response 26 of 56:

Jun 13 20:29 UTC 2000

heh

response 28 of 56:

Jun 13 22:29 UTC 2000

Reading back, I see that, indeed, there is a tendency to exchange "best" and
"sum up" with grand abandon in this item... so to clarify, I'm talking about
the tune that is most REPRESENTATIVE of the changes in music over the course
of the century.

There would be no real way to indicate the "best" song or artistic piece of
any time period; I ignored that part of the discussion because it's silly and
pointless.

My criteria for "most representative":
-- Cultural ubiquity. In addition to "The Simpsons," obvious candidates
include The Jeopardy Theme, The National Geographic Theme, The Theme to Jaws,
Star Wars, and The Girl from Ipanema (which has become so ubiquitous that
nearly EVERYBODY knows the tune, but few people know the name) (Think
elevators).
-- Relevance to other entertainment. Multimedia became a major issue in the
20th C.; the relationship between music and other forms of entertainment has
oscillated in the past, from a time when ballets and symphonies were firmly
wedded, to a time when travelling minstrels were on the edges of
entertainment. So a trait of the 20th C. would be incorporation of music with
other forms of entertainment. Note that most of the ubiquitous tunes are TV
or movie themes; this century saw the creation of the jingle, as well, which
are terminally perky.
-- Pop-py. Popular music has always been the most common form of music, and
tastes change constantly. No single piece could characterize the musical
trends of the entire century, which shifted from jazz and swing to R&R, C&W,
and so forth, but at least The Simpsons theme captures a few of the major
highlights, and Lisa's jazz jam allows for the incorporation of just about
any popular style you'd care to come up with (except, perhaps, folk).
-- Lack of historical depth. This is where the rift between "best" and "most
representative" is most obvious. "Good" music is typically heavily laden with
historical depth, but -- as the flourishing of pop music, ever fickle, and
the meandering of classical music demonstrates -- the 20th C. didn't care much
for depth. Even at the height of industrial groups like NIN and Marilyn
Manson, recent forebears like Gary Numan and Brian Eno didn't get more than
occasional "oh yeahs" from fans... grunge was hopelessly American Bland, but
if it didn't bear the Seattle mark, it wasn't grunge -- even if it sounded
IDENTICAL to grunge, and had been released only a few years prior... Paul
Simon sang that "Every generation throws a hero up the pop charts," and
furthermore, that generation fails to see the roots. I'll admit that my own
blues collection, for instance, consists of Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Jonny
Lang, a pair of young punks with talent but no roots.

A second candidate for "most representative" comes to me from this discussion:
Kid Rock's "Cowboy." Here we have American C&W combined with rap/hip-hop in
an act that represents 20th C. Pop Music Trends at their finest: A white guy
singing black music and outselling just about any black rap artist (KR's
"Devil Without a Cause" is now 8x Platinum). Both Kid Rock and Eminem were
mentored to varying degrees by black rappers (KR boasts of "touring with Ice
Cube," while Eminem's link to Dr Dre is famous), and yet both outsell their
black predecessors (further irony comes from the fact that Detroit, known for
its sizable black community, has managed to turn out three of the best-selling
white rap groups -- ICP being the third -- and no significant black rappers;
the black musicians instead developping a musical style (techno) that was to
be usurped and identifed primarily with white Europeans, except among the fan
base).

Adding the black-by-white to the bizarre fusion of C&W to heavy metal and rap,
the instant ubiquity and equally instant amnesia of "Cowboy," its overall
milquetoast blandness, its TV tie-in (hey, the video features Gary Coleman
in a gunfight with Joe C.), the sideshow mentality of the band (so far as
having a resident midget, something even hopelessly glam Bowie, Manson, and
Monster Magnet didn't even stopp to), and the absence of historical depth (not
only is KR's retrospective arrogantly albeit humorously entitled "History of
Rock", but he re-recorded many of the tracks because he couldn't find the tape
masters!), "Cowboy" provides ample competition for "The Simpsons" as "most
representative of 20th C. music."

But hey, I like Kid Rock, and Danny Elfman for that matter. And yeah, I know
their music is crap, artistically speaking, but it's GOOD crap. 

And therein lies yet another way in which they represent the century. Lots
of good crap.

response 30 of 56:

Jun 14 00:18 UTC 2000

Also Sprach Zarathustra.

response 32 of 56:

Jun 14 14:20 UTC 2000

I would take as "representative" of a time period a work which demonstrates
the culmination of that time period, so it would always be weighted toward
the end of that time period.

I don't think that's bias. If you want to say we're arguing semantics, fine,
we're arguing semantics, but the culmination of the 20th C. -- the significant
cultural differences between 1901 and 1999 -- were technology, TV, and
mass-market multimedia.

Actually, another significant theme of the 20th C. is the shift in war from
an us-v-them to an us-v-HIM... that is, the creation of true "villains" in
war: Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Hussein, Idi Amin, Noriega. But nobody's
mentioned any songs about war, or about that cultural shift.

And technically, it's fin-de-mille. ;}

response 34 of 56:

Jun 14 23:16 UTC 2000

Something from the beginning of the century can be just as representative
of all the trends brighn mentions as something from the end of the
century. Louis Armstrong, for instance:  cultural ubiquity (everyone's
heard that voice, whether they know it or not), relevance to other forms
of entertainment (the combination of show tunes with blues, plus a few
movie appearances and lots of playing in brothels), poppy, lack of
historical depth (even when Armstrong became drafted as the unofficial
"ambassador of American music," he refused to be dignified or "historical"
about it; he just took it as an excuse to travel a bit more).  The
combination of blues and mainstream popular music which Armstrong
represents is the beginning of a trend which has continued throughout the
century and given birth to the two larges pop music styles, jazz and rock
and roll. 

Armstrong doesn't have quite the surreal black-to-white crossover effect that
Kid Rock has, but he was one of the first to bring black music to a white
audience in a form other than minstrel shows and vaudeville acts.  Does that
count?

I'm not sure if I'd actually vote for Armstrong as "most representative
musician."  I'm just using him as an example to point out that someone can
be representative of this century by presaging and influencing coming changes,
and not necessarily just by summing those changes up.  (At least by Paul's
criteria from resp:28)

response 36 of 56:

Jun 15 02:31 UTC 2000

Valid points, ori.

response 38 of 56:

Jun 20 02:35 UTC 2000

I will put in a vote for Also Sprach Zarathrusta.. Stanley Kubrick's 
screenplay of Arthur C. Clarke's novel _2001_ did a *lot* to keep that 
Strauss tune remembered.

response 40 of 56:

Jun 20 17:49 UTC 2000

I'd say its impact in the 20th century far exceeds that in the 19th...

response 42 of 56:

Jun 22 06:32 UTC 2000

#0 does not specifically ask about music written in the 20th century...

response 44 of 56:

Jun 24 22:46 UTC 2000

I'm afraid that most people couldn't bring themselves to listen to the entire
A.S.Z. - it runs 15-20 minutes.  People hear the opening "fanfare" and think
"that's the piece".  That's the same mentality that thinks by hearing the
fanfare of the last section of the William Tell Overture "that's the piece".

response 46 of 56:

Jun 24 23:02 UTC 2000

Or Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi and think that's all of Carmina Barundi.

It's a common phenomenon.

response 48 of 56:

Jun 25 07:27 UTC 2000

I own a recording of the entire A.S.Z.