# Is music changing less rapidly than it used to? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 20, 2012, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-music-changing-less-rapidly-than-it-used-to/632060 "2012-08-20T15:32:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-music-changing-less-rapidly-than-it-used-to/632060/21 "2012-08-20T20:45:20Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > I’ve said this before, but that’s because the rap community has no interest in declaring any rap album a “classic” of the genre. So the majority of music people listen to is new and there hasn’t been a generational bridge between the beginnings of the genre to the current age (like The Beatles, The Stones, Clapton, and many others did with rock). The Chronic - Dr. Dre Doggystyle - Snoop Dogg Enter the Wu-Tang Clan: 36 Chambers - Wu Tang Clan It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back - Public Enemy The Marshall Mathers LP - Eminem Midnight Marauders - A Tribe Called Quest Paid in Full - Eric B & Rakim Pauls Boutique - Beastie Boys Raising Hell - Run DMC Ready to Die - Notorious B.I.G. Straight Outta Compton - NWA ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-music-changing-less-rapidly-than-it-used-to/632060/22 "2012-08-20T20:49:58Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > The Chronic - Dr. Dre > Doggystyle - Snoop Dogg > Enter the Wu-Tang Clan: 36 Chambers - Wu Tang Clan > It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back - Public Enemy > The Marshall Mathers LP - Eminem > Midnight Marauders - A Tribe Called Quest > Paid in Full - Eric B & Rakim > Pauls Boutique - Beastie Boys > Raising Hell - Run DMC > Ready to Die - Notorious B.I.G. > Straight Outta Compton - NWA My original response had about three quarters of these listed (I also added “Criminal Minded” by Boogie Down Productions, “3 Feet High and Rising” by De La Soul, etc.) but I wasn’t sure what the poster was getting at. So, is the complaint that there is no “classic rap” station like there is “classic rock”? ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-music-changing-less-rapidly-than-it-used-to/632060/23 "2012-08-20T20:51:20Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > Well, to the extent that it is more of a departure (in musical terms, you may be right), it has not had anything like the same level of influence. It has not taken over popular music and eclipsed everything that came before it in the way that rock and roll did. Sure, some rock and pop artists have taken up some tropes from rap (as some did, a bit earlier, from reggae, for example) but that has not turned them into rappers, and rap proper remains small potatoes compared to rock and all the various forms of rock influenced pop that dominate the charts and the airwaves. However artistically innovative it may have been, rap did not bring about a seismic shift in popular musical taste the way rock and roll did (and the way jazz had done, several decades before). See, I think it has. I can barely listen to a Top 40 song these days that I don’t hear a hip-hop influence in. It doesn’t have to be a rap influence, per se, but the backing tracks, the rhythms, the samples point me more towards hip hop than rock. ---
**Author:** ![Tanbarkie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a698b9/32.png) [@Tanbarkie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tanbarkie)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-music-changing-less-rapidly-than-it-used-to/632060/24 "2012-08-20T21:56:27Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > Well, to the extent that it is more of a departure (in musical terms, you may be right), it has not had anything like the same level of influence. It has not taken over popular music and eclipsed everything that came before it in the way that rock and roll did. Sure, some rock and pop artists have taken up some tropes from rap (as some did, a bit earlier, from reggae, for example) but that has not turned them into rappers, and rap proper remains small potatoes compared to rock and all the various forms of rock influenced pop that dominate the charts and the airwaves. However artistically innovative it may have been, rap did not bring about a seismic shift in popular musical taste the way rock and roll did (and the way jazz had done, several decades before). You don’t listen to much modern Top 40, do you? ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-music-changing-less-rapidly-than-it-used-to/632060/25 "2012-08-20T23:14:59Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > See, I think it has. I can barely listen to a Top 40 song these days that I don’t hear a hip-hop influence in. It doesn’t have to be a rap influence, per se, but the backing tracks, the rhythms, the samples point me more towards hip hop than rock. Yep. And that comment about a lack of recognition about classic hip hop? :rolleyes: And where’s the Low End Theory by A Tribe Called Quest?! ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2012, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-music-changing-less-rapidly-than-it-used-to/632060/26 "2012-08-21T01:26:13Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > My point is that while rap is a 30-year old genre, it’s continuously looked at as “new noise” by a lot of people because the classic albums of the genre aren’t referenced and replayed ad nauseum like the classics of rock music are. This I can buy. I read your original comment as saying that there is no list of classic rap albums, which is a very different claim. