Very roughly speaking, the twentieth century saw hippie folk music, punk, goth, hip hop, and grunge as musical traditions among youth counterculture; all these musical forms occasionally were involved in political activism (okay, maybe not grunge, I’m not sure).
But I realized I don’t know of any recent musical genre that’s anything like these. Sure, I’m an old fogey; but not all y’all are. Any thoughts?
Music isn’t about rebellion anymore. Hasn’t been for a long time. Your average kid today is going to have an iPhone packed with the Stones, the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Nirvana, and Kanye and not think anything’s strange about that.
And its not like the US has been at war for the last 14 years…oh wait…
hip hop is still pretty political… or so I’ve been told
That’s not really what I’m suggesting. I suspect that music is a vital art form, and new genres are appearing, and I suspect that some of those genres are part of countercultures. But I don’t know of any. Unless you’re suggesting either that there are no more countercultures, or that said countercultures don’t have musical forms native to them, I don’t think that what you say–however true it may be–addresses what I’m asking.
If that’s how you want me to put it, OK, I don’t think there’s much of a counterculture anymore. “Mainstream Culture” got so fractured by the Internet that there are now a billion different countercultures that don’t overlap in any way.
Okay. I don’t think that’s at all right, but okay.
Others who do see a counterculture–what’s going on musically?
Let me ask you, when was grunge the voice of the counterculture? Because I came of age along with grunge and it was always Mainstream Culture. It was just what everyone listened to.
Genres are the problem. There are too many genres. Music meant more and had more impact when it was less stratified and categorized. The more that has become the case the less people will care.
Metal is going strong. Thrash had a resurgence in the mid-'00s that’s still going. Doom metal is a significant percentage of all metal now released. Deathcore continues to refine itself as a genre and exerts a huge forward influence on other types of metal, perhaps more than any other subgenre. It’s an excellent time to be a headbanger!
Yep.
What? Popular music is more homogeneous than it’s ever been. I forget the paper that described this trend, but if you compare popular songs over the decades, they just sounds more and more alike.
That said, there’s a TON of genres out there that are not part of the mainstream, but that’s what makes up the counterculture. Some of them have socially relevant messages, perhaps related to politics, religion, or culture as a whole, and some don’t. But you’re not going to see much of that in mainstream simply because mainstream culture isn’t about rebellion anymore.
Yes, metal is doing extremely well right now. Personally, I can’t say I’m a fan of the whole Deathcore influence, but even though I find it rather boring, it can still serve as a gateway for some of the younger generations to join the fraternity of metalheads and possibly diversify their tastes.
Still, plenty of subgenres of metal are still going strong, just a few years ago there was a big resurgence in prog metal/rock, the Djent movement has largely puttered out, but that was big for several years, Melodeath seems to be going as strong now as it ever has, and I’ve certainly noticed a whole swath of new super-talented Techdeath and other Extreme Metal acts.
In many ways, I think a lot of these subgenres aren’t rebellious in the traditional sense–though obviously ones like Thrash and Black Metal have always been that way–but strike me more as a rejection of the monotony of the mainstream music scene. Several people I’ve recently introduced to metal had expressed discontent without the rhythms, sounds, and lyrics of mainstream music and it only took a small nudge of a track or two to get them excited.
And besides metal, I know there’s several other more underground genres doing well right now, like electronica. It’s flirted with mainstream a few times, and though it’s not my thing, I know it’s doing as well now as it ever has. My friends that are into it are always touting some new artist when we get into discussing music we’ve recently discovered.
ISTM that the internet and digitial music has been a double-edged sword as far as it goes with music diversity. It’s made it easier for some of the smaller genres to get spread. I can certainly see how much metal has grown and diversified in the last 15-20 years. But at the same time, with fewer people getting music through the radio or other means, particularly where they might just find an artist based on what’s popular, I think it has significantly narrowed mainstream appeal without some of that incidental exposure one might have gotten in other ways in the past.
If you’re looking for something that’s drug-inspired counterculture, there’s bands like MGMT, Animal Collective, Panda, and Tame Impala that are reminiscent of psychedelic music. Foster the People has some psychedelic moments, and can definitely count the Beach Boys as roots. No real political statements from any of those bands per se, but there doesn’t always have to be.
The 60s counter culture movements, especially the anti-war movement, was largely because of the draft – it affected kids personally. That’s why the draft is a terrible idea politically, people operate in their own self interest the vast majority of time, and if you don’t threaten them or their friends personally, they don’t give a shit. The Iraq war would have been a whole lot more like Vietnam in terms of a counter culture if there was a draft.
Also, America has been too cynical of a place for too long for any kind of sincerity in message. You can get away with love songs, etc, as long as it sticks to conventions. There are still punk bands doing songs about liberal or progressive causes, especially folk-punk, but they’re seen as a joke, at best, and are in no way mainstream/popular.
