# What "contemporary Music will be known, studied and enjoyed 200 years from now. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 19, 2014, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contemporary-music-will-be-known-studied-and-enjoyed-200-years-from-now/684097 "2014-03-19T17:44:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Full\_Metal\_Lotus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/df705f/32.png) [@Full\_Metal\_Lotus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Full_Metal_Lotus)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2014, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contemporary-music-will-be-known-studied-and-enjoyed-200-years-from-now/684097/1 "2014-03-19T17:44:51Z")
Assuming no collapse of civilization, what 20th/21st century music do you think will survive the test of centuries? My votes are for the Beatles, Gershwin and Perhaps Brian Eno… What do you project? ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2014, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contemporary-music-will-be-known-studied-and-enjoyed-200-years-from-now/684097/2 "2014-03-19T18:32:46Z")
Film music: Star Wars, Indiana Jones, etc. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2014, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contemporary-music-will-be-known-studied-and-enjoyed-200-years-from-now/684097/3 "2014-03-19T18:50:03Z")
Hell, I wonder what music from today (expanding that to cover everything from the Beatles 1964 to the present) will still be _extant_ 200 years from now. Will someone bother to keep say the likes of GG Allin preserved somewhere accessible in digital format? How about someone a little more wholesome and mainstream, such as Julian Cope? ---
**Author:** ![GreenElf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@GreenElf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenElf)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2014, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contemporary-music-will-be-known-studied-and-enjoyed-200-years-from-now/684097/4 "2014-03-19T19:26:13Z")
Assuming no collapse of civilization, all of the music currently available will be readily available free of charge 200 years for now so people will be able to select whatever music from whatever era at their whim. Someone would wind up doing a research study on Bachman Turner Overdrive. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2014, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contemporary-music-will-be-known-studied-and-enjoyed-200-years-from-now/684097/5 "2014-03-19T20:16:57Z")
[All Steve Reich all the time.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xU23LqQ6LY4) ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2014, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contemporary-music-will-be-known-studied-and-enjoyed-200-years-from-now/684097/6 "2014-03-19T20:20:26Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#): > > Hell, I wonder what music from today (expanding that to cover everything from the Beatles 1964 to the present) will still be _extant_ 200 years from now. Will someone bother to keep say the likes of GG Allin preserved somewhere accessible in digital format? How about someone a little more wholesome and mainstream, such as Julian Cope? The ["Fucking the Dog"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=II-XC8-6_tY)operetta was the hit of the 2258 theatre season. ---
**Author:** ![woodstockbirdybird](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/woodstockbirdybird/32/7905_2.png) [@woodstockbirdybird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/woodstockbirdybird)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2014, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contemporary-music-will-be-known-studied-and-enjoyed-200-years-from-now/684097/7 "2014-03-19T20:21:35Z")
> [@Full\_Metal\_Lotus](#): > > Assuming no collapse of civilization, what 20th/21st century music do you think will survive the test of centuries? > > My votes are for the Beatles, Gershwin and Perhaps Brian Eno… > > What do you project? I’m a Brian Eno _fan_, and I wouldn’t even put him among the (theoretical) top 100 artists from this era people will be listening to. Depends on why the music survives. If people are interested in the history of 20th/21st century popular music, I’d have to put Louis Armstrong, Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Michael Jackson and maybe the Stones, Bowie, and Prince in there. If they’re listening for pleasure, it gets harder to predict. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2014, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contemporary-music-will-be-known-studied-and-enjoyed-200-years-from-now/684097/8 "2014-03-19T20:35:31Z")
I think it’s safe to say that some jazz, and at least a handful of composers/works in the classical tradition, will still be studied and enjoyed 200 years from now. Popular music seems by its nature to be more ephemeral, but anyone who has a lot of people listening to them today who weren’t even born when they were in their heyday at least has a shot. ---
**Author:** ![Full\_Metal\_Lotus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/df705f/32.png) [@Full\_Metal\_Lotus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Full_Metal_Lotus)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2014, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contemporary-music-will-be-known-studied-and-enjoyed-200-years-from-now/684097/9 "2014-03-19T21:06:58Z")
> [@woodstockbirdybird](#): > > I’m a Brian Eno _fan_, and I wouldn’t even put him among the (theoretical) top 100 artists from this era people will be listening to. > > Depends on why the music survives. If people are interested in the history of 20th/21st century popular music, I’d have to put Louis Armstrong, Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Michael Jackson and maybe the Stones, Bowie, and Prince in there. If they’re listening for pleasure, it gets harder to predict. Eno was/is a major influence on Bowie and a lot of 20th century music, and his work in Minimalist music (the term “Ambient Music” is his creation) - these might just keep him on History’s dusty shelves… thanks all of you by the way, for your intyeresting and speedy responses! ---
