Yesterday, I posted some graphs I made from the database used in Madeline Hamilton’s new study of the (de-)evolution of melody in Billboard’s Top Five hits from 1950-2022.
I’m wondering if all oldsters like me are struck by the contrasts between the world today and the world our parents experienced. Has change been accelerating, or is it an enduring perception. Music is a fascinating reflection of that feeling.
My impression is that music is changing slower than when I was young. I can recall sitting in my car in the Rice U. parking lot on December 5, 1979 and listening to an AM Top 40 radio station playing the rap song "Rapper's Delight" and thinking that rap novelty tunes like this were going to be big for the next 12 to 18 months, before blacks got bored with rap and invented some new fad style like had so many times before.
Rapping back then was pure headbob and bootyshake music. You were meant to hear it on the dancefloor, same as the funk and disco it evolved out of. The rap you were meant to sit down for would take a while after to come along.
Rap became considerably more sophisticated in the decades since. Post Eric B. and Rakim, flow became significantly more complex and interesting. Said sophistication would reach its peak with the popularity of Hamilton, a tremendously intelligent work of art that's nonetheless loaded with quality tunes and which succeeded commercially at a level that still scarcy seems believable. But most rappers aren't nearly smart enough nor knowledgeable enough to take full advantage of the medium's possibilities, and of those that are, many burn themselves out and wallow in artistic compromise for the sake of comfort and commercial performance. (When's the last time Eminem's made anything worthwhile?)
Kids today seem to listen to far more retro pop than we did in the 70s and 80s. The young people's pub in my town regularly blares out stuff which was new when I was their age: Debbie Harry, the Stranglers, the Police.
A mid-teenage nephew of mine told me that his music class were performing "a well known pop song". Expecting I would not have heard of it, I asked what one. It was Wonderful World by Sam Cooke. He seemed to see nothing uncool about a playing a song which is a year older than I am.
On my book tour, I was struck by how much of music being played before and after my speaking events was from around 1980. I don't know whether that was specifically chosen for an oldster like me, or if that bright 30 year olds today like.
Thank you for the memories. Glenn was always a favorite, but so was David Niven. If you haven't read his books, do take the time. They give depth and insight into Hollywood. Niven was a wonderful fellow who lost his beloved first wife at a party when they were playing hide-and-seek. Primula fell down the stairs thinking it was a closet when it was the basement. She died, and David had their two sons to raise. Very sad story...his second marriage never matched the love of the first.
Niven, a Sandhurst grad, never was too clear what he did during WWII. My guess is the British Army high command tended to use Niven to charm the Yanks: e.g., if Patton and Montgomery were having a meeting over who gets fuel for his tanks, put Niven, a man liked on both sides of the Atlantic, in the conference room with them to keep the generals from tearing each other apart.
This is the third try to post a response...the first two disappeared.
I'm not at all surprised that Niven was used as you guess during WWII. He would be perfect for it. By the way, it was at Tyrone Power's house where Niven's wife Primula fell down the stairs and died the next day.
Niven and Errol Flynn had been good friends and roommates in Hollywood early on and when Flynn was at the end of his life, a very short life, he asked David to meet with him. They had lunch at a gentleman's club and Niven stated that Flynn was a wreck, too much carousing and drinking, but he told David that he had found something and it was the Bible.
Steve McQueen died just as young of cancer but he died in bed with the Bible on his chest.
Niven was such an athlete, loved every sport, and he died of ALS, which had to be very difficult for him. Just from his acting, and his two books, one gets the picture that he was always a gentleman.
Niven's memoir of his pre-Hollywood military career, "The Moon's a Balloon," and his collection of Hollywood anecdotes "Bring on the Empty Horses" are delightful.
I'm not sure how much trust to put in any one golden age of Hollywood anecdotes, because you are talking about the world's greatest storytellers. Cary Grant claimed that Niven would appropriate stories that happened to Cary.
Niven and Grant were frenemies up for similar roles, like if James Bond had gotten started in the 50s, it would have been one or the other as 007.
