Music fashion

[Made in 1968]

A Bit like clothes they generally run hand in hand..

I suppose being in my early 50's ive not seen many Music fashions come & go.. Punk a vaguely remember but i was never a part of it thank god! New Romantic & Synth pop i was into. Then i suppose the next big thing was Acid House & Trance music, This i was deffo into, but since then we seem to be lost just going around in circles.

However probably the biggest thing i argue about with people on forums is the re insurgence of an old style of music coining it as a continuation. I utterly think the music fashion of the time should be of then.. Im not pigeon holing music Genres im talking about the music of that particular time.

[Macca]

We are the goon squad and we're coming for you.

[Pigmy Pony]

A Bit like clothes they generally run hand in hand..

I suppose being in my early 50's ive not seen many Music fashions come & go.. Punk a vaguely remember but i was never a part of it thank god! New Romantic & Synth pop i was into. Then i suppose the next big thing was Acid House & Trance music, This i was deffo into, but since then we seem to be lost just going around in circles.

However probably the biggest thing i argue about with people on forums is the re insurgence of an old style of music coining it as a continuation. I utterly think the music fashion of the time should be of then.. Im not pigeon holing music Genres im talking about the music of that particular time.

So you missed out on the whole Bay City Rollers thing? That's a shame :(

[Made in 1968]

So you missed out on the whole Bay City Rollers thing? That's a shame :(

Well since i hardly remember Punk '76/'77 im really not gonna remember bay city rollers am i

[griffo104]

I'm a similar age to you, I remember the synth pop as the big thing from my youth and the move in to Dance/rave music.

However, as a confirmed metal head/underground/jazz fan I think I'm still waiting for my tastes to come in to fashion. A bit like my dress sense.

I couldn't even tell you what music was currently in vogue. I suspect it used be determined by the singles charts more than album sales but the singles seem to be pretty pointless now from what I can make out.

[Jazid]

I think what has changed since late 80s is the function of music in our society. For a century and a half before then music was produced to be listened to attentively, more or less. Even overtly popular music had lyrics that resonated albeit at a trivial level. Since the house phenenon the function of popular music is to drive a mood, a socially cohesive more than reflective art form. It has not removed the motivation for the kind of music that was there before, but it has removed much of the market for it. Young people don't concentrate on popular music, it's the facilitator of a mood, the lubricant of an event, what grumps call background music, stuff you are happy to talk over. To a certain extent it has at last returned to a function that it used to have in pre 19th century Europe, and never lost in West African cultures for example. We just haven't integrated the two roles successfully yet.

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[AJSki2fly]

A Bit like clothes they generally run hand in hand..

I suppose being in my early 50's ive not seen many Music fashions come & go.. Punk a vaguely remember but i was never a part of it thank god! New Romantic & Synth pop i was into. Then i suppose the next big thing was Acid House & Trance music, This i was deffo into, but since then we seem to be lost just going around in circles.

However probably the biggest thing i argue about with people on forums is the re insurgence of an old style of music coining it as a continuation. I utterly think the music fashion of the time should be of then.. Im not pigeon holing music Genres im talking about the music of that particular time.

I grew up listening to the Beatles, Stones, Alice Cooper, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Genesis, Slade, T Rex, Sweet, Status Quo, Deep Purple, Hendrix, Fleetwood Mac, Pink Floyd, Hawkwind, King Crimson, and Jethro Tull to name a few, and then there was the TOTP groups and singers. If you listen to most of those listed they were taking in essence the Blues and turning it into forms of Rock music the likes of which had not been heard before. Some added flavours of classical and Jazz and even folk influences which gave them their particular character. But by the time we got to 75 it was all becoming a bit stale and the big acts that were well established were running out of ideas and were not longer fresh, although quite a few mentioned carried on for many years, probably due to large fan bases and the music industry engine wanting as much return as possible from its investment.

I am 61 and was in London from 1976 to 1981, I saw The Sex Pistols for 50p before they were famous just as they broke, absolute raw energy and quite frightening at the time at South Bank Poly. I and a few mates also saw The Police, the Damned, Stranglers, Sham 69, Squeeze, and the Buzzcocks, sadly I missed Joy division. We were very fortunate because we saw them all in small venues before they hit it big. I think you needed to be there to get it, the energy of it was intoxicating at the time, it was so different to what had gone before, with the glam rock, prog rock and psychedelic it turned the music scene on its head.

A not so well known band that were superb and from that era are The Comsat Angels, described a post-punk, I would describe them musically as a cross between early U2 and Echo and the Bunnymen, very good musicians that wrote great songs.

So punk sort of died it just burnt itself out (even though there are modern bands the emulate the style, Shame is a good example), Goth Rock and New Wave/New Romantics came along in the likes of Joy Division, Bauhaus, Gary Numan, Souxsie and the Banshees, Lena Lovich, OMD, Echo and the Bunnnymen, Spandau Ballet, Human League, Duran Duran and so on, a lot of these were heavily influenced by keyboard synths of the time, and it was the core of their sound, the innovation and novelty lasted for about 5 years I suppose.

In tandem the likes of Jacko and Madonna had a major influence on the shape and sound of popular music through the 80's and into the 90's, in fact I would say they dominated. In the UK Britpop/rock came along in the likes of Blur and Oasis and a few others tried to emulate them, and as you say House and Acid and Trance came along in parallel through the 80's but in reality at the time was more underground and only became more mainstream and started to influence pop and dance in the late 80s and early 90's, spawning trance, breakbeat hardcore, jungle, big beat, techno and trip hop.

So what is the point of my ramblings, well if you think about it each new style of music has generally evolved and influenced another style so there is an evolution of sorts. But each will have its roots in something that came before it. For example if you look at Jazz where and when it originated? It is generally accepted it came out of blues and ragtime in the early 20's, from New Orleans, it evolved through decades spawning various types of Jazz, Swing, Bebop, Cool Jazz, Hard Bop, Modal, Smooth Jazz, Free Jazz, Fusion and so on we go. There are many modern Jazz artists who use aspects of earlier Jazz sub-genres in their music, in fact some actually just play in a particular older style of Jazz because they like it, and some incorporate aspects of more modern music such as Acid and Trance, and so it will keep evolving.

So music evolves, it is complex and it sometimes stagnates but usually someone comes along with a new idea or interpretation.

[Pigmy Pony]

Adrian, you were in the right place, at the exact right time, and at the right age, for punk. No doubt the scene was buzzing! I'm the same age as you (ok one year older), but was only really on the fringes of that scene. I could never be doing with playing records at home by The Drones or Slaughter and the Dogs, but the atmosphere, the energy, the menace of seeing these bands live was really something! Have some great memories of that time :)

[struth]

Started with blues and classical, moved to zep, family, groundhogs and sabbath but still with the blues and of course a bit of Frankie Sinatra. Never forget the classics lol

[AJSki2fly]

Adrian, you were in the right place, at the exact right time, and at the right age, for punk. No doubt the scene was buzzing! I'm the same age as you (ok one year older), but was only really on the fringes of that scene. I could never be doing with playing records at home by The Drones or Slaughter and the Dogs, but the atmosphere, the energy, the menace of seeing these bands live was really something! Have some great memories of that time :)

Hi Steve, Yes I and a few friends were really lucky. We saw a lot of other bands, Eddie and the Hotrods, the Cars, Graham Parker, Dr Feelgood, The Tubes, Sad Cafe, are a few others I can remember. A friend who wrote occasionally for Record Mirror got us in the see U2 just before their second album was released, we got to chat with them after over a beer. When I got married at 25 in 1983 money and work commitments meant I saw live bands occasionally and mainly big wheel known artists.