Re: DEFINING CULTURAL YEAR of the DECADE

["L.Angulo" <labaloops@yahoo.com>]

i am just reading this post,Our decade is an interesting one...once i 
played a gig where someone in the audience said out loud "thats too sad 
can you play something else?as if their time is too precious to listen to 
something they arent familiar with.
As i said previously melancholy isnt hip at the moment,everything is 
supposed to be happy and functional because there is no time for anything 
else,though our world doesnt seem any happier than past decades.
I think in the 50īs the happy craze was a bit more justified,coming from 
past economic depressions lots of wealth and basically a lot of naive 
going around.
Then the 60s and 70s.Compare for instance a lot of those mega hits from 
the 70s to what the radio is playing today,they werent very happy 
really,you know things like ELP still you turn me on,from the begining,or 
dust in the wind, or stairway to heaven or solsbury hill or gold dust 
woman,the chain,night in white satin,going to california,comfortably numb 
etc. the list goes on.And some of this werent even complying with the 3 
minute hit formula!
I dont know how it feels for those playing live out there today,for me it 
seems people are in fact searching for something but they are not sure 
what path they should follow and be part of,so they all keep waiting for 
somebody(mostly the media) to take over and say,yes this is it,this will 
define our decade so lets start wearing this clothes and listening to this 
etc.It also seems to me that the culture which defines the decade always 
starts with a group of people in a sort of an underground social gathering 
and becomes an elite movement so the media picks up on it and "bang"! 
everybody wants to be part of it,and capitalizing starts and at the end it 
really doesnt have much to do with the music.
In my opinion now people arent just getting together physically enough 
anymore,look at cinemas struggling,concert attendance and other source of 
culture entertainment.Look at a lot of the pubs also closing down,because 
all those fess they have to deal with.Jam sessions are becoming hard to 
find.A lot of people have also stopped going to the pubs here in Germany 
as well because of the new smoking regulations.
Flying has become a hassle as well,i just read that U.S visitors are going 
to have a tougher time traveling into the country because of new upcoming 
homeland security mesures.So in a way,even with so much comunication 
around us we have become a lot more decentralized.
you might have already seen the series of this,but is a good example i 
think of what we are talking about though you might want to see all parts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhFIelGYH94&feature=related

So the culture definiton of our decade might just be a "virtual one",hey 
now we dont even have to brainstorm to write a song, we have Microsofts 
songsmith!

www.myspace.com/luisangulocom






--- On Mon, 1/5/09, jayrope LD <jrploopers@kliklak.net> wrote:

> From: jayrope LD <jrploopers@kliklak.net>
> Subject: Re: DEFINING CULTURAL YEAR of the DECADE
> To: Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com
> Date: Monday, January 5, 2009, 4:23 AM
> Mainstream media is not penetrated anymore, it doesn't
> look for pebetration, it just whines and sticks to worn-out
> formulas of entertainment. Mainstream and substreams have
> luckily, finally become almost completely cultural fields it
> seems. Mainstream today exploits its lage back catalogues,
> and if it releases new stuff, than substreams woudlonly
> influence that, when some worn-out looks for new hipness in
> fields that never stop developping. therefore even those
> small acquired hipnesses are likely to be aged by the time
> the get released as part of a mainstream sales item. Among
> musicians and music lovers there is one large gap:
> You're passionate and serious about what you do and
> love, or you're not.
> If you're not, then you might fit the mainstream.
> Few exceptions might include Amy Whitehouse f.e..
> Nevertheless her musical influences derive from the 50s and
> 60s, and we can all watch the rapid speed at which an artist
> like her goes down.
> 
> The new and wonderful all breaches out now, and if at all
> looking for a home, then usually finding one in small
> communities of very dedicated fans. So everyone involved
> feels special again. I love it.
> - - -
> jayrope
> http://www.kliklak.net
> 
> On Jan 5, 2009, at 12:17 PM,
> Loopers-Delight-d-request@loopers-delight.com wrote:
> 
> > DEFINING CULTURAL YEAR of the DECADE
> > 
> > 
> >   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.