They each sort of wanted to be the other: the insecure Grant wanted to be Niven offscreen, the soldier and raconteur; while the self-assured but less talented Niven wanted to be Grant on-screen, the supreme movie star.
So true, but Grant, didn't have the tragedy in his life like Niven, so I would expect more truth from him than many others. From 1934 to 1954, the stars were under the Hays Code, and I've often wished they had kept it.
Somewhere in the numbers here I sense the effects of the Industrial Revolution, nation by nation, and the concomitant change in life tempo and the assembly line production idea.
Complex things take intelligence and diligence to appreciate. Modern education doesn't nuture the habits required for many to do this. With popular music the death of the album accelerated this. Listening to an entire album often exposed one to songs that weren't necessarily one's favorites but often with multiple listenings one came to appreciate. Modern media allows us to easily go for the quick high and narrow the range of listening opportunities.
I prefer the fantastical version of Glenn Miller's fate. Crash landed on the same island where the "real" fountain of youth happens to be. Lil' Baby Glenn Miller working tirelessly on his next hit for all time.
This was, of course, from the PC game Sam & Max - Moai Better Blues.
In your yesterday's graphical analysis of American music you asked when the step towards less innovation first began. JD Unwin concluded as a result of his masterful anthropological survey in the 1930s that artistic products become repetitive, simplistic and boring when the cultures that produce them have stopped requiring girls to be virgins upon ma seerriage, and also stopped worshiping a higher power. By that measure, American music should have started to lose its innovative thrill with the advent of the sexual revolution in America in the 1960s.
Your graph shows that we are in the midst of that boring phase, and doesn't It also show that trend really got going in the 1960s?
This being a Sunday, I certainly notice the dumbing down factor in the very simplistic and repetitive praise songs that have begun to replace the much more creative and complex hymns that we used to sing in four-part harmony in every Sunday worship service. I also think our worship has become less complex and serious.
Fun fact: this was recorded and released in 1970, on the “Rides Again” album; shortly afterwards, the Ravel estate contacted the record company, ABC/Dunhill, and threatened legal action because of some obscure and likely not enforceable clause Ravel had in his will about “Bolero”, something like only full symphony recordings were authorized until 100 years after the piece was written (that may not be quite correct, but something like that). The spineless management at ABC/Dunhill folded like the proverbial cheap suit and rereleased the album, with the “Bolero” part of the track excised. The James Gang and later Joe Walsh solo continued to play the whole thing in concert, but you couldn’t find the complete studio cut until a Joe Walsh box set came out around 1994, when Walsh basically dared the Ravel estate to do anything about it. Nary a peep was heard, and future releases of the James Gang’s “Rides Again” album had the track restored to it full glory.
Glenn Miller's musical career runs totally against the idea that "we NEED elite Immigrants for innovation and cultural-production; without vigorous waves of Migrants, we stagnate and never do anything." It's a strong idea today, to the point of being an elite mantra.
Glenn Miller's three-generation ancestral surnames, people born in the 1800s-1810s (according to Geneastar dot org):
His father's-side family was tied to Ohio for much of the 19th century. By ca. 1870, they are in Iowa. Iowa is where Glenn Miller was born in 1904. His mother's-side family was, for a long while in the mid-19th century, tied to Indiana. They, too, relocated to Iowa ca. 1870.
Glenn Miller is himself fully a product of Iowa, and fully a product of White-Protestant America. There is no indication of any foreign-born ancestor of any kind, for Glenn Miller, before the 18th century.
"That guy sucks!"
"How often has your favorite band been in the top 40?" (Yeah, I know, Billboard rankings were a bit scammy pre-SoundScan.)
"FUCK YOU!"
The eternal "popular vs. better" debate.
I’m wondering if all oldsters like me are struck by the contrasts between the world today and the world our parents experienced. Has change been accelerating, or is it an enduring perception. Music is a fascinating reflection of that feeling.
