Has popular music stopped evolving in the 00s?

[Dawn]

This topic was being discussed on another board I check out from time to time, and I thought it would make for an interesting discussion here.

For the first 40 years or so since the beginning of the rock era, there were many changes in popular music, and a great evolution of styles. The music of 1965 sounded very different from the music of 1955, and 1975 saw much change from 1965 as well. That trend continued from 1975 to 1985, and to a slightly lesser degree, 1985 to 1995.

In the 13 years since 1995, though, it seems that there has been a slowing down of musical changes and innovation, at least in more mainstream music.

Do you think that the expansion of pop music has reached its limits? Has all the ground been covered already, or is there room for yet more change and innovation? Let's share our thoughts.

[H2IZCOOL]

Good topic, Dawn!

I think that part of the issue is defining what "mainstream music" is. In the '50s, people would probably argue that mainstream music was Frank Sinatra, Doris Day, Bing Crosby and the remnants of the Big Band era. Rock and Roll was the new kid on the block and was viewed as kids' music, teenagers' music, juvenile delinquents' music, rebels' music, what have you. Mainstream music was not changing much then either. There's not a big jump from Frank Sinatra to Barbra Streisand.

Then through the years as rock and roll grew and evolved -- it evolved toward the center, toward mainstream, and eventually it became mainstream. But we became mainstream also, and as new types of rock and roll evolved (I don't have to list them all, just listen to Billy Joel) they became part of the whole, part of the mainstream - after all, they were all still rock and roll (as Billy would say)! So as the new types of rock came in they were absorbed, and what we saw was fairly rapid changes/additions to the mainstream, and there was no stagnation. Then in the late '80s it all changed. We saw the emergence of a new form of music - a pseudomusic called rap and its daughter hip-hop. This is not rock. This is something different. It does not continue to flow toward the mainstream. It is not accepted anymore than rock was accepted during the first ten or so years of its life.

Rock had the catalyst, ten years or so into its life to ease its way toward the mainstream. That was the Beatles and the British Invasion in general. As the Beatles became acceptable, so did all of rock before them and then as rock morphed it continued to be accepted by the mainstream.

But not so rap/hip-hop. There is no acceptable rapper who revolutionized music the way the Beatles did. So there is no pool of radical music moving toward the mainstream any more. There is nothing to change the mainstream., so yes, it is stagnating.

It is better than the alternative.