Study on "The evolution of popular music: USA 1960–2010"

[elsongs]

 

The stuff I'm hearing sounds pretty different than the nineties stuff. When I said compares to I meant quality wise not stylistically.

A lot of it reminds me more of eighties new wave music, not like the nineties grunge stuff.

 

And that's a big part of the problem. Back in the '80s, new wave was artists taking risks, venturing out into new territory. Love or hate it, it was a new frontier. When I hear the cheap hipster stuff that's a lame imitation of '80s music, it's been done, it's NOT a new frontier, it's not something new.

 

[Vito Corleone]

 

I really like "Young the Giant", "Big Data", "Wild Cub", "Bleachers", "Fitz and the Tantrums", "Bastille", Death cab for Cutie", "Modest Mouse" and the new "Mumford and Sons" to name just a few.

 

And I still get pumped and turn up the radio just like when I was a teenager when I hear these new bands.

 

Yeah, those bands aren't really pop. (And some have been around since the 90s) So I'm not surprised at all that an older guy would gravitate towards them rather than pop, which is geared towards teens. As it always has been.

 

And there's nothing wrong with that of course. Just saying that if a 40 or 50 something doesn't find much in modern pop music that makes them want to turn up the radio, I'm not sure that that is saying anything bad about modern pop music. That's pretty much been how its worked forever.

 

 

 

[Folder]

 

And that's a big part of the problem. Back in the '80s, new wave was artists taking risks, venturing out into new territory. Love or hate it, it was a new frontier. When I hear the cheap hipster stuff that's a lame imitation of '80s music, it's been done, it's NOT a new frontier, it's not something new.

 

I don't see it as a problem and I don't see it as cheap either. And most of it's different enough that I don't see it as an imitation. Influenced by maybe, but who cares. If it's good music that's all that really matters isn't it? Whether it's a new frontier or not.

[Folder]

 

Yeah, those bands aren't really pop. (And some have been around since the 90s) So I'm not surprised at all that an older guy would gravitate towards them rather than pop, which is geared towards teens. As it always has been.

 

And there's nothing wrong with that of course. Just saying that if a 40 or 50 something doesn't find much in modern pop music that makes them want to turn up the radio, I'm not sure that that is saying anything bad about modern pop music. That's pretty much been how its worked forever.

 

 

 

Well my definition of pop is pretty broad and I certainly don't think pop music is necessarily geared towards teens. To me pop music is music that has basic verse, chorus, verse type structure. To me those bands would be pop/rock bands. But I mean we have artists that are in their sixties and seventies still writing pop music. Paul McCartney and Bob Dylan are still recording. Will they get played on top forty radio? Not likely. I tend to gravitate towards music that I like regardless of whether it's geared towards teens or twenties or thirties or forties or whatever. I don't think about that kind of stuff when I turn on the radio.

 

One of my favorite songs of the year was Cool Kids by Echosmith. I guess you could argue Cool Kids is geared towards teens but so what, it's a great song with a catchy melody and an good groove. I've been listening to pop music since I was a kid in grammar school in the early seventies and still do but IMHO in recent years the quality of TOP 40 has declined. Does my age have something to do with my opinion? Maybe so but I also think that a lot of great music is being recorded today as well. Daft Punk, Pharrell Williams, and Robin Thicke all had songs I liked last year. And all of them had qualities that I've always liked in pop music.

[Folder]

 

Just saying that if a 40 or 50 something doesn't find much in modern pop music that makes them want to turn up the radio, I'm not sure that that is saying anything bad about modern pop music. That's pretty much been how its worked forever.

 

 

 

I don't agree with this. Maybe for the casual listening masses but not necessarily for music fans.

 

When I was kid in the early seventies my grandfather who was already in his seventies liked Paul McCartney. I distinctly remember watching James Paul McCartney (TV special) with him on television when it first aired. I barely knew who Paul McCartney was but my grandfather wanted to watch it so I watched it with him and loved it. He and my grandmother loved music. We used to watch Lawrence Welk religiously. They also use to listen to country and jazz and my grandmother would listen to WQXI and Z93 which were top 40 stations in the seventies.

[Vito Corleone]

 

I don't see it as a problem and I don't see it as cheap either. And most of it's different enough that I don't see it as an imitation. Influenced by maybe, but who cares. If it's good music that's all that really matters isn't it? Whether it's a new frontier or not.

