Entertainment

Music and the Decades

Throughout each decade, ever since music became a large part of life for the North American continent, there has been a revelation between what is popular in music between the teenaged generations and how they decide to act in the tough society they grew up in. Now the question is whether those teenagers are the ones who set the direction and guided the music in the way they wanted it to travel, or was it the music that guided the teens?

Roaring ’50s

We’ll start at the 1950s, when Jazz was the most popular genre of music and everyone was into it. Well, everyone except the teens. The parents were fond of this music and loved having the ability to know that the music is safe and doesn’t have any negative impact on their children’s young, developing minds. However later that decade someone had broken on through the radio waves by introducing a new genre of music to the sweet world of teenagers. The man’s name was known world-wide, and that quick fame-grasping name was Elvis Presley, the King of Rock ’n Roll. He was viewed as an exploiter of teenage minds by the parents, and that made teens do what? That’s right, it made teens want to hear more and more of this man’s fine lyrics, and watch more and more of his vulgar dance moves.

The San Francisco ’60s

Then came the glorious 60s where people took Rousseau’s ideology to another level. Where sex, drugs, and rock ’n roll could define the entire teenage generation. Where English bands such as The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Pink Floyd, and The Who dominated the stage, combined with the drunkenly talented American bands and one men groups such as The Doors, Hendrix, Joplin, Clapton, and many more such as Bob Marley who influenced the teens to up-rise against the suppression of the people and stand up for their rights. So was it the teens that desired this type of music or was it this type of music that attracted the teens and manipulated them to doing what these musicians thought was right? Then again, this fight-for-peace-and-freedom music came at a time of the Vietnam War, the Kennedy assassination, the Charles Manson crime wave, and the assassination of Martin Luther King, which might have influenced the music rather than the music influencing the movement. 

Dazed and Confusing ’70s

As the fanatic years of finding eternal happiness in an LSD blotter faded, people evidently became more vile and the music was of the same sort. Heavy Metal bands such as Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Kiss, AC/DC, and Aerosmith became the most popular bands among the surface of the earth. Teens worshiped the insanity of these singers and the lives they lead. They were impressed by what these singers could get away with, how their drug fiend bodies were capable of absorbing cocaine, heroine, crystal meth, and tons of other substances without affecting their health status. The heavy metal genre kept evolving and thus changing the teens into little devils. But then again the question of whether it was the teens that wanted this music or rather the music that took the teens under its dark wings arises. If the parents heard their children listening to any heavy metal music and coming out of their rooms with dark mascara, this usually scared parents to death. Nevertheless, there were also those teens that found disco music really great, and this brought bands such as the Bee-Gees, ABBA, Boney M and more to being fame-struck. Along with this type of music came the drugs of the disco-era: ecstasy, and cocaine. And the fact that they kept scaring the parents by constantly showing teens high on coke while at disco nightclubs on the news put a new fear into the parents.

From the Streets to the Studios

The 80s came with the Michael Jackson craze as well as the introduction to rap. Run DMC, LL Cool J, and Public Enemy came out with a genre of music that was mostly popular within the African-Americans, and didn’t kick off to being famous within the white neighborhoods until the early 90s, when they started paying attention to the lyrics talking about the hard-life of the ghetto, which was made popular by a band consisting of Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, MC Ren, MC Yella, and Ice-Cube, called NWA. This attracted lots of controversy and due to that constant fight against the band, came the interest of the white teens. This type of music was known as Gangsta Rap and for a fact, this music influenced the teens instead of the teens influencing the music. The tough neighborhoods obviously pressured the band to begin rapping about their lives, however it was caught on due to its influential lyrics. Tupac, Notorious BIG and Big L took rap and turned it into a world-wide recognizable style of music. Also, Alternative Rock made a big scene that decade, and evidently throughout each decade the styles of music kept getting darker and more obscene. Groups like Metallica and Nirvana motivated teens to be out of the control of their parents, and in a way, turned them against one another. 

Back to Shit with the ’00s

Then comes upon us the New Millennium, where rap is turned into pop and boy-bands steal the hearts of young teenaged girls. New “rappers” come and go, turning the word rap into a four word definition: Money, cars, and hoes. The selling-out of rap becomes the top music industry as a not-so-new style of music popularizes itself: Techno, a set of different styles of music put into a single mixed track composed by electronic dance music plays at all the nightclubs.

The evolution of music from the 50s to the New Millennium changes each generation of teenagers from Hippies to Goths to Disco-maniacs to gangster-wannabes to pill popping party-goers. And the answer to who influences who is simple: The music motivates the teens to influence the music.

This post was submitted by Jack Krimker.

 Subscribe to Wikiweblog

© 2008 WikiWeblog.