And for today's performance...
Jun. 24th, 2004 03:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xaaraGentle readers, we here at CCC studios have been searching through our databases and discovering our wealth of scholarly articles on every imaginable subject. Today, we will share with you one of our favorites, an exhaustively unresearched foray into the mindsets of American Music Listeners. So without further ado, we present to you the one, the only, the best article on the subject:
Carmen's Insightful Analysis of Popular Music as Heard in the United States During the Twentieth Century
Well, since you're here, let me congratulate you on sticking with me through the extensive title. My editors picked it - I swear it wasn't my fault.
So, right down to business. We'll start with the first ten years, from 1900 to 1910. Music? In the North, pfft. Vaudeville and Good Old Summertimes. In the South, on the other hand, we had some serious jazz going. Steamboats were jivin' and all those little places in New Orleans (which, by the way, serve the best seafood in the world) had just the right combination of smoky sax, groovin' bass, sizzling drums, and snarky trumpet to keep their customers swaying to the swingtime. (That was a deliciously horrible sentence.)
'10-'20 saw some development on the jazz front, and the Northerners started to catch on to the whole idea of having music that people actually wanted to listen to. People started getting Big Bands together, started putting in some ragtime. Somebody woke up one morning to find the dog had died, and the blues were born. War music in this instance pretty much stuck to "Look at us, we're so wonderful and let's toddle off to Europe now." Blah.
The twenties roared in more ways than one. The blues popped up everywhere, drinking (since it was forbidden) skyrocketed, and more and more people started recording on records instead of cylinders. Happy peppy music for happy peppy [tipsy] people reigned supreme through much of the North and Midwest.
Can you say Big Band? Because the Thirties were all about Big Bands and swing, a trend that carried straight over into the Forties with World War II looming on the horizon. Got a piano or trumpet? Know how to improvise? You've got yourself a ready-made career as an almost-starving artist.
Fifties - rock 'n' roll, baby. We had Elvis going for a while there, and all those *gasp* scandalous suggestive young singers. (Of course, we all know they were really inspired by Forrest Gump, but that's another story.) Nowhere has pure American rock been better than in the late fifties and early Sixties.
Short Interlude: Beatles! Beatles! Beatles!
Moving right along, we have the latter half of the Sixties. Surprisingly enough, when they weren't on drugs, hippies could sing. Some great songs about Vietnam, and of course that immortal guitar + voice + actual melody thing worked well.
And here comes my personal favorite decade: the Seventies. Why? you ask. The Ramones, I answer. Oh, you say, strangely unenlightened. But dude, I would give anyone who could send me back to the Seventies right now my entire life savings. Punk! More punk! Actual, real, great, I-want-to-wear-black-and-dye-my-hair-pink punk. Posers? Of course! That's half the fun.
Then we have the, erm, well, wehavetheEighties. Let's just forget about them, shall we? Suffice it to say there's a reason humans played with real instruments instead of synthesizers for thousands of years.
Nineties? Kind of meh. Don't recall liking anything in particular over the course of the Nineties, though there were a few okay bands, mostly in the punk arena again. It's still to early to tell what'll stick.
As for the future?
Who knows? Who cares? Find a beat and a tune, and you're on your way.
Finis
Thank you for listening to Carmen's Ramblings, brought to you today by CCC Studios. The author is always willing to listen to your ramblings in response for having to put up with hers – drop them in her comment box at any time.
<<<<>>>><<<<>>>><<<<>>>><<<<>>>>
Tara
Giles is silent for a long time after he sets the phone down in its cradle.
"That was the Watchers' Council," he says at last. "They...they would like for me to return to England."
"Because Buffy's dead," Dawn says flatly.
He looks shocked for a moment, then nods. "Yes, Dawn." Before he finishes speaking, Dawn has bolted out the front door, probably to see Spike.
"I wish we could bring her back," whispers Willow.
"So do I," Xander agrees.
Giles polishes his glasses on his shirt. I don't say anything. There is nothing to say.
We all want her back.
Carmen's Insightful Analysis of Popular Music as Heard in the United States During the Twentieth Century
Well, since you're here, let me congratulate you on sticking with me through the extensive title. My editors picked it - I swear it wasn't my fault.
So, right down to business. We'll start with the first ten years, from 1900 to 1910. Music? In the North, pfft. Vaudeville and Good Old Summertimes. In the South, on the other hand, we had some serious jazz going. Steamboats were jivin' and all those little places in New Orleans (which, by the way, serve the best seafood in the world) had just the right combination of smoky sax, groovin' bass, sizzling drums, and snarky trumpet to keep their customers swaying to the swingtime. (That was a deliciously horrible sentence.)
'10-'20 saw some development on the jazz front, and the Northerners started to catch on to the whole idea of having music that people actually wanted to listen to. People started getting Big Bands together, started putting in some ragtime. Somebody woke up one morning to find the dog had died, and the blues were born. War music in this instance pretty much stuck to "Look at us, we're so wonderful and let's toddle off to Europe now." Blah.
The twenties roared in more ways than one. The blues popped up everywhere, drinking (since it was forbidden) skyrocketed, and more and more people started recording on records instead of cylinders. Happy peppy music for happy peppy [tipsy] people reigned supreme through much of the North and Midwest.
Can you say Big Band? Because the Thirties were all about Big Bands and swing, a trend that carried straight over into the Forties with World War II looming on the horizon. Got a piano or trumpet? Know how to improvise? You've got yourself a ready-made career as an almost-starving artist.
Fifties - rock 'n' roll, baby. We had Elvis going for a while there, and all those *gasp* scandalous suggestive young singers. (Of course, we all know they were really inspired by Forrest Gump, but that's another story.) Nowhere has pure American rock been better than in the late fifties and early Sixties.
Short Interlude: Beatles! Beatles! Beatles!
Moving right along, we have the latter half of the Sixties. Surprisingly enough, when they weren't on drugs, hippies could sing. Some great songs about Vietnam, and of course that immortal guitar + voice + actual melody thing worked well.
And here comes my personal favorite decade: the Seventies. Why? you ask. The Ramones, I answer. Oh, you say, strangely unenlightened. But dude, I would give anyone who could send me back to the Seventies right now my entire life savings. Punk! More punk! Actual, real, great, I-want-to-wear-black-and-dye-my-hair-pink punk. Posers? Of course! That's half the fun.
Then we have the, erm, well, wehavetheEighties. Let's just forget about them, shall we? Suffice it to say there's a reason humans played with real instruments instead of synthesizers for thousands of years.
Nineties? Kind of meh. Don't recall liking anything in particular over the course of the Nineties, though there were a few okay bands, mostly in the punk arena again. It's still to early to tell what'll stick.
As for the future?
Who knows? Who cares? Find a beat and a tune, and you're on your way.
Finis
Thank you for listening to Carmen's Ramblings, brought to you today by CCC Studios. The author is always willing to listen to your ramblings in response for having to put up with hers – drop them in her comment box at any time.
<<<<>>>><<<<>>>><<<<>>>><<<<>>>>
Tara
Giles is silent for a long time after he sets the phone down in its cradle.
"That was the Watchers' Council," he says at last. "They...they would like for me to return to England."
"Because Buffy's dead," Dawn says flatly.
He looks shocked for a moment, then nods. "Yes, Dawn." Before he finishes speaking, Dawn has bolted out the front door, probably to see Spike.
"I wish we could bring her back," whispers Willow.
"So do I," Xander agrees.
Giles polishes his glasses on his shirt. I don't say anything. There is nothing to say.
We all want her back.
