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As reported in The Economist, scientists at the University of London have analyzed fifty years of pop music, and have used statistical techniques to identify three musical "revolutions" of lasting impact.
These revolutions do all correspond with times musical critics would have said change was happening (classic rock, new wave, and hip-hop respectively), but this analysis suggests other apparent novelties, such as the punk of the 1970s, were not the revolutions that their fans might like to believe.
From the article (well worth reading):
They used Last.fm, a music-streaming service, to collect 30-second clips from 17,094 songs (86% of the total) that were (on the Billboard) chart between 1960 and 2010. Then they attacked each clip with sonic analysis and statistics.
They found that they could extract what they describe as “topics” from the music. These were coherent harmonic and timbral themes which were either present in or absent from a clip. Harmonic topics, of which there were eight, captured classes of chord change, or their absence (eg, “dominant 7th-chord changes” and “major chords without changes”). Timbral topics, of which there were also eight, were things like “drums, aggressive, percussive” and “female voice, melodic, vocal.”
The comment thread below the article is also highly recommended, and the dismissal of punk is certainly egregious.
The evolution of popular music: USA 1960–2010, published by the Royal Society, is found here.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by rts008 on Sunday May 17 2015, @09:01PM
Thanks for that interesting post. :-)
Your mention of MC5 really caught my attention. You are the first person I have heard mention them in 40 years! Most people I talk music to have never heard of them.
I was listening to them, the Amboy Dukes, White Rhino, and others when the 'British Invasion' happened, and frankly, did not care about the invasion-style music.
(back then, the former was usually referred to dismissively as "Garage Rock", IIRC)
'Garage Rock' kinda acted as an 'root influence/source' for a few styles: Punk Rock, Acid/Psychedelic Rock, Hard Rock, Heavy Metal, and probably a few more I've forgotten.
I remember a friend of mine(neighbor and classmate also) started experimenting with Punk Rock in 1973, and by '74 had joined a Punk band.
While I've been an Iggy Pop fan from the early days, I was never a big Punk Rock fan. I liked some of music, but I do have to admit that even to this day I still have a 'thing' for Punker chics.(even married one, and we are still together:)
As a side note, one of my favorite music classes was the required two-semester music class in 7th grade.(circa 1970-71) Instead of trying to teach music to a bunch of resistant and restive racially tense[1] students, he spent both semesters teaching us about the history of Rock-n-Roll, going from the music formed by African slaves in the US by combining 'spirituals' with various tribal music, to the blues, into rhythm and blues, etc.
But at each stage of the history, he would bring some corresponding audio into class as an example.(where he came up with some of that stuff, I'll never know, but he always came through!)
An absolutely fascinating and interesting class for me, and I could tell by the lack of trouble in the class, and amount of class involvement, I was not alone in feeling that way. My humble and sincere thanks and salute to Mr. Myrick, the said teacher!!!
That class became a huge hit with the students, and quickly became the most requested class in the school's history. I know it has been one of my all-time favorites.
[1] The school was in S. MD, about 20-30 miles S.W. of Wash, DC; southern border of Prince George's County, IIRC. It was only the second or third year that the school, Malcom X Middle School, had been integrated, and it was pretty interesting most times. ;-)
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday May 18 2015, @02:32AM
I was also interested to see MC5 mentioned. I bought a copy of "High Time" in about 1983 for $1 second hand, and just wore it out. I replaced that vinyl with digital and it's on my phone.
It's a great fun record.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2015, @03:22AM
I was a big fan of a series of vinyl records called Pebbles (the name was derivative of "Nuggets", a well-known two-LP set of US garage rock tunes). There were about 10 volumes of Pebbles, each filled with garage rock from little-known bands in the US in the mid-to-late '60s. The copyright status of the records wasn't clear, it's possible that the publishers just took the attitude "it's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission". But I got rid of them when I dumped my entire vinyl record collection to recover the storage space.
(Score: 2) by Rich on Monday May 18 2015, @01:05PM
Good point summing up the "garage rock" development. Here's an interesting interview with MC5's Wayne Kramer where he cites "HiNRG (Soul)" as one of the influences, too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUJxVJFwMbs [youtube.com] . I think that pretty much nails it: "Up"-Beat from The Who plus the pumping pressure from the soul side, and you've got proto punk. Cf. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klCL0krHKqc [youtube.com]. Most excellent. Add leather jackets, safety needles and mohawk cuts, and it's punk rock as we know it :)
As for "heavy rock" and "heavy metal", I make a distinction between those (even with the Steppenwolf line "... Heavy Metal Thunder ..."). If things get boring somewhere, I like to bring up the question what the first "proper" heavy metal record was. (Maybe I should submit that as a topic for SN??? :)
(Score: 2) by rts008 on Monday May 18 2015, @01:40PM
In regards to Punk: ATTITUDE! you can't forget them attitude in the Punk music and lyrics, IMO. At least for me, that was one of the strong attractions. :-)
I'm in full agreement about the hard rock/heavy metal classification. My 'thought' on it may have been defined by good Nigel (of Spinal Tap fame), in that heavy metal is just hard rock 'turned up to 11'. (my mind will never be the same after seeing that!)
"If things get boring..." HAha. I see I'm not the only one stirring mudpuddles with a 200 hp outboard motor!
I would like to see that as a poll here, and will get the popcorn ready...it's bound to get interesting!
Thanks for the links, that second one mentally took me back 45 years instantly(and with pleasure), and now I have a new band to listen to! :-)
My hearing has gotten bad enough it curtails my music listening, so I have not been 'exploring' much the past 15-20 years, and concerts are now 'useless' for me. :-(