 

"Influenced by" really isn't a problem. Nothing in the world is completely new. Most 80s New Wave stuff had a HUGE 60s pop influence. What was Blondie doing beyond taking The Shirelles in a new direction, for example.

 

But it DOES have to go somewhere new and connect to people on those grounds. If the main connection is to older people who dig the influence, then that's not going to move the art forward. Blondie worked because the kids dug the new direction, not because older fans dug the influence.

[Vito Corleone]

 

Well my definition of pop is pretty broad and I certainly don't think pop music is necessarily geared towards teens. To me pop music is music that has basic verse, chorus, verse type structure. To me those bands would be pop/rock bands. But I mean we have artists that are in their sixties and seventies still writing pop music. Paul McCartney and Bob Dylan are still recording. Will they get played on top forty radio? Not likely. I tend to gravitate towards music that I like regardless of whether it's geared towards teens or twenties or thirties or forties or whatever. I don't think about that kind of stuff when I turn on the radio.

 

Definitions can vary but to me "pop" music has to be broadly popular. If you're trying to write a pop song but it's not hitting the charts, then maybe it isn't pop. At least not today.

 

. Daft Punk, Pharrell Williams, and Robin Thicke all had songs I liked last year. And all of them had qualities that I've always liked in pop music.

 

Yeah, that's pretty much my point. Every older musician I know likes those songs. Why? Because the "qualities" are the dated retro vibe they all have. "Get Lucky" was a Chic rip off. Williams and Thicke lost a suit because they ripped off Marvin Gaye too hard.

 

You forgot to mention the "Uptown Funk" song everyone loves because it's a rip off of The Time. Every older musician seems to like that one too. Cool songs all. I love 'em and play them all in my cover band. But they aren't the future of pop music anymore than "Crocodile Rock" or "Rockin Pnuemonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu" was where pop music was headed in 1972.

 

[Vito Corleone]

 

I don't agree with this. Maybe for the casual listening masses but not necessarily for music fans.

 

 

The exceptions aren't the rule. The state of pop music moving forward is going to be about how it moves the casual listening masses, not the music fans.

 

The amount of revisionist history I hear from musicians amazes me, however. Any of us of grew up in the 60s and 70s knows that the cliché of the parent yelling at the kids to "turn down that noise!" was a cliché because it was true. We all lived through that. Yet everytime I bring it up, somebody always tries to tell me that "MY dad was different! He LOVED my Zeppelin albums. Told me how much they sounded like the blues music he grew up listening to!"

 

Even IF those stories were true, you should certainly be able to understand to what degree that would be the exception?

[Folder]

 

 

But it DOES have to go somewhere new and connect to people on those grounds. .

 

I don't agree. If it's good and people like it, then that's all that matters isn't it?

 

 

" If the main connection is to older people who dig the influence, then that's not going to move the art forward. Blondie worked because the kids dug the new direction, not because older fans dug the influence.

 

Again I don't agree. I don't think the main connection is to older people. I think the connection is to people who like it and I certainly don't think young people sit around thinking "You know all this new alternative rock was influenced by 80's new wave and Uptown Funk sounds a lot like the Time. And even if they did I don't think they would care. I mean I never thought Blondie was influenced by the Shirelles nor would I have cared if I had known what the Shirelles sounded like. Maybe the art is not going to move forward anymore. Several people have mentioned how styles haven't really changed much since the nineties but that doesn't mean that there still can't be good music being made.

 

[Folder]

 

Definitions can vary but to me "pop" music has to be broadly popular. If you're trying to write a pop song but it's not hitting the charts, then maybe it isn't pop. At least not today.

.

 

That's why I was careful to say top 40 type music in my previous post. Yeah most people probably think of current top 40 music when they think of pop. But pop can also be considered a broad genre of music. Some people consider Led Zeppelin and Rogers and Hammerstein as pop.

 

 

 

Yeah, that's pretty much my point. Every older musician I know likes those songs. Why? Because the "qualities" are the dated retro vibe they all have. "Get Lucky" was a Chic rip off. Williams and Thicke lost a suit because they ripped off Marvin Gaye too hard.

 

 

That may be why some people like them but I don't believe it's why I like them. And I don't believe it's why younger people like them either. Of course I recognize the retro influences but I like them because they have catchy melodies and good arrangements and they have a good groove.

 

 

[davd_indigo]

I want to point out what's probably obvious to most of us, but maybe not everyone. At any given point in musical Americana were crosscurrents and undercurrents. So at the same time the Bobbys were singing to vanilla middle America in the late '50s, John Coltrane, Monk, Miles and others were blowing musical doors down. Just not selling nearly as many records.

