The Influence of Popular Music

[PBzeer]

After answering the song thread with the oldie, Last Kiss, I got to thinking about how the music of each generation plays a part. Which then had me wondering, does the music reflect the people, or the people the music? Kind of a Chicken or the Egg thing, I know, but it seemed like a nice, harmless topic that wouldn't lead to scathing responses

Any old way, thought I'd throw the question out there, and see what people have to say.

[Freesail99]

I like to think that I was lucky growing up with the music that I heard. I was in the New York, New Jersey radio market. Here you would hear The Beatles, followed by Frank Sinatra to maybe some soul music. Today, it seems every radio station plays only one kind of music. There is no cross over.

[sailingdog]

Unfortunately, today, radio stations are more driven by profit than by trying to play a variety of music... so a very small selection of music that appeals to their specific demographic market gets a lot of air play, and very little else will be heard. A country music station will only play country music... a pop station only pop...and very, very rarely do the genres ever cross over. The only real exception to this is small college radio stations that aren't part of a multinational media conglomerate or pirate radio stations that are microcasting.

Originally Posted by Freesail99

I like to think that I was lucky growing up with the music that I heard. I was in the New York, New Jersey radio market. Here you would hear The Beatles, followed by Frank Sinatra to maybe some soul music. Today, it seems every radio station plays only one kind of music. There is no cross over.

[tdw]

Originally Posted by PBzeer

After answering the song thread with the oldie, Last Kiss, I got to thinking about how the music of each generation plays a part. Which then had me wondering, does the music reflect the people, or the people the music? Kind of a Chicken or the Egg thing, I know, but it seemed like a nice, harmless topic that wouldn't lead to scathing responses

Any old way, thought I'd throw the question out there, and see what people have to say.

PB, I'm afraid it's going to be an "if but maybe err um " answer.

If you look at the development of rock'n'roll the genre had its roots in a mixture of blues (ergo jazz) and country. Reality is that when it comes to music the most popular forms inevitably seem to be dance related so blues mixed with country gave a very danceable beat without the melancholy of the blues or the lost wives and dead dogs of country, Leader of the Pack notwithstanding.

Going back you only need to look at the likes of Elvis, Roy Orbison, Conway Twitty and Bill Haley e.g all of them steeped in country and gospel, while the likes of John Hammond, Bo Diddley, Roy Brown,Louis Jordon and T-Bone Walker came from blues backgrounds.

Of course it's never as cut and dried as all that.

So the music existed in listenable form but the wants of the mainstream public resulted in the danceable forms becoming preeminent.

Commercialism ultimately wins out be that for the good or bad.

Whether that is music having an effect on youth culture or the reverse I have no idea.

There is of course only one real truism re modern music and it as valid today as it was in the seventies.....

Disco Sux.

Does that even vaguely answer your question ? BTW, its long been thought that in all probability it was the Rooster who came first.

[camaraderie]

Interesting that you would pick "Last Kiss" as the song that epitomizes our generation Beez. Did you know that Pearl Jam ressurected it and had a big hit with it in the late 90's?

[RAGNAR]

Originally Posted by PBzeer

After answering the song thread with the oldie, Last Kiss, I got to thinking about how the music of each generation plays a part. Which then had me wondering, does the music reflect the people, or the people the music? Kind of a Chicken or the Egg thing, I know, but it seemed like a nice, harmless topic that wouldn't lead to scathing responses

Any old way, thought I'd throw the question out there, and see what people have to say.

The near-instant speed and efficiency with which fine art and craftwork convey POVs is why studying artifacts can tell so much about a given culture.

Hierarchically, the ideas determine the art. (One's sense of esthetics is derived from one ethics. Ethics, in turn, rest on one's metaphysics and epistemology. BTW: the other main branch of thought that's derived from ethics is politics, which is why specific art movements link so well with specific political movements.)

Another interesting fact: Art is a main roadway by which high intellectuals impact culture.

On the whole, the cutting edge artists study higher philosophers and create the next influential movement according to what they've accepted from those studies. By trickling down, the high artists influence everyone in the arts and crafts, all the way "down" to the pop artist and cereal packaging guru.

(Example: note how Western post-Middle Ages painting and sculpture went from the representation of the highest, most heroic ideals, to representing more of the daily element, to sloppy and blurred images, to non-representational works, to no standards at all (the same can be said of the other fine arts -- literature and music -- but it's far easier to "see" things in the visual arts context.) That is the exact progression our politics have taken. Y? Our ethics went that way. Y? Because our metaphysics and epistemology went that way. Y? Because when it mattered, we didn't have an unbridled, all-the-way-down-to-the-axioms defense of the core ideas that made the West the West, leading to the collapse of the core ideas responsible for the Renaissance and Enlightenment. Our core ideas determine EVERYTHING we are and do -- whether we know it or not. And, for the most part, those ideas are determined by academia and the intelligentsia -- whether we like it or not. Want to fix the world? Fix education, ie, return all power to the parents.)

To end on something less dense: As I'm sure most members know, there is an answer to the chicken-egg thing, but it depends on whether you believe in creationism or evolution. If we accept the former, the chicken had to come first; if we accept the latter, then the egg came first.

[Zephyr88]

Originally Posted by RAGNAR

Hierarchically, the ideas determine the art. (One's sense of esthetics is derived from one ethics. Ethics, in turn, rest on one's metaphysics and epistemology. BTW: the other main branch of thought that's derived from ethics is politics, which is why specific art movements link so well with specific political movements.)

Another interesting fact: Art is a main roadway by which high intellectuals impact culture.

On the whole, the cutting edge artists study higher philosophers and create the next influential movement according to what they've accepted from those studies. By trickling down, the high artists influence everyone in the arts and crafts, all the way "down" to the pop artist and cereal packaging guru.

So what you're saying is that Plato and other ancients have influence, via 'the high artisits' over musicians such as Iggy Pop, Frank Zappa, Laurie Andersen, Stan Getz, Nirvana, Muse, The Beatles etc (for example, to cover a range of styles over recent decades).

Without being facecious (sp) I do get your point. It all comes back to the egg ...., or is it the chicken?

I guess it doesn't matter too much as long as we can tap our feet, dance, smile and sing along or whistle to a good tune occasionally.

[RAGNAR]

Originally Posted by Zephyr88

So what you're saying is that Plato and other ancients have influence, via 'the high artisits' over musicians such as Iggy Pop, Frank Zappa, Laurie Andersen, Stan Getz, Nirvana, Muse, The Beatles etc (for example, to cover a range of styles over recent decades).

Exactly -- well, sort of...;-)

The artists you list or on a level whose members are usually influenced by other artists whom the emulate or adapt to; on and on all the way to the high artists, who work on/with the "highest" ideas.

As for Plato: he is, unfortunately, one of the most influential thinkers ever. (father of Christianity, for example, by convincing hoards of people in the Med that ideals aren't achievable and, therefore, Man is condemned to a [relatively] horrible existence here on Earth -- voila, Christianity) As such he most certainly has influenced the artists on your list -- whether they've ever heard of him or not -- just look at their politics.

[cardiacpaul]

da-yum,
I was jus' gunna say I broke up with a chiklet many moons ago 'cuz she thought David Lee Roth and Van Halen were the first to sing "Pretty Woman".. now you're into plates and socks, I can't keep up any more
I need a nap

[Freesail99]

This is startig to sound like when you're in college and someone tells you their major and you answer, "what are you going to do with that" ?

Now, I know......