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A pattern I've observed has been that the new thing coalesces about 4th or 5th year of decade,becomes visible to the media by the 7th year,and is mainstream at the beginning of the next decade. As in Psychedlic/blues rock in the 60s. (amazing how often I see early 70s bands/tunes reffered to as 60s )punk in the 70s .what happend in the 80s I think of as digital decentralization (McLuhn was right The Media is the massage.). Even as Grunge World Music ( which really happened in the 80s) and HipHop,and House music played out more or less the previous pattern, in Seattle which was the youth culture Mecca of the 90s because of Grunge ,what was floushing was a smorgasbord of all the music/style that had ever been trendy before. a generation of classicists in a sense,but with no particular identity of their own. I've been really puzzled by 00s. There are all sorts of things happening,that seem more mainstrem than the cool stuff Matt mentions- from faux whitetrash Americana to Cabaret to Steampunk , but there are a million different tribes and nothing has dominated stylistically so much as in previous decades.I have no idea what's penetrating mainstream media. |