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2012, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-music-changing-less-rapidly-than-it-used-to/632060/27 "2012-08-21T01:26:27Z")
I’ve made the same anectodal observation as the OP-- I’ve noticed that quite a few 20-somethings actively listen to the bands I listened to at their age: Beatles, Stones, Doors, Zeppelin. I’ve also had the thought that it’s the equivalent of me having been really into the Glenn Miller Band in my late teens/20s (I’m in my late 40s). I was aware of big band music at that age and liked it to some extent, but it wasn’t something I chose to listen to on a regular basis. I just didn’t relate to it the way I did the bands mentioned (many of those being even a little before my time, at least their prime output). Why do I think this is? [ul] [li]Big band music was what the kids of the time listened to because that’s what there was. It was music created from the musical sensibilities of an older generation. Rock and Roll was more by and for the same generation. Especially when bands like the Beatles started writing and having a lot of creative control over their own music. I think this is a lot of the reason it perennially appeals to young people-- there’s the sense of rebellion, young people of any generation can tell it’s intended for them.[/li][li]It’s easy to start a rock band. A guitar or two, singer, drums and bass, and you’re a band. Unlike big bands which required a large number of highly trained musicians playing varied instruments well.[/li][li]There’s something about that (typically) I-IV-V chord progression with a lead in a (usually) minor blues key played over it, in (mostly) 4-4 time. It’s just a great, enduring sound that has given musicians a lot of leeway for creativity within those seemingly restrictive boundaries. No matter what different musical styles come around, or how much rock or pop music goes into left field, rock music always seems to return to its roots-- with Punk, as another poster mentioned, or with real back-to-basics bands like the White Stripes or Black Keys.[/li][/ul] Long live Rock and Roll!! 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2012, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-music-changing-less-rapidly-than-it-used-to/632060/28 "2012-08-21T01:53:22Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > I can barely listen to a Top 40 song these days that I don’t hear a hip-hop influence in. It doesn’t have to be a rap influence, per se, but **the backing tracks, the rhythms, the samples point me more towards hip hop than rock**. You could also say, more towards disco, dance, electro, house or rave. IMO, and without disparaging the importance of rapping itself, _that’s_ really the most fundamental schism since the country- and blues-based rock revolutions of the '50s and after. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2012, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-music-changing-less-rapidly-than-it-used-to/632060/29 "2012-08-21T01:58:20Z")
> [@ultrafilter](#): > > This I can buy. I read your original comment as saying that there is no list of classic rap albums, which is a very different claim. That’s crazy. My point was that the list of classic rap albums was much shorter than the list of classic rock albums for a comparable amount of time. And that they get less play among today’s teenagers than the classic rock albums do. ---
**Author:** ![Ponch8](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponch8/32/9883_2.png) [@Ponch8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponch8)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2012, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-music-changing-less-rapidly-than-it-used-to/632060/30 "2012-08-21T02:02:51Z")
I’ve noticed the same kind of thing with clothes. The things people wear now look very similar to what people wore in 2002 (at least in my not-very-fashion-conscious eyes). Sure, there are some things from back then that would look out of place now, but these seem to be the exception. Now, compare 1995 fashion vs. 1985 fashion vs. 1975 fashion vs. 1965 fashion. I don’t think most people would have any trouble identifying each of these eras. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2012, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-music-changing-less-rapidly-than-it-used-to/632060/31 "2012-08-21T02:11:19Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > You could also say, more towards disco, dance, electro, house or rave. > > IMO, and without disparaging the importance of rapping itself, _that’s_ really the most fundamental schism since the country- and blues-based rock revolutions of the '50s and after. Personally, I think the acceptability of melody-less vocal lines represents a much more fundamental shift in popular music (and the art of sampling, too) than anything the other genres have brought. But YMMV. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2012, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-music-changing-less-rapidly-than-it-used-to/632060/32 "2012-08-21T02:14:17Z")
