Re: The Story of our Age & New reading please

[Andre LaFosse <altruist@earthlink.net>]

David Kirkdorffer wrote:
 
> Here's what i was thinking.
> 
> Maybe:          Jazz was the "sound of the 20's - 50's"
>                 Rock was the "sound of the 50's - 70's" 
> In the 80's we experienced the start of a kind of post-modern melange of
> things
> In the 90's we're continuing along the same road -- but increasingly 
>aided
> with technology. 
> Seems to me that drum & bass and various IDM-oriented music best sum up 
>the
> age we live in:

I'd have to disagree a bit here.  If there's any type of music that
would follow your jazz and rock examples, both in terms of social impact
and in terms of its musical role, I'd say it's got to be rap/hip-hop. 
The idea of a "post-modern melange of things" seems like an apt
description of what happens when you start scouring the sum total of
recorded history for sound sources, which is what hip-hop is based on. 
The sampler has had a comperable impact over the last two decades in the
same way the electric guitar impacted things in the '50s and '60s, and
the synthesizer in the '70s and '80s.

I'd also say that pretty much any modern sample-based (and a lot of
non-sample based) music owes something to hip-hop.  Drum & bass, for
instance, wouldn't even exist without it.  THe ubiquitous '90s
alterna-rock drumbeat started showing up a couple of years after is was
heard as a sample of "Funky Drummer" in a million different hip-hop
tunes, and there are all sorts of non-rap acts copping various musical
and visual signifiers from hip-hop nowadays.  Hell, just walk outside,
and see how long it takes you to spot somebody sporting a pair of
oversized baggy jeans!

--Andre