 

Jackson Pollick was dripping paintings from the mid-40's thru the mid-50's. At the same time Patti Page was selling millions.

Just saying the mass style is the main stream. Not the only stream. And while most of you probably know this stuff, I have just recently come across 2 mid-30's to mid-40's guys who'd never heard "I Am The Walrus". I'm fixing that.

 

And from 1951, with absolutely no backbeat, here's Duke Ellington with Al Hibbler on "Old Man River".

 

 

 

 

[Folder]

 

 

The amount of revisionist history I hear from musicians amazes me, however. Any of us of grew up in the 60s and 70s knows that the cliché of the parent yelling at the kids to "turn down that noise!" was a cliché because it was true. We all lived through that. Yet everytime I bring it up, somebody always tries to tell me that "MY dad was different! He LOVED my Zeppelin albums. Told me how much they sounded like the blues music he grew up listening to!"

 

Even IF those stories were true, you should certainly be able to understand to what degree that would be the exception?

 

Well my parents absolutely hated my Led Zeppelin and Yes records. Actually broke a few of them for me.

 

But I also remember listening to pop radio with my mother in the early seventies and I remember her liking most of it. She liked songs by Barry White and Gladys Knight and America and the Bee Gee's and Elton John and Rod Stewart and Ricky Nelson and Simon and Garfunkel but she was definitely a casual listener and didn't go for that long haired acid rock stuff.

[Vito Corleone]

 

I don't agree. If it's good and people like it, then that's all that matters isn't it?

 

 

To the degree we're talking about the future of pop music, then it's overall popularity is certainly a huge part of what matters.

 

 

Again I don't agree. I don't think the main connection is to older people. I think the connection is to people who like it and I certainly don't think young people sit around thinking "You know all this new alternative rock was influenced by 80's new wave and Uptown Funk sounds a lot like the Time. And even if they did I don't think they would care. I mean I never thought Blondie was influenced by the Shirelles nor would I have cared if I had known what the Shirelles sounded like. Maybe the art is not going to move forward anymore. Several people have mentioned how styles haven't really changed much since the nineties but that doesn't mean that there still can't be good music being made.

 

You're right with all of that. But you're also describing a dead-end for the art form. People still paint good portraits. But portrait-painting isn't the future of such art or where the money is to be made. But yes, a good portrait is still something worthwhile, in and of itself.

 

Is music that never sounds much different than it did in the 80s or 90s going to be viable once all of those of us who remember those genres first hand are dead and gone? That would be like people just having done nothing but compose classical music that sounds a lot like Beethoven for the last couple of hundred years. Nothing wrong with such music, of course, but is that really a good thing for the art form?

 

[Vito Corleone]

 

That may be why some people like them but I don't believe it's why I like them. And I don't believe it's why younger people like them either. Of course I recognize the retro influences but I like them because they have catchy melodies and good arrangements and they have a good groove.

 

 

Younger people like them for probably many of the same reasons they like other current pop hits. Regardless of the retro influence.

 

But, with all due respect, if you think you like them because they have "catchy melodies, good arrangements and good grooves" but don't understand how that relates to your connection with the older music they are mimicking, then I think you're missing a lot of the psychology at play here.

 

Let me put it another way. Ask some kid why he likes "Uptown Funk" and he might say "catchy melody, good arrangement and good groove". Ask him why he also likes some other current pop tune that you don't like and you'll probably get the same answer.

 

But you don't agree and think only the first song has those things. Why would that be?

 

[nat whilk II]

Music never stands or fall with the public because of what might be called "just the music". All the big music movements create music that is nested inside a complex context of non-musical stuff. Beethoven was "revolutionary", Chopin was "nationalistic", Bach was Protestant, Dylan was a political protester (in spite of his protests to the contrary), the Beatles were at the apex of the complex swirl of cultural, economic, educational, idealist, and democratic change that for lack of a better term can just be called "the 60s". Like George said, they were just a band, but the world used them as an excuse to go crazy.

 

Kids don't like stuff just because it's catchy or danceable or noisy. Otherwise they'd all love Show Tunes, Polka, and Bagpipes. The music that really connects is plugged into a matrix of cultural trends, fetishes, myths, poses, identities, fashions, hopes, etc. It's the songwriter and performers who can intuit and amplify and to some extent, extend these things, create icons that glow with the contextual facets of the moment. It's way complex.

