No. of Recommendations: 4
The classical music period lasted nearly 300 years, and is separated into three major eras. Three hundred years! . Obviously the world was different, there was no technology to instantly transport every composition to the masses, you had to be decent to get a commission from the King of Dukes and such, but still: 300 years!
And out of those we recognize a good half dozen composers, and with prompting maybe six more, and perhaps 20-30 “famous” compositions. There are three or four standouts from each 100 year period m(Bach, Beethoven, etc.) - and that’s with the culture keeping them alive; heck there are still “classical music” radio stations playing the stuff 24/7.
Does anybody think there will be a hip-hop station playing it in 100 years?
With the advent of technology and a fast moving culture, music cycles last from 4 to maybe 10 years. The big bands, jazz, and crooners lasted longer because everything lasted longer then.
Now it gets shorter and shorter:
1950-55 Balladeers & Pop (Patsy Kline, Jack Jones)
1955-60 Nascent rock ‘n roll (Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis)
1960-64 Crap Rock (Annette Funicello, Frankie Avalon)
1964-68 English invasion (Beatles, Stones)
1968-72 Woodstock, Singer Songwriter (CSNY, James Taylor)
1972-76 Heavy Metal (Led Zeppelin, J Geils)
1976-80 Disco!
1980-85 New Wave, synth pop (Sting/Police, Eurythmics)
1985-90 Grunge
1990-99 Hip hop emerges
2000-10 Rap
(Note: this is wildly approximate, and some artists were early, some lasted beyond; the chart is very approximate.)
With the coming of technology around 2000 (plus or minus, including Napster, iPod, etc.) things changed and I couldn’t be bothered. I lost interest around the time hip-hop and rap came to be, because I am melodically oriented. (There’s an interesting parallel from the 1950’s melody driven songs - which were “covered” by any and all performers at the time, and the rhythm/beat music of rock which maked a clear definition of generation.* [sidebar story]
Anyway, my theory is that most everyone hews to one of those eras (perhaps one and one adjacent), but came in on the one before and trailed out on the one after - which is why adults so rarely care about “today’s music” and get fixated on the oldies of their youth. Enter K-Tel some years ago, and PBS Fundraisers now.
All of this is to say: Most Music Doesn’t Last.
Some does, and few of the cream rise and last a good long time. We can still hear the occasional ragtime piece. Everybody recognizes “In Tne Mood” but few can go five deep in the Glen Miller catalog. (There are no 24/7 radio stations playing just 30’s swing, eh?)
And yet BigBand was the screaming teenage music of its day, it was original, it was art in the same way we think of the Beatles catalog. And it is fading. The farther we retreat down the timeline, the fainter the echoes - and so it will be with the Beatles, in my view. Great art, some truly timeless songs, but they will be narrowed and narrowed by the arrow of time as new “art” piles in on top, until eventually we will remember “Yesterday” and a couple others as we now know “Take The A Train” and a handful more of a different time.
{The End}
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*[sidebar story] I was with Westinghouse Broadcasting when we bought TCI, a cable giant from Colorado. (We belatedly realized that “cable” was a big thing, and threatened the radio/TV/production side of things. We were the 4th largest broadcaster in the country, and oops, new technology. Anyway…
Along with the purchase came MUSAK and a group of “beautiful music” radio stations. All of us (from the rock generation) yelled at the top of our lungs: “LOSER! Dump it!” The President, of the 1950’s “Your Hit Parade” generation didn’t think so, sure that new listeners would “grow into the format” as the old ones died off.
“We will never listen to that shit!!!” we said, with unusual frankness. “Oh yes you will, just wait,” he said. He assumed that since his generation, where “performer” didn’t matter and it was the melody of the song was key, that it would always be the same.
It wasn’t. Needless to say, both businesses were crap. The beautiful music station audience grew exactly one year older with every passing Christmas; the oldest listeners died and no new ones came in at the bottom. Agencies and advertisers noticed. Nobody was buying MUSAK for elevators anymore, and while they branched out into other genres for stores and such, it has face multiples of competitors and never been much of a thing since.
Moral of the story: don’t think your music is the one that’s going to last. Cripes, look at Rap! Who can listen to that shit? (“Hamilton” aside.) ;)