> [@MsWhatsit](#): > > So, Layla was originally released in 1970, 42 years ago. I have a strong urge to say “you lie!”. But alas… ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2012, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-music-changing-less-rapidly-than-it-used-to/632060/33 "2012-08-21T02:27:53Z")
I’m not sure people really don’t have an interest in Big Band/Swing/Crooner or pre-60s music in general anymore. I mean, it’s not as popular as pop music, obviously, but it’s not some sort of nebulous out there dated thing people have no interest in. At the very least, I’ve never met anybody who actively dislikes Sinatra (or even other old singers) versions of Mack the Knife. The game Bayonetta used a remixed version of Fly Me To The Moon as the main character’s leitmotif, which was very pop-ish, but the credits had a slow jazz version. Heck there’s even a few moderately successful bands like Royal Crown Revue (The Contender) and Cherry Poppin Daddies (Zoot Suit Riot) that have managed to get some music of similar styles back into view. And I don’t mean “somewhere, some guy is listening to them,” I mean I’ve heard the more upbeat stuff at parties alongside Top 40 stuff, weird electronica, eurobeat, house music etc. I also, for some reason, have met a disproportionate number of people who like Mr Sandman (though you may be able to blame Back to the Future for that one, even if it is a different version). Not **quite** the same genre, but hell, [this](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAFP0IoMfsA) song got on the newer cartoon Batman. I’d also use the argument of the sheer amount of old jazz, crooning, and swing in Christmas music, but given how many Christmas songs radio stations have to churn out for, what is it, two straight months now? I think you could give them a Gregorian Chant recording and tell them it was Christmas Music and they’d play it out of desperation if nothing else. Again, I don’t think it’s popular, in that it’s the sort of thing the average kid has on their iPod or actively seeks out. However, it’s certainly out there, and I think a lot more people have encountered and enjoyed music from that era in mainstream settings than you’d think. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2012, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-music-changing-less-rapidly-than-it-used-to/632060/34 "2012-08-21T02:44:28Z")
I think you’re all missing something here. It’s true the 60s started a world-wide cultural revolution influenced the tastes of almost everyone today. But it (certainly in the US, at least) encompassed a conscious rejection of our parent’s cultural values. Their values were so devalued that most kids wouldn’t be caught dead listening to Sinatra in the late 60s. Og forbid – someone would think it was uncool! So music went in a new direction, and the old direction was cast aside as worthless. And there was no real continuity to keep 40’s and older music alive in people’s minds, except in older folks, who we kids had already cast aside as untrustworthy. Some of us kids from those days are just starting to re-explore that older music. I’m finding tons worth listening to. I have every song Patsy Cline ever recorded. I’m building collections of Sinatra, Bing Crosby, and Les Paul and Mary Ford. What I’m finding refreshing is that their voices are just _out there_, naked and all alone for us to appreciate, and not buried under tons of orchestration and sound processing. I may not like their musical styles a whole lot, but I respect the enormous talent they had, and can enjoy the music on that basis alone. Oh yeah, and I’m also exploring classical. But that’s a whole different thread. ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2012, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-music-changing-less-rapidly-than-it-used-to/632060/35 "2012-08-21T02:48:13Z")
> [@Jragon](#): > > The game Bayonetta used a remixed version of Fly Me To The Moon as the main character’s leitmotif, which was very pop-ish, but the credits had a slow jazz version. Don’t forget the Fallout series, which has introduced an awful lot of younger gamers to older music. Classic cartoons also offer a window into big band and torch songs, and as I said earlier, they’re more accessible now than they’ve ever been. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2012, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-music-changing-less-rapidly-than-it-used-to/632060/36 "2012-08-21T03:04:51Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Personally, I think the acceptability of melody-less vocal lines represents a much more fundamental shift in popular music (and the art of sampling, too) than anything the other genres have brought. But YMMV. Well, pop forms with _no_ vocals (as in the bulk of disco, house and rave _club_ sets) are often still pretty radical for people reared on rock and its predecessors. But I was responding to your comment about the music apart from vocals. Most rap/hip-hop albums, with the vocals entirely stripped out, could be much more readily classed with dance than with rock. Sampling was developed in electronic music before rap existed, and perhaps more importantly the _way_ samples were used, the effect aimed for, was originally based on live-band funk and disco. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2012, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-music-changing-less-rapidly-than-it-used-to/632060/37 "2012-08-21T11:35:01Z")
