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Post by Deleted on Aug 23, 2019 22:33:54 GMT 10
Is it just me or do like 90% of discussions about the pop cultural character of a period, whether a decade or some part of it, seem to weigh HEAVILY on the music going on at the time? I realize music is the most easily recognizable sign of particular times and most easily distributable for ease of discussion (just link to YouTube and you’re good to go), but it seems to me there’s a lot more to focus on than the radio hits or even what was underground and up-and-coming.
It was admittedly the motivation behind one of my first threads here about cuisine and dietary habits in the 2000s. Now granted I’m a foodie and so I know a bit whereas I’d be totally out of my depth discussing fashion, but it seems it would add a little more variety to our topics of discussion around here so we don’t end up once again in the “IS X YEAR A CULTURALLY ‘90s YEAR?” feedback loop.
This also may be entirely the wrong board for this thread so I’m very sorry for not knowing where the hell this should go. Also this is starting to sound like a rant so I’m going to stop now. Brb gonna get some coffee.
Thoughts?
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Post by SharksFan99 on Aug 23, 2019 22:45:37 GMT 10
I think it's simply because music is generally more reflective of the current aesthetics and trends within pop culture. Television shows can span quite a number of years (just look at how long "The Simpsons" has been running for), which means that it can be harder to get a feel for how a certain year was like in terms of what was popular and what wasn't. Also, television shows can be fabricated in such a way that they are not reliable sources for gathering information about a certain era. If, for instance, we were to rely on "Sons of Anarchy" to get an understanding of what the Mid 2010s were like, we would be led to believe that flip phones were still popular as recently as 2014 and obviously that definitely wasn't the case.  I'm personally guilty of doing this. I have always been a massive music fan, so I tend to place an emphasis on music by default. I'm always open to discussing a wide range of different topics though. I just need to remind myself not to get carried away with talking about music, lol.
RockyMountainExtreme, Qwerty, and 1 more like this
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Post by Deleted on Aug 24, 2019 6:19:14 GMT 10
I've noticed that too. I don't care for pop music personally so I ignore those posts.
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Post by #Infinity on Aug 25, 2019 14:26:22 GMT 10
Honestly, I'd argue music is way less relevant now than it was during other decades, especially compared to the sixties and eighties. Our current era seems to be all about television shows, which are at their height of saturation and diversity, as well as flavor-of-the-week memes, apps, and popular Instagram/Snapchat photos. Most people I come across outside of the tween demographic barely care about current music. If anything, it feels like Queen and David Bowie are the two most relevant artists in music today.
SharksFan99 likes this
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Post by mc98 on Aug 26, 2019 0:04:40 GMT 10
Honestly, I'd argue music is way less relevant now than it was during other decades, especially compared to the sixties and eighties. Our current era seems to be all about television shows, which are at their height of saturation and diversity, as well as flavor-of-the-week memes, apps, and popular Instagram/Snapchat photos. Most people I come across outside of the tween demographic barely care about current music. If anything, it feels like Queen and David Bowie are the two most relevant artists in music today. A lot of young people were heavily jamming to Old Town Road throughout the summer. Billie Eilish is the current star of this generation. Music still has relevance with young people. If you go to TikTok, many youngsters incorporate current music trends in their clips.
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Post by al on Aug 26, 2019 6:57:09 GMT 10
A lot of young people were heavily jamming to Old Town Road throughout the summer. Billie Eilish is the current star of this generation. Music still has relevance with young people. If you go to TikTok, many youngsters incorporate current music trends in their clips. While I'd say music remains important in culture, I don't think it is at quite the same magnitude anymore. Media is available at such great quantities now that people can hone in on what specifically interests them. One can be a huge star in their specific circle, but outsiders will have likely never heard of them. And there's getting to be so much entertainment outside music, even if it's still a big contributing component. It's also worth noting how young people have gotten much more willing to embrace music of the past, with many vocally preferring it, whereas decades ago that would've been pretty uncharacteristic. Our catalog keeps growing, rather than necessarily getting discarded in favor of the latest and greatest
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Post by SharksFan99 on Aug 26, 2019 10:29:11 GMT 10
I have mixed feelings on this. On one hand, I think it's great that the excellent music of the past is still "living on" and appealing to people's tastes. Bands such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Queen have millions of fans out there who are either my age or even younger. There's no shame in admitting that you happen to like music from over 50 years ago or a niche genre that has been out of the mainstream for years.