 

Once you get older, you just can't sniff the air and catch all the subtle aromas of the times like you did without thinking as an adolescent. The osmosis receptors close off, and they should. You've collected enough material to "art" with for the rest of a long, long life by the time you're 18 (if you're really the artistic type.) You can still learn, sure, expand your tastes, develop your skills and such - but it take a bit of commitment, even work at times. Most people don't want to work at their entertainment. We are already tired of work, yes.

 

The problem it seems to me is the pathetically narrow strata that popular music inhabits - a few years from the early edge of adolescence through, say, 25 or so. What are the rest of us, chopped liver? I may not be able to dance on the knife-edge of the current fashions and feelings, but I have an internal universe of life and life experience that I can exploit as long as I have a mind to. If more people made grown-up music, maybe grown-ups would continue to grow with music past their mid-20s.

 

nat whilk ii

[Folder]

 

Let me put it another way. Ask some kid why he likes "Uptown Funk" and he might say "catchy melody, good arrangement and good groove". Ask him why he also likes some other current pop tune that you don't like and you'll probably get the same answer.

 

But you don't agree and think only the first song has those things. Why would that be?

 

When I look back at the music that I have liked the most in my life I can recognize certain characteristics that they all share. If I had been born twenty or thirty years later or been raised in a different environment would I have liked a different set of characteristics? Who knows I guess it's possible but I seriously doubt it.

 

Why does anybody like the type of music they like? Why do some people like country but not hip-hop? Why do some people like heavy metal or opera or polka music? Why do some people have no preference at all? Could it be genetic? Is it mostly cultural?

 

I very much understand the concepts of cultural trends and generational identities. But for me and I think a lot of people that are into music there are universal qualities and characteristics that appeal to them that are beyond cultural trends and they may not know the answer is to why that that is.

[Folder]

 

Is music that never sounds much different than it did in the 80s or 90s going to be viable once all of those of us who remember those genres first hand are dead and gone? That would be like people just having done nothing but compose classical music that sounds a lot like Beethoven for the last couple of hundred years. Nothing wrong with such music, of course, but is that really a good thing for the art form?

 

 

I think good music is viable regardless of style or genre or even what time period it's being listened to in. I'm not a classical aficionado so I really don't know if much music is still being composed that sounds a lot like Beethoven. I know that there is a lot of really good symphonic music still being composed and people still like symphonic music. I think what's good for any art form is for artists to create good art.

[Folder]

If more people made grown-up music, maybe grown-ups would continue to grow with music past their mid-20s.

 

nat whilk ii

 

Who determines what grown up music is? I and many of my friends in their forties and fifties still like discovering new music by artists who are much younger than we are. Were the Beatles and the Stones grown-up music in the sixties or are they considered grown-up music now because their original fans are now grown-up?

 

But yeah I understand your point. You could argue that previous generations may have been more receptive to more "serious music".

And that is one of my beefs with some of the top 40 music that I don't particularly care for today. But I think the lack of "serious" pop music today is more a function of the modern music industry and not due to any actions on the part of the artists and listeners.

[nat whilk II]

 

Who determines what grown up music is? I and many of my friends in their forties and fifties still like discovering new music by artists who are much younger than we are. Were the Beatles and the Stones grown-up music in the sixties or are they considered grown-up music now because their original fans are now grown-up?

 

 

A good question. I would say "grown up music" at least in music with lyrics, would be music that deals with issues that deeply concern age groups beyond the mid-20s.

 

Just skim through the Beatles lyrical concerns, unscientifically. Early on there's falling in love, being p.o.'d at some girl, wanting some girl, wanting to dance, being lonely for a girl, warning a buddy that you're going to take that girl away if he doesn't treat her right. Then a few years later, there's John starting to talk about his own troubles in life, his issues with his dad, his mother, his feelings of insecurity, his difficulties dealing with commited relationships as a young man. And George, drunk with his first taste of Eastern religion and gurus and music. The band breaks up while all this self-development typical of 20-somethings is in midstream.

 

Paul moved on a bit, sang about the love of his life that he found, on into his 30s. That's growing up some. But John really tackled things - songs about his beautiful boy, his "arrival" at parenthood and leaving the craziness behind. He's not a pop star anymore, and he actually revels in that. George echoed that.

 

My vote for the ultimate "grown-up" work of art is Shakespeare's King Lear. Believe me, you can't really feel the dead-on impact of that play without having been a parent with grown-up children. It's a classic for the ages. It has something to say to all age groups, but it's particularly, intensely meaningful to the "elderly" who in the 16th century were the 40-somethings and beyond (if lucky.)

