senna
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Music of the Century
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Jun 28 09:03 UTC 1997 |
Okay, I'm greedy, but by the end of the century items like this will be a dime
a dozen. What will people think of, musicwise, when they think of this
century? What are the best songs, the best bands, etc.? What had the most
significance? Will it be more prominent now that music is actually recorded?
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krj
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response 2 of 56:
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Jun 28 17:17 UTC 1997 |
The 20th century gets credit for jazz, which seems like it will be around
for a while. Ellington is already being absorbed into the academy.
The century is also notable for the end of the popular opera
tradition. When Puccini died in 1926, leaving TURANDOT incomplete,
the era of enduring operas also died. From the business end,
operas were being badly squeezed by the motion picture;
from the artistic end, operas were caught up in the general
popular revulsion against contemporary serious music.
The Broadway musical is, more or less, the successor to opera,
and I expect a decent number of musicals, mostly from those
created between 1920 and 1970, to endure. "Cats" will
still be running. :)
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orinoco
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response 3 of 56:
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Jun 29 01:06 UTC 1997 |
Do you really expect there to be a single song that sums up this century,
senna?
Name me the one song that springs to mind immediately when you think of the
1700's.
For that matter, name me the one song that everyone thinks of when they think
of the 1960's. Or even a specific year--what was the single most important
song of 1967?
Even the music of a single year is too varied and complicated to sum up.
I think one of this century's major legacies will be the existence of popular
music as a 'serious' undertaking. In the past, from what I have seen, the
equivalent of popular music has been folk music, which was not treated as
worthwhile until it was refined and civilized into a court dance of some
sort...
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