That being said, people's increasing appreciation for the past is having a detrimental impact on the current music scene. I have been turned off Queen by the fact that Bohemian Rhapsody has resulted in people jumping on the bandwagon and claiming to be 'lifelong fans'. One of my friends just last week said to me that Queen has 'always' been one of his favourite bands and I know for a fact that wasn't the case before the end of last year.
People, you need to realise that great music can still be made if you all put your minds to it! Instead of allowing dribble like Trap music or EDM plague the charts, we could be seeing music with much greater substance and creativity behind it. It isn't out of the question. At the end of the day, as great as they are, songs such as "Waterloo Sunset", "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Bohemian Rhapsody" were nothing more than just new Top-40 hits at one point. Popularising music with actual substance isn't something that we can no longer achieve.
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Post by mc98 on Aug 26, 2019 10:40:20 GMT 10
I have mixed feelings on this. On one hand, I think it's great that the excellent music of the past is still "living on" and appealing to people's tastes. Bands such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Queen have millions of fans out there who are either my age or even younger. There's no shame in admitting that you happen to like music from over 50 years ago or a niche genre that has been out of the mainstream for years. That being said, people's increasing appreciation for the past is having a detrimental impact on the current music scene. I have been turned off Queen by the fact that Bohemian Rhapsody has resulted in people jumping on the bandwagon and claiming to be 'lifelong fans'. One of my friends just last week said to me that Queen has 'always' been one of his favourite bands and I know for a fact that wasn't the case before the end of last year. People, you need to realise that great music can still be made if you all put your minds to it! Instead of allowing dribble like Trap music or EDM plague the charts, we could be seeing music with much greater substance and creativity behind it. It isn't out of the question. At the end of the day, as great as they are, songs such as "Waterloo Sunset", "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Bohemian Rhapsody" were nothing more than just new Top-40 hits at one point. Popularising music with actual substance isn't something that we can no longer achieve. There are currently no EDM songs in the Top 20, at least in the American Billboard charts. Btw, what do you think of Dance Monkey, the current #1 song in the Australian charts?
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Post by SharksFan99 on Aug 26, 2019 10:47:34 GMT 10
There are currently no EDM songs in the Top 20, at least in the American Billboard charts. Btw, what do you think of Dance Monkey, the current #1 song in the Australian charts? I realise that, but it was just an example I used to describe how awful the music scene has been in recent years. It's okay. I wouldn't say that I am huge fan of the song, but it's probably one of the "best" songs on the Top-40 charts and I would much rather it reach #1 than "Bad Guy" or "Old Town Road". The vocals are a bit grating though. Have you listened to it?
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Post by mc98 on Aug 26, 2019 10:54:21 GMT 10
There are currently no EDM songs in the Top 20, at least in the American Billboard charts. Btw, what do you think of Dance Monkey, the current #1 song in the Australian charts? I realise that, but it was just an example I used to describe how awful the music scene has been in recent years. It's okay. I wouldn't say that I am huge fan of the song, but it's probably one of the "best" songs on the Top-40 charts and I would much rather it reach #1 than "Bad Guy" or "Old Town Road". The vocals are a bit grating though. Have you listened to it? Yeah, the accent is very weird
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Post by SharksFan99 on Aug 26, 2019 11:02:53 GMT 10
Yeah, the accent is very weird Lol, the accent would have been used just to make the song sound "cute" and "innocent".