> [@Ponch8](#): > > I’ve noticed the same kind of thing with clothes. The things people wear now look very similar to what people wore in 2002 (at least in my not-very-fashion-conscious eyes). Sure, there are some things from back then that would look out of place now, but these seem to be the exception. Now, compare 1995 fashion vs. 1985 fashion vs. 1975 fashion vs. 1965 fashion. I don’t think most people would have any trouble identifying each of these eras. And with some types of music, I think it’s even more pronounced. Maybe it’s my age, but I don’t see that much separating Madonna’s music from Lady Gaga’s. But there are just a few less years between Madonna’s debut and Lady Gaga’s than there are between Glenn Miller and Madonna. Products in general seem to be recycled more today, whereas in the past, something would be popular for a while and then gone. Skateboards were a huge craze in the early-mid 60’s, and then you didn’t see them at all for a decade or more. Young people who listened to old music were considered weird. I remember going to a record store when I was a kid in the early 1970s and asking for a Chuck Berry record. The clerk looked at me like I was nuts and said, “Do you know how _old_ that is?” Today, not all kids listen to old music, but it’s more accepted, and more available, than it used to be. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2012, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-music-changing-less-rapidly-than-it-used-to/632060/38 "2012-08-21T12:13:35Z")
> [@Tanbarkie](#): > > Here’s an example from my own experience. As someone whose formative years took place mostly in the 90s, I found even as a child, everything recorded before 1980 sounded “old,” somehow, in a way I could never really articulate. In contrast, the music of the 90s and the aughts felt new and vibrant and revolutionary. In my subjective experience, it felt like pop music pretty much stayed the same between 1950 and 1980 - which is, obviously, patently untrue from a compositional or production standpoint, but you don’t intellectually grasp those subtleties as a 12-year old. 🙂 All I could say was that the alternative rock I listened to “felt” different from any of the oldies that came before it. That didn’t happen to me: I was born in the 1973 and you’d have to go back beyond 1960 for me to find that everything sounded “old”. If you strip out all the rock ‘n’ roll all the kids on my lawn are so fond of these days, music changed remarkably little to _my_ ears between 1946 and 1962, at least compared to 1962-78. Then you have another era stretching back from 1945 until the first recordings. But beyond 1962, music progressed in the normal 5-year sequences most people categorize music into, only yours started from shortly after your birth instead of shortly before. It could be just chance that my perception of not-completely-old music coincided with the rise of “rock” music (as opposed to “rock n roll”). But I think there is a valid phenomenon here, perhaps it is musical evolution: once they found something that worked, it has staying power because it works. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2012, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-music-changing-less-rapidly-than-it-used-to/632060/39 "2012-08-21T13:47:25Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > I think you’re all missing something here. I don’t think so - you cover things I have stated in Post #13, and which are touched on by other posters, too…music continues to innovate, but: a) it is not the same “communication gap” focal point it once was; and b) there are fewer common channels that a large enough slice of the public all tap into to develop a common sense of musical direction… ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2012, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-music-changing-less-rapidly-than-it-used-to/632060/40 "2012-08-21T16:37:09Z")
> [@WordMan](#): > > I don’t think so - you cover things I have stated in Post #13, and which are touched on by other posters, too…music continues to innovate, but: a) it is not the same “communication gap” focal point it once was; and b) there are fewer common channels that a large enough slice of the public all tap into to develop a common sense of musical direction… My point, which I apparently didn’t make clear enough, and post 13 doesn’t mention, is that the 60s revolution involved not just a change, but a repudiation and even a contempt for the older values and tastes. That’s why the next generation was hardly exposed at all to 40s and 50s music. Their parents didn’t have it in the house, it wasn’t on the radio, etc. That’s why it feels so alien to them when they finally do encounter it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-music-changing-less-rapidly-than-it-used-to/632060.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-music-changing-less-rapidly-than-it-used-to/632060.md?page=3)