Borrowing from our “Back to the Future” plot device, what do you think would have likely happened had a top-notch group, playing recent top hits of the genres mentioned above, suddenly materialized in Ike’s America?
At first guess, my thought was that early 1950s Americans would have recoiled at the sound. That said, the musical tastes between urban dwellers and Bible Belters varied considerably. Is there something intrinsically appealing about the music that would instantly click with people–as it does today–or would it be way too ahead of the cultural curve and turned them off?
I think some songs would translate well. Maybe not with the Buddy Holly and the Crickets crowd, but maybe with certain fringe segments.
Most white parents in the early 50s wouldn’t let their kids listen to anyone blacker than Theresa Brewer. Also, every groundbreaking song in the 50s had at least a recognizable similarity to something released not too long before.
That said… There was a release of something about fifteen years ago called “Sounds of Children at Risk” or some similar clinical-sounding name, mainly ghetto kids performing stuff like “Hambone.” It was recorded in the late fifties and was in the same ballpark musically as a lot of hip-hop from 30 yearts later. So it might have found a small but enthusiastic audience in 1959.
If by heavy metal you mean something like Judas Priest and not Cannibal Corpse, I think you might be close. I’ve often wondered what would happen if I took something like Sepultura (for some reason it’s always Sepultura) and played it for an audience in the past (even before the antecedents of that form were around).
That said, I think that perhaps rap would work better than heavy metal. Rap, IMO is a lot closer to R&B/Motown than even early '70s metal and proto-metal bands to something before Chuck Berry and other relatively early users of electric guitars. I’m sure earlier rap would work better, or rap with more recognizable R&B roots than say Gangsta rap, but you never know.
Those are all three very broad categories of music, so it’s hard to speak in generalities. I think you could’ve found an audience for pretty much anything, but I have a hard time imagining any of that being popular. Techno and house might’ve gone over well with the dance crowd, but that’s probably about it.
In the 1950’s “the musical tastes between urban dwellers and Bible Belters varied considerably” is NOT accurate. Rather, the opposite is true. I would venture to say that same is true today, however, though. =D
There was a small, avant garde electronic music culture in the 1950s that occasionally reached the mainstream (e.g., the all-electronic “score” for the movie Forbidden Planet), encouraged by the availability of magnetic tape recording and the RCA synthesizer.
One problem with this scenario would be the that I don’t think the average home audio had the kind of bass response that drives metal and rap, so those would’ve just sounded harsh. Electronica? Like somebody else said, they were doing classical-type stuff electronically in the 50s, but the stuff you hear today would probably be “weird science fiction music” to the ears of the day.
It occurred to me that one possible clue is available today: our parents/grandparents.
Most cannot stand these musical forms. That said, can you argue that they are representative of 1950s musical tastes? IOW, if they don’t like them today, would they have liked these modern genres way back when?
I think it depends on which artists you use. For instance, DMX probably wouldn’t get quite as much play, but a hip-hop outfit like the Roots would probably do very well, someone like Common, too.
Think of the most futuristic composers of recent years (Phillip Glass, John Cage, Yoko Ono) and ask yourself: Do I like this stuff? Do I know anybody who likes this stuff?
Problem with the Ono analogy is that she’s NEVER been popular and, I’m guessing never will. Futuristic is one thing. Mega talent is another.
Phillip Glass is an interesting example, but can he really be called super popular today? My idea would be to send super popular groups today 50 years back in time. What emerges is this question: Is some music so good that it would have timeless appeal?
Hard to say. We’re listening to rap/metal/electronica after having listened to most of what came first after the 50s. People in the 50s hadn’t heard that, so I think this stuff would be a very big departure for them.
And like I said, none of what we’re talking about is really all that popular today (except hip-hop). Wouldn’t it be better to ask how modern pop would go over?
There’s contemporary hip-hop with strong retro influences that could have an appeal in a 1950s niche market and occassional breakout crossover success. The stylistic and content divide between Ginsberg, the Last Poets and Grandmaster Flash isn’t that wide.
Heh. I am having a lot of fun with the idea of Digable Planets performing in a 1950s beat coffeehouse. Or am I faintly remembering the video to “Cool Like That?”
I think a lot of punk would have went over well in the fifties. The Cramps, The Ramones, THe Undertones, The Clash, Social D… A good part of punk rock was directly descended from 50s rock and roll.
Though “pop” is a huge category, I’m guessing a lot of popular works over the last 10 years would find popularity back then.
By the same token, if our parents and grandparents don’t like hip-hop, heavy metal and electronica today, it’s doubtful they would have in their teens 50 years ago. Culture shock comes to mind.
Pigmeat Markham had a top 40 hit in 1968 with “Here Comes the Judge,” which is hip-hop by any definition. And he was on TV’s “Laugh-In” all the time. Therefore I believe modern hip-hop would be easily digested by young baby-boomers (in the '60s at least), assuming that they were still in their youthfully irreverent stage. Most problematic element: the new bass frequencies. Experimental electronic music might go down easy as well, given the inroads made by John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen, etc. I’m not quite old enough to remember, but I think those composers were more than just fringe personalities… they were much discussed in the 1950s. Heavy metal might be the most troublesome of these genres. But I think it was in the spirit of the '50s / '60s to accept far-out sounds, so who knows. Consider all the stuff that people quickly learned to appreciate in, say, the 20-year span from 1950 to 1970: Cage, Stockhausen, Yma Sumac, Elvis, Tiny Tim, the Velvet Underground, Jimi Hendrix, James Brown, Ravi Shankar, Ennio Morricone, and so on. Seems to me that we’ve had much less to get used to since 1970. I suspect that old-timers would be most put off by the intrusiveness of music in our society rather than the particular sound of it, but that’s another post.
But the attitude could only take hold post-Vietnam. It would’ve been completely reviled.
Pop is no broader than the other forms of music we’ve been discussing, but I think that most modern pop is too post-sexual revolution to go over at all.
The thing to keep in mind is that our modern attitudes towards music and a lot of other stuff was shaped by what happened in the late 60s. Things are different now from the way they were before then.
If you brought back Sepultra, you’d be burned at the stake, definitely. When I imagine it (it used to be Iron Maiden, but that was before Sepultra), I usually bring along some impressive modern weaponry to fend off the superstitious medieval townies.
D
