910s, when a currently 100 year old person was only about 6.

(By the way, there are now many people who collect such things as potato crisp bags and soft drink bottles. They have conventions along with the equally loony people who collect equally ephemeral things like song broadsides.)

As far as music is concerned, the packaging did begin later. But as I said, Elvis, the Beatles, Chubby Checker, etc., were as revered for what went along with the music as for the music itself. As Jerry says, no one ever listened to Louie Louie primarily for the lyrics or the music. Beyond that, there were always genres such as the Music Hall and eventually musical theatre itself, where it was not always true that "a song is a vehicle for the the delivery of ideas and imagery contained in words and wrapped in music." Sometimes the point WAS audience participation, or a wacky dance routine in the middle of a song, or ethnic humor in the accent/behavior/clothing of the performer, or a pie in the face, or even a line of leggy chorus girls.

I think your attitude to what a song "is" is primarily applicable to the singer/songwriter genre, whether we mean by that folk or rock (Leon Rosselson or Bruce Springsteen). It has generally been less applicable to many other styles, such as music hall, heavy metal, punk (where "attitude" takes the place of stage drama) and a lot of what is now known as "Classic Rock." I'm not sure this is purely a generation gap, although it may have generational overtones. I think it's as much of a "genre gap" as anything.