**Author:** ![yipman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/74df32/32.png) [@yipman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yipman)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2014, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contemporary-music-will-be-known-studied-and-enjoyed-200-years-from-now/684097/10 "2014-03-20T17:35:55Z")
well, i would say it would be the ones that the most culturally influential or period defining. so, debussy, varese, stravinsky for early 20th century classical. (i think debussy had more to do with inventing ambient music than eno… eno kind of popularised it, but there had been a lot of people doing it under the radar, from dubussy to bbc radiophonic to tangerine dream, before him) my personal knowledge of war era popular music is a bit sketchy, so ill skip that to someone who knows more about it, but i would put in early blues music like son house, robert johnson. that stuff seems important when thinking how popular 60s music was shaped. early electronic music would be of interest in 200 years, like raymond scott and delia derbyshire/bbc radiophonic studios, and also stockhausen because i guess technology will be used more and more to make music. regional cultural scenes, like reggae from jamaica. bob marley, lee perry, the skatalites, augustus pablo, king tubby. afrobeat scenes like fela kuti was an interesting period. loads of these things… then you start getting to people the age of the media pushing artists into global superstars like elvis, beatles, michael jackson. these would be interesting for people looking back at how early marketing worked and how scenes developed… i guess being studied and enjoyed are two slightly different things though. cos if i was around in 200 years, id probably still listen to kraftwerk. ---
**Author:** ![Banksiaman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banksiaman/32/3334_2.png) [@Banksiaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banksiaman)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2014, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contemporary-music-will-be-known-studied-and-enjoyed-200-years-from-now/684097/11 "2014-03-20T20:43:22Z")
When I’m a brain in a jar, I’ll most likely be listening to oldies music that essentially comes from a parallel marketing universe to what I was actually listening to, much like ‘Fifties Music’ on TV shows represents a tiny, tiny fraction of what was actually being listened to. So, probably will be boring the 10xGreat grandkids with GG Allin, the Big Bopper and Adele, and telling them how I saw them all together in this concert and how they jammed to the early 2100s anthemic song ‘Crazy Frog Ringtone.’ These will be my Happy Days. PS We’ll be half way to the spooky reality of Zager and Evans’s ‘In the Year 2525’ and I’m sure it will get a long-deserved re-issue. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2014, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contemporary-music-will-be-known-studied-and-enjoyed-200-years-from-now/684097/12 "2014-03-22T16:04:15Z")
I think modern theatre will survive with the two Birthday Boys of today: Sondheim & Lloyd Webber (and happy 84th & 66th B-days to these two icons) ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2014, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contemporary-music-will-be-known-studied-and-enjoyed-200-years-from-now/684097/13 "2014-03-22T16:50:10Z")
Long before 200 years from now, music as a discrete medium will have long since disappeared, except as an esoteric niche (the boundaries of all the arts will have shifted many times in the interim). And what does remain will be unrecognizable to us as music. More and more, we are in an era of disposable arts, with music at the forefront. The irony is that we have growing resources for keeping the music indefinitely. The big challenges will be finding anything worth keeping, and anyone to listen to it. ---
**Author:** ![Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/les_espaces_du_sommeil/32/308_2.png) [@Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Les_Espaces_Du_Sommeil)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2014, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contemporary-music-will-be-known-studied-and-enjoyed-200-years-from-now/684097/14 "2014-03-24T12:08:35Z")
Post-WWII composers that will stil be studied in the foreseeable future (IMHO): **Ligeti** : all of his oeuvre apart from juvenilia. **Dutilleux** : his string quartet and concertos + a couple of orchestral works and chamber pieces. **Messiaen** : his large-scale orchestral pieces and his _Quartet for the End of Time_. Some of his piano or organ works. **Britten** : some of his operas. Less sure: **Lutoslawski** : some of his symphonies and concertos, some of his vocal works. **Carter** : some chamber and piano pieces (cello sonata, piano sonata, _Night Fantasies_), some orchestral works. **Penderecki** : some of his works for chorus and orchestra. **Bernstein** : some orchestral works. **Barber** : _Adagio for Strings_ and perhaps his works for voice and piano. **Henze** : some of his operas, perhaps _Royal Winter Music_ for solo guitar. **Dusapin** : some of his operas, perhaps his _7 Solos for Orchestra_. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2014, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contemporary-music-will-be-known-studied-and-enjoyed-200-years-from-now/684097/15 "2014-03-24T12:56:16Z")