My impression is that music is changing slower than when I was young. I can recall sitting in my car in the Rice U. parking lot on December 5, 1979 and listening to an AM Top 40 radio station playing the rap song "Rapper's Delight" and thinking that rap novelty tunes like this were going to be big for the next 12 to 18 months, before blacks got bored with rap and invented some new fad style like had so many times before.
But that didn't happen.
Having never heard of “Rapper’s Delight”, I just listened to four minutes with lyrics. Clicking the 14 minute version was an error.
Clever stuff, but not clever enough for 14 minutes of attention.
Child-rearing and career-climbing must have crowded it out of my consciousness.
It’s not music. Rhythmic poetry.
I would have given it 6 months tops!
Rapping back then was pure headbob and bootyshake music. You were meant to hear it on the dancefloor, same as the funk and disco it evolved out of. The rap you were meant to sit down for would take a while after to come along.
Rap became considerably more sophisticated in the decades since. Post Eric B. and Rakim, flow became significantly more complex and interesting. Said sophistication would reach its peak with the popularity of Hamilton, a tremendously intelligent work of art that's nonetheless loaded with quality tunes and which succeeded commercially at a level that still scarcy seems believable. But most rappers aren't nearly smart enough nor knowledgeable enough to take full advantage of the medium's possibilities, and of those that are, many burn themselves out and wallow in artistic compromise for the sake of comfort and commercial performance. (When's the last time Eminem's made anything worthwhile?)
Kids today seem to listen to far more retro pop than we did in the 70s and 80s. The young people's pub in my town regularly blares out stuff which was new when I was their age: Debbie Harry, the Stranglers, the Police.
A mid-teenage nephew of mine told me that his music class were performing "a well known pop song". Expecting I would not have heard of it, I asked what one. It was Wonderful World by Sam Cooke. He seemed to see nothing uncool about a playing a song which is a year older than I am.
On my book tour, I was struck by how much of music being played before and after my speaking events was from around 1980. I don't know whether that was specifically chosen for an oldster like me, or if that bright 30 year olds today like.
Thank you for the memories. Glenn was always a favorite, but so was David Niven. If you haven't read his books, do take the time. They give depth and insight into Hollywood. Niven was a wonderful fellow who lost his beloved first wife at a party when they were playing hide-and-seek. Primula fell down the stairs thinking it was a closet when it was the basement. She died, and David had their two sons to raise. Very sad story...his second marriage never matched the love of the first.
Niven, a Sandhurst grad, never was too clear what he did during WWII. My guess is the British Army high command tended to use Niven to charm the Yanks: e.g., if Patton and Montgomery were having a meeting over who gets fuel for his tanks, put Niven, a man liked on both sides of the Atlantic, in the conference room with them to keep the generals from tearing each other apart.
This is the third try to post a response...the first two disappeared.
I'm not at all surprised that Niven was used as you guess during WWII. He would be perfect for it. By the way, it was at Tyrone Power's house where Niven's wife Primula fell down the stairs and died the next day.
Niven and Errol Flynn had been good friends and roommates in Hollywood early on and when Flynn was at the end of his life, a very short life, he asked David to meet with him. They had lunch at a gentleman's club and Niven stated that Flynn was a wreck, too much carousing and drinking, but he told David that he had found something and it was the Bible.
Steve McQueen died just as young of cancer but he died in bed with the Bible on his chest.
Niven was such an athlete, loved every sport, and he died of ALS, which had to be very difficult for him. Just from his acting, and his two books, one gets the picture that he was always a gentleman.
Those bygone days of Hollywood were the best.
Sorry about your comments vanishing.
Niven's memoir of his pre-Hollywood military career, "The Moon's a Balloon," and his collection of Hollywood anecdotes "Bring on the Empty Horses" are delightful.
I'm not sure how much trust to put in any one golden age of Hollywood anecdotes, because you are talking about the world's greatest storytellers. Cary Grant claimed that Niven would appropriate stories that happened to Cary.
Niven and Grant were frenemies up for similar roles, like if James Bond had gotten started in the 50s, it would have been one or the other as 007.
