With the recent election of a New President I have done a lot of thinking and one thought I have had is about music and the times. You always hear that the best art comes from pain & depression. If you take a look at the past century you will see music is no different and the type of music that is popular.
Let’s look at some examples…
1930-1960 Black Music…well lets see Jazz, Blues, and the birth of Rock & Roll, the suffering and lack of rights that Blacks had, enough said
Lets look at the state of the world in the 1960’s and all the music that came out of that time. I am not saying that if there wasn’t a war, sexual revolution, civil rights movement, anti-establishment movement, drug craze, and the unrest with the government in general that this music would not have been made. Wait yes I am! Art & Music was the one thing that people could cling to and have be their own, where as everything else people seemed to have to fight for. Not that Dylan, Beatles, or any other power house of the 60’s didn’t have many obstacles along the way, but they overcame them and brought music into the modern age as we know it. A generation felt this music was their own, something they could claim and set them apart from the older generations.
During the 1980’s when most of the Country (& world) seemed to be on the RIGHT track & the economy was up the music was happy go lucky, over produced going out music. While many now love singing along to power ballads of that time while at a bar, you don’t hear about the great music of the 80’s. (Though there are some, but they were not mainstream at the time and took a while to be seen for the art they truly are)
Towards the end of the 80’s and early 90’s when we started to see that maybe the world wasn’t as great as it should be, and a War breaks out, there was this thing happening in Seattle that broke Rock & Roll out of the shell and back to the raw emotions that truly defines Rock. Pear Jam, Nirvana, STP, and many others. One can claim that this music didn’t happen over night, maybe these artists were a head of the time and saw from a different view what the world really had to offer to them at this time and so they started to create such powerful music out of their own depression.
Clinton Era…Shitty Pop & Rock Music. The air waves were flooded with Boy Bands, Hootie & the Blowfish, over produced over spent Rock (that lacked a lot of what Rock needs). Not that this music is 100% bad but it was almost forced upon the world. My time during the 1990’s was spent finding as much as I could about the music of the 60’s because I was going through my own anti-establishment youth stage.
The past 8 years, well I don’t have to go into detail about the state of the world or the USA the past 8 years. But look at the change in music in the past 8 years, the sheer volume of music that has been made in the name of anger, frustration, and peace. Rock & Roll has come out on top of the pop charts. The Jazz World has put out some great albums (Katrina?), The Brits have produced some amazing pop singers who are not just pretty people who can kind of carry a note and then the studio makes them sound better, and some of the Rock out of the UK has also been the best in decades. Even the American Pop World has gone back to the roots of great vocals, catchy tag lines, and deep beats. Not just a pretty face that some one picked out of a group when they were 7.
There are always counter arguments to this post, yes there was great music in the 80’s & 90’s, yes there was bad music the past 8 years & in the 60’s. But look back at the charts and what was top of the pops during the past 60 years and I think it is clear that music and the state of the world can be linked in one way or another
Let’s look at some examples…
1930-1960 Black Music…well lets see Jazz, Blues, and the birth of Rock & Roll, the suffering and lack of rights that Blacks had, enough said
Lets look at the state of the world in the 1960’s and all the music that came out of that time. I am not saying that if there wasn’t a war, sexual revolution, civil rights movement, anti-establishment movement, drug craze, and the unrest with the government in general that this music would not have been made. Wait yes I am! Art & Music was the one thing that people could cling to and have be their own, where as everything else people seemed to have to fight for. Not that Dylan, Beatles, or any other power house of the 60’s didn’t have many obstacles along the way, but they overcame them and brought music into the modern age as we know it. A generation felt this music was their own, something they could claim and set them apart from the older generations.
During the 1980’s when most of the Country (& world) seemed to be on the RIGHT track & the economy was up the music was happy go lucky, over produced going out music. While many now love singing along to power ballads of that time while at a bar, you don’t hear about the great music of the 80’s. (Though there are some, but they were not mainstream at the time and took a while to be seen for the art they truly are)
Towards the end of the 80’s and early 90’s when we started to see that maybe the world wasn’t as great as it should be, and a War breaks out, there was this thing happening in Seattle that broke Rock & Roll out of the shell and back to the raw emotions that truly defines Rock. Pear Jam, Nirvana, STP, and many others. One can claim that this music didn’t happen over night, maybe these artists were a head of the time and saw from a different view what the world really had to offer to them at this time and so they started to create such powerful music out of their own depression.
Clinton Era…Shitty Pop & Rock Music. The air waves were flooded with Boy Bands, Hootie & the Blowfish, over produced over spent Rock (that lacked a lot of what Rock needs). Not that this music is 100% bad but it was almost forced upon the world. My time during the 1990’s was spent finding as much as I could about the music of the 60’s because I was going through my own anti-establishment youth stage.
The past 8 years, well I don’t have to go into detail about the state of the world or the USA the past 8 years. But look at the change in music in the past 8 years, the sheer volume of music that has been made in the name of anger, frustration, and peace. Rock & Roll has come out on top of the pop charts. The Jazz World has put out some great albums (Katrina?), The Brits have produced some amazing pop singers who are not just pretty people who can kind of carry a note and then the studio makes them sound better, and some of the Rock out of the UK has also been the best in decades. Even the American Pop World has gone back to the roots of great vocals, catchy tag lines, and deep beats. Not just a pretty face that some one picked out of a group when they were 7.
There are always counter arguments to this post, yes there was great music in the 80’s & 90’s, yes there was bad music the past 8 years & in the 60’s. But look back at the charts and what was top of the pops during the past 60 years and I think it is clear that music and the state of the world can be linked in one way or another
No comments:
Post a Comment