The only rational answer for ‘known, studied and enjoyed’ for 200 years from now is nothing. Taste is music will have moved on and even those that are remembered will be the subject of academic interest, not popular enjoyment. Yes, there’s a huge advantage in record-keeping. We have no recordings of the Vienna Philharmonic playing Mozart, certainly, and the future will have the Beatles works available for a listen, but it’s doubtful many will. There may be occasional resurgences but they’ll be short-lived. It’s silly to believe that music today will hold up and still be regularly played or performed in 200 years. Think of it as similar to literature. We have books from 200 years ago. Who can name an author from 1814? The vast, vast majority of people couldn’t name one from 1914, much less an extra hundred years back. So the smart money is that - despite _ars longa, vita brevis_ - nothing we enjoy in contemporary music will be known, studied and enjoyed 200 years from now. Some pieces might get the second and third from the scholarly sort but all three? Extremely doubtful. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2014, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contemporary-music-will-be-known-studied-and-enjoyed-200-years-from-now/684097/16 "2014-03-24T13:51:29Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > Think of it as similar to literature. We have books from 200 years ago. Who can name an author from 1814? Without looking it up: is that far enough back for Jane Austen? She’s still a favorite of many people. If not her, then how about Daniel Defoe, or Jonathan Swift—or Shakespeare? The fact is that there is plenty of music, and literature, and other art forms, from 200 years ago that is still enjoyed today. Maybe not enjoyed by a vast majority of people, but that’s not what the OP asked. So it seems reasonable to assume that something from this century might likewise stand the test of time. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2014, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contemporary-music-will-be-known-studied-and-enjoyed-200-years-from-now/684097/17 "2014-03-24T14:28:59Z")
Yes, we still know creative types from 1914 and prior years. I believe that rock music will still be around forever. It just combines so well with othet types of music. ---
**Author:** ![Foggy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foggy/32/1082_2.png) [@Foggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Foggy)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2014, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contemporary-music-will-be-known-studied-and-enjoyed-200-years-from-now/684097/18 "2014-03-24T14:34:38Z")
The great ones of course: Justin Bieber & Miley Cyrus on brain to brain beam cast 24/7 as dictated by the Yor Collective Cultural Bureau. ---
**Author:** ![Bellhorn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@Bellhorn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bellhorn)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2014, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contemporary-music-will-be-known-studied-and-enjoyed-200-years-from-now/684097/19 "2014-03-24T15:00:35Z")
I’m assuming that 200 years from now the world’s population will be predominantly Asian on all continents, save, perhaps for Muslims across the middle east and Africa. So, I doubt if the Beatles or any traces of the Western music will survive. I’d like to think that Dave Brubeck’s _Take Five_ album is still studiied, with it’s unique time signatures, including 5/4 and 9/8, which are due, in large part, to Brubeck’s study of African music. Stevie Wonder’s 1973 album, _Song in the Key of Life_ might still be significant as one of the first examples of album that was primarily performed with synthesized music. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2014, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contemporary-music-will-be-known-studied-and-enjoyed-200-years-from-now/684097/20 "2014-03-24T15:26:05Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Without looking it up: is that far enough back for Jane Austen? She’s still a favorite of many people. If not her, then how about Daniel Defoe, or Jonathan Swift—or Shakespeare? > > The fact is that there is plenty of music, and literature, and other art forms, from 200 years ago that is still enjoyed today. Maybe not enjoyed by a vast majority of people, but that’s not what the OP asked. So it seems reasonable to assume that something from this century might likewise stand the test of time. I understand where you’re coming from. But even if I concede all of the ones you named, Austen, Dafoe, Swift or Shakespeare the vast majority - I’d offer 98%+ couldn’t tell you anything the first three had written. Only Shakespeare is really in the public consciousness for what he wrote as opposed to ‘He wrote stuff, right?’ Even Austen, with her apparently near-continuous stream of movie adaptations is just ‘some old author’ to most people. Remember, too, that of those four you named only one is truly considered legendary. Shakespeare stands head and shoulders over all other writers of English. There were a LOT of good playwrights during his era but really only he - with a bit of a nod to Marlowe - survives in the public’s mind. Might be better - and more realistic - to say which ONE creator will survive and be known, enjoyed and studied 200 years from now. Because that’s the most likely outcome. That’s why I mentioned The Beatles. To truly survive over that length of time legendary status is almost required. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contemporary-music-will-be-known-studied-and-enjoyed-200-years-from-now/684097.md?page=2)