Also also, American independent music has been largely commercialized and streamlined into a corporate product since around 2004. Chances are, what you think of as “indie bands” are represented by one of the major booking agencies, signed to one of the major “smaller but still multi-million dollar” labels, with national and international press kits, etc.
Also also also, with everything so fragmented these days, musicians now have to be business aware to get any sort of attention. They don’t just make music anymore – they record it themselves, they market it, they book tours, they handle press, they handle social media, etc etc. As late as the 80s, you could be a complete wreck of a person, but a major label might still represent you, and look after you, provide handlers, throw money at your problems, whatever. Meaning, you see less outsider ideas, less rebelliousness, less political statements, and more average, homogeneous, mainstream stuff being made – even by independent bands.
Are you asking if any new music genres have sprung up that are specifically counter culture? Or that are specifically political? I’m not sure if any are. All those hip-hop, rock, electronica have splinter genres, and there are some specific artists or specific songs that are more political, but I can’t think of any that are inherently political.
There is political music. Here are some music used for Black Lives Matter and Occupy Wall Street. But I don’t know how widespread any of it is.
Also, it depends on what you mean by counterculture. From my understanding, the hippies and punks and others had their own musical sound, but were also rejecting the mainstream culture and establishment and authority in general, before the sounds and ideas were swallowed back up by mainstream culture. It used to be a big deal if a band would “sell out”, they were basically traitors. But I don’t think selling out is seen as much of a bad thing anymore.
Right, there used to be more big selling artists that everyone would listen to. There are still a few massive selling artists, but fewer than everyone listens to. Like here’s an article from last year about last year’s poor album sales. If you have to go to a store to buy an album, you have only certain ones to chose from, but if you’re downloading or streaming music, you could choose to listen to One Direction, or you can listen to some K-Pop band that you read about on Tumblr.
There is a lot of political hip hop, but also a lot of hip hop that’s apolitical.
I agree with this. For popular music, it has increasingly been all sounding the same. It’s because simplicity sells best among all genres.
I think if there are counter culture movements, it’s not music that will be the common bond, but other things. There are counter cultural groups and movements, but I don’t know if they’ll have soundtracks like previous ones.
I am the dad of two suburban teens who view music as important in their lives. Both play, sing and perform.
A ton of kids listen to a mix of classic rock and modern pop. They all know the Beatles, Stones, Zep, etc and their geekiness is mining for new-to-them old bands.
Two big areas of music are the Ed Sheeran-type neo folk/jammers. There are a few. He is a hugely talented player and songwriter, so isn’t close to counter culture, but emerging from that busking folk scene. And the other is strong women - Florence and the Machine, Marina and the Diamonds, Adele, Pink. Not remotely counter-culture but a focus on female-positive stories and creativity.
I see the counter-cultureness happening by how they “curate” their music. Do they set up a Pandora station and let it run as background wallpaper? Or do they dial up their eclectic mix that cuts across eras and genres? So the specific music isn’t the thing, but how you mix it.
Instead of counterculture the word I’m familliar with is the ‘underground’. Dance music is a collection of several electronic music genres and dozens of sub-genres. EDM is probably one of the most recent off-shoots and (perhaps a more commercial sounding one at that), the original was mid 80’s Chicago House. The majority of DJ’s play mostly underground tracks. These tunes are released on small labels or for free, they rarely make much money and furthermore the musicians aren’t trying to make much money. A lot of them are released under pseudonyms and there is a value placed on tracks being anonymous. There is quite a lot of illegality in dance music. There are the drugs used at many clubs (some songs are designed to sound good on ecstacy), there is like classic hip-hop the use of illegal samples, tax free vinyl releases, illegal radio broadcasts, unauthorised remixes of major label songs, etc. However most of the music created does not have full vocals.
And in terms of music distribution there is a scene focussed around cassette tape releases.
Yes! I think I’ve not expressed myself clearly. I’m not asking what kids these days are listening to (except inasmuch as someone must listen to a new genre in order for it to even exist). I’m not asking what oldgenres are running strong. I’m asking what’s new.
If I’d asked in the sixties what new genres were active in the counterculture, original folk music (there’s a lovely oxymoron) might be your answer. In the seventies, you might have answered punk; in the eighties, hip hop. In the early nineties, grunge would qualify (and if you think it was only ever mainstream, look into the Seattle music scene of the nineties). But if I’d asked in the nineties, despite the fact that the Grateful Dead were still touring, that quasi-folk music of theirs would not have been the right answer.
I don’t know of any new specific counter culture genres. Like 1224rattusrattus says, there are underground genres, genres that are not popular, sometimes even purposely so, but I can’t think of any political ones.
I googled some more for what modern counter culture genres or musicians there are today, and came upon this article, which is specifically about the changing countercultural festivals, but also places it in the context of the overall counterculture:
I think it makes some good points about how the counter culture has changed through the years, though maybe not why.
How about noise music? It is counterculture music, often political in nature and very experimental.