They each sort of wanted to be the other: the insecure Grant wanted to be Niven offscreen, the soldier and raconteur; while the self-assured but less talented Niven wanted to be Grant on-screen, the supreme movie star.
So true, but Grant, didn't have the tragedy in his life like Niven, so I would expect more truth from him than many others. From 1934 to 1954, the stars were under the Hays Code, and I've often wished they had kept it.
"Bring On The Empty Horses" is the funniest Hollywood book I've ever read, and I've read a lot of them. Just the best stories.
Yes, Niven was a great writer as well as actor, wasn't he!
Magnificent skating! Wow!
Somewhere in the numbers here I sense the effects of the Industrial Revolution, nation by nation, and the concomitant change in life tempo and the assembly line production idea.
Complex things take intelligence and diligence to appreciate. Modern education doesn't nuture the habits required for many to do this. With popular music the death of the album accelerated this. Listening to an entire album often exposed one to songs that weren't necessarily one's favorites but often with multiple listenings one came to appreciate. Modern media allows us to easily go for the quick high and narrow the range of listening opportunities.
I prefer the fantastical version of Glenn Miller's fate. Crash landed on the same island where the "real" fountain of youth happens to be. Lil' Baby Glenn Miller working tirelessly on his next hit for all time.
This was, of course, from the PC game Sam & Max - Moai Better Blues.
In your yesterday's graphical analysis of American music you asked when the step towards less innovation first began. JD Unwin concluded as a result of his masterful anthropological survey in the 1930s that artistic products become repetitive, simplistic and boring when the cultures that produce them have stopped requiring girls to be virgins upon ma seerriage, and also stopped worshiping a higher power. By that measure, American music should have started to lose its innovative thrill with the advent of the sexual revolution in America in the 1960s.
Your graph shows that we are in the midst of that boring phase, and doesn't It also show that trend really got going in the 1960s?
This being a Sunday, I certainly notice the dumbing down factor in the very simplistic and repetitive praise songs that have begun to replace the much more creative and complex hymns that we used to sing in four-part harmony in every Sunday worship service. I also think our worship has become less complex and serious.
What kind of church (denomination, etc)?
Repetitive music works because humans love the hypnosis of groove just as much (maybe even more?) as the novelty of complexity.
Entrainment is a drug for brains
My favorite version of Bolero, from the James Gang…skip to 3:35: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWiQ6k4HCwo
Fun fact: this was recorded and released in 1970, on the “Rides Again” album; shortly afterwards, the Ravel estate contacted the record company, ABC/Dunhill, and threatened legal action because of some obscure and likely not enforceable clause Ravel had in his will about “Bolero”, something like only full symphony recordings were authorized until 100 years after the piece was written (that may not be quite correct, but something like that). The spineless management at ABC/Dunhill folded like the proverbial cheap suit and rereleased the album, with the “Bolero” part of the track excised. The James Gang and later Joe Walsh solo continued to play the whole thing in concert, but you couldn’t find the complete studio cut until a Joe Walsh box set came out around 1994, when Walsh basically dared the Ravel estate to do anything about it. Nary a peep was heard, and future releases of the James Gang’s “Rides Again” album had the track restored to it full glory.
Glenn Miller's musical career runs totally against the idea that "we NEED elite Immigrants for innovation and cultural-production; without vigorous waves of Migrants, we stagnate and never do anything." It's a strong idea today, to the point of being an elite mantra.
Glenn Miller's three-generation ancestral surnames, people born in the 1800s-1810s (according to Geneastar dot org):
-- [Paternal branches:] Miller, Galer, Sanderson, Higley;
-- [Maternal branches:] Cavender, Davidson, Bruner, ______.
His father's-side family was tied to Ohio for much of the 19th century. By ca. 1870, they are in Iowa. Iowa is where Glenn Miller was born in 1904. His mother's-side family was, for a long while in the mid-19th century, tied to Indiana. They, too, relocated to Iowa ca. 1870.
Glenn Miller is himself fully a product of Iowa, and fully a product of White-Protestant America. There is no indication of any foreign-born ancestor of any kind, for Glenn Miller, before the 18th century.