# What's the definining music of the current era? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 21, 2006, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-definining-music-of-the-current-era/373563 "2006-09-21T14:45:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Yookeroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yookeroo/32/323_2.png) [@Yookeroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yookeroo)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2006, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-definining-music-of-the-current-era/373563/61 "2006-09-22T17:30:58Z")
[QUOTE=GorillaMan] And I suppose it goes back to my belief that Kraftwerk will be seen by future generations as one of the most significant contributions to 20th-century music 🙂 [/QUOTE] The better be. (They were almist as good as Daft Punk live.) [QUOTE=scotandrsn] I heard a radio story the other day about some music researchers who more or less concur with the OP’s suspicions. There is no really new sound that has become widespread in the Aughts, the way, say, disco, heavy metal, or techno did in their respective heydays. They suspect the pervasivenes of recording techniques that are heavily digitally synchronized. There’s only so much room for fluidity and creativity when absolutely everything must conform to the click track. [/QUOTE] Bullshit. The same thing is happening to TV. There are no shows that ahve had the same widespread viewership as the huge hits of the past. It’s more about the diversification of our culture and the means of delivery than it does about click tracks. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2006, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-definining-music-of-the-current-era/373563/62 "2006-09-24T15:57:29Z")
in the u.k. the target audiences for the music business are 8 to 14 yr old girls (,ballads ,love songs ,boppy little numbers !) and the more educationally challenged adolescent males of the "walter mitty " variety ,wannabe "gangstas " and the like ( rap ,mobo ) ,and they buy ,literally ! anything the media promotes ,without qualification ! the teen girl audience material is mass produced mostly by industry proffessionals ,does not require the ability to play an instrument so that any attractive face can be used as its vehicle and the mobo,rap is written and performed by the “artists” ,if i can abuse the term , conveniantly particulary with the rap ,again the ability to play a musical instrument is not needed nor apparently the ability to write music (lets just rip it off from a 20th century hit ) and you only need the mental age of an 8 year old to write the lyrics (illiteracy does NOT debar you from writing rap lyrics in england !) if you think i`m anti rap far from it ! "the message" and "white lines " by grand master flash are works of genius ,however you judge them i just get sick of total" no talents" churning out endless juvenile tripe and calling it rap ! the situation got to the point where an influential ,prime time t.v. programme for several decades "top of the pops " on BBC1 was axed due to lack of interest you may well say that i dont have to buy the records ,so why am i moaning ? for the good reason that radio stations play lists are based on the charts so if i want to listen to reasonably contemporary music on air at work i have to hear more then my fair share of dumbed down "kiddies "music. grown ups over here tend to buy indie and there is a refreshing back lash where genuine talent are cutting out the major record companies and self promoting on the internet eg" arctic monkeys " ,self taught ,write their own stuff,can actually play musical instruments !!!!!!! and do their own thing rather then dancing to the promoters tune ,and they are BIG over here ! sad to say the present generations of british teens are amongst the most malleble (not to mention gullible !) and easily pleased market that the music industry has had for many a year ,and it doesn`t look as though its going to change ! when i was in my teens older people used to decry our fantastical music and fashions ,now that i`m a crotchety middle ager myself i find myself moaning about "the youth of today " because of their blandness,lack of innovation and sense of adventure ! anyway must stop now as i have to get some trousers (or pants if you`re american ) that fit snugly up under my armpits and replenish my incontinence pads lol ! ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2006, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-definining-music-of-the-current-era/373563/63 "2006-09-24T18:43:34Z")
[QUOTE=pulykamell] And that’s the problem I see in discussions on hip-hop on these boards and others: people are insisting in applying rock musical values in analyzing hip-hop. Of course they’ll be frustrated by hip-hop, because hip-hop is not rock and does not have the same values. [/QUOTE] Very true, and rather amusing, given the amount of time rock music has spent suffering from equally-irrelevant analyses. I’m struggling to find the quote, but one of the big cheeses at English National Opera got into the news a while back, with a very perceptive observation that a generation is growing up today surrounded by a soundworld which has very little connection with traditional tonality - and that there is the possibility that this will make the western classical tradition far more alien than it has been to previous generations hearing the same music. Of course, this got into the papers under ‘ENO chief says rap music is destroying kids’ type headlines, which was most certainly not what he said (he made it very clear that he considered rap and hip-hop is equally valid to classical tradition, on their own terms). ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2006, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-definining-music-of-the-current-era/373563/64 "2006-09-24T20:01:50Z")
[QUOTE=C K Dexter Haven] I’d say that today’s music is mostly: silence. My evidence: most people listen to music through their iPods and earphones, so they all are walking down the street listening to sounds that I can’t hear. [/QUOTE] You apparently haven’t been within one block of, say, a 1998 Honda Civic with a giant wing on the back and a subwoofer where the rear seat should be. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2006, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-definining-music-of-the-current-era/373563/65 "2006-09-24T20:11:11Z")
Part of what’s happening is the fragmentation of the music industry due to technology. The same thing is happening to television. There were ‘iconic’ TV shows that defined certain decades - I Love Lucy, MASH, the Mary Tyler Moore Show… Johnny Carson was part of the national identity. This was the case because the technology forced us all down the same path and made us share our media experiences. Back then, there were two essentially forms of music - AM and FM. AM music was ‘pop’, where singles lived, and FM was ‘album rock’. Smaller markets had one or two stations of each, bigger markets maybe a handful. And because Album and early CD production was very expensive, there were fewer bands with the ability to reach large audiences, and the ones that did were typically vetted through a process that ensured that they fit a commercial mold. All this led to a homogenization of music that created the various ‘genres’ that we’ve heard over time. But now, there are infinite channels for music. Sirius and XM radio, cable radio, MP3s, internet downloads… And production costs for songs are so low that anyone can pump out their own music. The result has been a fracturing of the market and the creation of many new, but smaller, genres. Given all that, I think it’s going to be much harder for a single band to re-define a genre from here on in, and for one genre to dominate the cultural zeitgeist. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-definining-music-of-the-current-era/373563.md?page=3)