 

The criteria of "grownup" music or art is not concerned with good or bad. There's good young, good middle, good old. It may be a bit concerned with sophistication, as that hopefully increases with time. But it is very much concerned with being a part of people's actual lives as they age. Following along, expressing, teaching, supporting, enlightening, revealing, and yes, being subversive to the hardening influences that dog us all as we age.

 

I don't want to just keep being entertained by the fun stuff that entertained me a couple of decades ago. I want to keep enjoying that vibe, sure, but I want to move into the fullness of later stages and I want music that speak to the concerns of those particular stages, too. Damn it, I do. Old people live like monks or drunks for the most part. Pagggghhhh.

 

nat whilk ii

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Vito Corleone]

 

I think good music is viable regardless of style or genre or even what time period it's being listened to in. I'm not a classical aficionado so I really don't know if much music is still being composed that sounds a lot like Beethoven. I know that there is a lot of really good symphonic music still being composed and people still like symphonic music. I think what's good for any art form is for artists to create good art.

 

Yeah, you missed my point, I think. Of course good music will have a certain viability regardless of style or genre. But the post I was responding you said "maybe the art isn't going to move forward anymore". If all we get from here on out is rehashes of old styles, there may be a degree of viability to it, but it will kill the art form eventually.

 

That's the problem with the state of the art right now, IMO. There's not that much in the way of anything new. We're in a stale period. Does that mean there still isn't the occasional good song or album here or there? Of course not. I hear new stuff I like almost every day. But we're overdue for a major cultural breakthrough, ala the rock revolution in the 1950s.

[Vito Corleone]

 

When I look back at the music that I have liked the most in my life I can recognize certain characteristics that they all share. If I had been born twenty or thirty years later or been raised in a different environment would I have liked a different set of characteristics? Who knows I guess it's possible but I seriously doubt it.

 

Not saying this is exactly where your head is at (don't know you well enough) but far too often I see people (often musicians) who speak declaratively of the characteristics of certain types of music being "the best" and apparently it is just coincidence or good fortune on their part (I was so lucky to be able to grow up then!) that the music just happens to be the stuff they grew up with.

 

I just find it funny, is all. Especially coming from musicians who I would think should understand such things better.

[Folder]

 

Not saying this is exactly where your head is at (don't know you well enough) but far too often I see people (often musicians) who speak declaratively of the characteristics of certain types of music being "the best" and apparently it is just coincidence or good fortune on their part (I was so lucky to be able to grow up then!) that the music just happens to be the stuff they grew up with.

 

I just find it funny, is all. Especially coming from musicians who I would think should understand such things better.

 

I've always been interested in why people like certain things and not other things.

 

When I was in high school I played music with friends who had similar tastes as myself but there were always enough differences to where we could argue about our favorite bands and genres and such. We might desperately want the other person to hear what it was that we liked about a certain song or artist but if the other person didn't get it then they just didn't get it.

 

I remember when Van Halen's first album came out one of my guitar playing friends went crazy over it and it totally altered the course of his musical pursuits. I on the other hand didn't really get it. I didn't dislike it per se but it was really nothing special to me.

 

I grew up in the south and was surrounded by people who liked country and blues music but I was never really a big fan of either yet another guitar playing friend of mine ended up going into more of a country/blues rock direction. All of us were the same age grew up in the same neighborhood and had similar backgrounds but we all had different musical tastes.

 

When I look back now I can kind of understand why I didn't respond to Van Halen or country rock like my friends did. I think some people are just hard wired to like certain musical characteristics more than others characteristics. Is it genes or environment or both. Who knows?

 

I have friends who have kids in high school. A couple of my friend's kids are all into hip-hop and rap. Look at their Facebook pages and they are all about rap music. Another friend's kids are totally into country and another of my friend's kids like alternative and classic rock. All of these kids grew up in similar environments but they all gravitated toward different musical genres. I think it's fascinating how that happens.

[Folder]

So if you had to predict what the next revolution would involve' date=' what would it be?[/quote']

 

I think the next revelation wont likely be for us.

 

Maybe the next generation of genetically engineered cyborgs will have electroacoustic receptors that allow them to appreciate future music made up of ultrasonic and subsonic frequencies with swinging polyrhythmic sound wave pulses all in 3D living color.

[AJ6stringsting]

Great post WRGKMC, it was as good as the article !!!!