Is it possible to make original contributions in a genre whose time has passed?

[E-Sabbath]

@Exapno_Mapcase

Sure you could write stupid, loud, angry, unlistenable songs today. But they would be unlistenable because they had no raison d’etre. Individuals make art, but society makes a genre. Genres pass when society does. Everything after that is pastiche.

Really? No reason to exist? Dude, you just grew too old.

Edit: Green Day isn’t punk either. And the Sex Pistols were put together to sell shirts. Punk is an ethos. Punk is what punk is. Punk is doing it yourself, harder, louder, faster. Wherever that is, is punk.

[GorillaMan]

@Icerigger

In regard to classical pieces could one argue that Movie Score music is the modern equivalent? When I think of composers like John Williams his music sets mood and tone to stories being told using real instruments as opposed to electronics.

Whatever the instrumentation, film music is about something, something external to the music itself. While this might have parallels with ballet scores, perhaps, it’s very different to the workings of most instrumental classical music.

[ZipperJJ]

@msmith537

Well yes and no. Take your swing music example. In the mid to late 90s, swing music enjoyed a brief resurgance in popularity. Groups like Cherry Poppin Daddy’s, Brian Setzer Orchestra, Big Bad Voodoo Daddies and The Mighty Mighty Bostones came out with music that had a distinct “swing” sound. But as you say, it’s a “pastiche”. A different genre like “neo-swing” or “ska”. Not true swing like the big band music of the 20s, 30s and 40s.

Same thing with punk rock. True punk rock was defined in the 70s. All the stuff like Green Day and Blink 182 that is derived from punk is really a separate and distinct genre.

IMHO musical genres are as much defined by their time period as their sound.

The Bosstones are not and were never classified as swing. They’re ska or even further, skacore which mixes ska and punk. Ska is nothing like swing, it’s the precursor to reggae.

The Squirrel Nut Zippers kind of covered a lot of genres - hot jazz, swing, blues. They just became popular during the “swing revival.” Bands like Cherry Poppin Daddies and and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy spent more time creating songs that matched the swing style and could be danced to as such. Personally, I don’t think their stuff is any less “swing music” than Glenn Miller’s swing tunes.

[Beware_of_Doug]

@E-Sabbath

Punk is an ethos. Punk is what punk is. Punk is doing it yourself, harder, louder, faster. Wherever that is, is punk.

So if my 11pc swing band and I play White Heat, which was written in 1934, at quarter note=300 and tear the roof off with free jazz solos and collective improvisation, we’re punk? We don’t need distortion pedals or pissed-off vocals or nasty-ass attitudes?

[E-Sabbath]

The attitude doesn’t hurt. Me… I’d have to hear it. Punk is like obscenity.

Actually, that’s not bad. Punk is a lot like obscenity as music. Is that aforesaid performance from the heart, bile, and spleen? Then maybe it is.
I don’t know the piece, can’t hear it at work. I’ll tell you that emo is a descendant of punk, so…

As far as covers and punk… would someone who liked the original piece consider your rendition an assault on it and an affront to the senses? Then mebbe it is punk.

[Exapno_Mapcase]

@E-Sabbath

Really? No reason to exist? Dude, you just grew too old.

Edit: Green Day isn’t punk either. And the Sex Pistols were put together to sell shirts. Punk is an ethos. Punk is what punk is. Punk is doing it yourself, harder, louder, faster. Wherever that is, is punk.

Pete Townshend said he invented punk because he was doing this in 1965. The Beatles did this in 1961. Chuck Berry did this in 1956. Ike Turner did this in 1951.

But they were inventing rock, because that’s what rock is. Punk is something else, at best a minor subcontinent of the giant planet Rock.

And after this, I have to ask. How old were you in 1976?