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Post by Telso on Aug 26, 2019 20:50:55 GMT 10
Yeah, like said music is probably the best format explifying a culture or a particular era. Especially with the last couple of decades where each year has its own unique set of popular hit songs. Films work too, but they're produced in much less big quantity than songs. Tv series like said span multiple years so not that super indicative. As for literature, well if it's based on current ideologies, sure, but most of the current bestsellers right now are in the fiction, mystery and coming-of-age genres.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 26, 2019 22:01:00 GMT 10
That being said, people's increasing appreciation for the past is having a detrimental impact on the current music scene. I have been turned off Queen by the fact that Bohemian Rhapsody has resulted in people jumping on the bandwagon and claiming to be 'lifelong fans'. One of my friends just last week said to me that Queen has 'always' been one of his favourite bands and I know for a fact that wasn't the case before the end of last year. The truly tragic thing about all these new supposedly "lifelong" fans of Queen, by the way, is they don't realize that movie is a fucking character assassination of Freddie Mercury, and to a lesser extent was unkind to John Deacon and Roger Taylor. What a shit movie.
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Post by astropoug on May 3, 2021 5:38:04 GMT 10
I think it's simply because music is generally more reflective of the current aesthetics and trends within pop culture. Television shows can span quite a number of years (just look at how long "The Simpsons" has been running for), which means that it can be harder to get a feel for how a certain year was like in terms of what was popular and what wasn't. Also, television shows can be fabricated in such a way that they are not reliable sources for gathering information about a certain era. If, for instance, we were to rely on "Sons of Anarchy" to get an understanding of what the Mid 2010s were like, we would be led to believe that flip phones were still popular as recently as 2014 and obviously that definitely wasn't the case. I'm personally guilty of doing this. I have always been a massive music fan, so I tend to place an emphasis on music by default. I'm always open to discussing a wide range of different topics though. I just need to remind myself not to get carried away with talking about music, lol. I think some TV shows actually do a good example of representing the pop culture of a certain era. IMO, South Park is the best example, as any particularly episode perfectly captures the zeitgeist of when it was made. You watch a late 90s episode, it feels late 90s, you watch a mid-00s episode, it feels mid-00s, you watch an early 2010s episode, it feels early 2010s. It's also from it that I learned the whole "Apple is better and Android sucks" mentality was fully phased in by 2011. In all likelihood it was probably cemented in 2010 when BlackBerry stopped being cool, and that's also when the iPad came out.
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Post by dudewitdausername on May 4, 2021 7:37:32 GMT 10
I think it's simply because music is generally more reflective of the current aesthetics and trends within pop culture. Television shows can span quite a number of years (just look at how long "The Simpsons" has been running for), which means that it can be harder to get a feel for how a certain year was like in terms of what was popular and what wasn't. Also, television shows can be fabricated in such a way that they are not reliable sources for gathering information about a certain era. If, for instance, we were to rely on "Sons of Anarchy" to get an understanding of what the Mid 2010s were like, we would be led to believe that flip phones were still popular as recently as 2014 and obviously that definitely wasn't the case. I'm personally guilty of doing this. I have always been a massive music fan, so I tend to place an emphasis on music by default. I'm always open to discussing a wide range of different topics though. I just need to remind myself not to get carried away with talking about music, lol. I think some TV shows actually do a good example of representing the pop culture of a certain era. IMO, South Park is the best example, as any particularly episode perfectly captures the zeitgeist of when it was made. You watch a late 90s episode, it feels late 90s, you watch a mid-00s episode, it feels mid-00s, you watch an early 2010s episode, it feels early 2010s. It's also from it that I learned the whole "Apple is better and Android sucks" mentality was fully phased in by 2011. In all likelihood it was probably cemented in 2010 when BlackBerry stopped being cool, and that's also when the iPad came out. Yeah. Season 1 of The Sopranos feels super Late 90s, Season 4 super Early 2000s. Season 4 of Breaking Bad feels super Early 2010s.
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