Why hasn't there been another musical revolution like that of the late 60s? So many masterful albums in such a short amount of time, accompanied by an overwhelming counter-cultural revolution.
There have been many instances of counter-culture since then, but none as momentous or unanimous.
There have been, you just don't like them so you don't romanticize them.
1967 saw the release of
>Are You Experienced by Jimi Hendrix
>The Velvet Underground & Nico
>The Doors' self-titled
>Piper At The Gates of Dawn by Pink Floyd
>After Bathing At Baxter's by Jefferson Airplane
>Safe As Milk by Captain Beefheart
1968 saw the release of
>Astral Weeks by Van Morrison
>Electric Ladyland by Jimi Hendrix
>A Saucerful of Secrets by Pink Floyd
1969 saw the release of
>Led Zeppelin II
>In The Court of The Crimson King by King Crimson
>Trout Mask Replica by Captain Beefheart
>The Stooges' self-titled
Rock music changed more in these 3 years than it did in the entire preceding decade. No other period of time has seen such concentrated musical innovation.
I like a lot of other musical revolutions, especially the ones which followed in the wake of the 60s - punk, post-punk, grunge, metal, post-rock, etc... My point isn't that the music from the late 60s is better than all other music, it's that the world hasn't seen a revolution of this magnitude since then.
It was a few things. First, the 20th century in America at least can be divided by pre-60s and the 60s onward. There are lots of reasons for this (the TV is one of the big ones), but essentially it had such fire because it was literally counter-culture: Society fractured as more of a singular unit back then, and all these youth that found it hypocritical finally discovered a means to group up and show their opposition through the new power of media, through footage and music.
Now, people have pointed out that most of the hippies at Woodstock and so on weren't really activists, nor were most of the artists, but politics isn't entirely the point. It was youth culture. The icons of the 40's and 50's were old men, news broadcasters with family man appearances, and some rockstars here and there. But in this movement, youth culture was the whole idea. You could wear funny clothing. You could have drugs. It was a total reversal of the cultural balance, and it's impossible to recreate this nowadays because the monoculture is shattered into pieces and everyone has their own little niche on the internet holding whatever beliefs they could want. Supposedly grunge was the last true counter-culture, and since we can't even match the force of that, it really shows you just how disassembled we've become.
Do you think it's possible for such a revolution to happen in the future given that monoculture has shattered? Could there be a band that's attention-grabbing enough to shine through our cultural quagmire, while also being original enough to provoke a mass cultural shift? Or are we doomed to a future where the mainstream attention will always be fixated on the same old box of musical cliches and hit singles, where no one is ever prompted to explore beyond their limited niche interests?
In the current atmosphere, no. The trend now seems to be a sort of ironic detachment focused on image, and I'm not knowledgeable on hip hop but it seems sort of split lately too. You really have to capture the zeitgeist if you want to shoot to the top, but people now are agitated and confused and feel powerless, so it's not a great environment for music. There's no feeling of going up against an enemy either, since the social climate is so warped currently.
Yeah, I dunno. I'm not a fan of politics either but in times of strife it's always relevant to current music - see the late 60's and the punk movement. I'm only waiting to see how the current stuff plays out because it'll decide a lot of the music trends we see in the coming years.
not him but imo the answer is a huge no simply because the big outlets of media right now are so corporate controlled and such an act would have to be "allowed" to exist in that sphere-
The biggest somebody has gotten through that from the "underground" as a zeitgeist (it's debatable in his case because of some people he was associated with, or so i read) was xxxtentacion, and everybody outside of gen z fucking hated the guy lol; the only time he was on front pages like that was with his death and posthumous music video, and still nobody but his fans really gave a shit. Even among teenagers, who are in frequently in an isolated area to breed their own culture, he was really only somebody that everybody knew but didn't necessarily care about
no it didn't there were heaps of bands in the underground you haven't heard of that were doing similar things. stuff like blue cheer, link wray and stuff the nuggets and pebble albums.
grung the last? why doesn't 90s acid and rave culture count? late 90s mall goth ICP fags, early 2000s crabcore emo whatevers?
indie is such a revolution
in 30 years people are gonna wonder how so many classic albums were released in such a short amount of time.
I don't even like indie but it's definitiley similar.
Contemporary rap is gonna be such a revolution as well.
There's a difference between subculture and counter-culture. Both are dying but the latter is dying out faster.
trust me, at the time, no one really gave a fuck about punk, grunge, hardcore and whatever other sub culture, these things have always been for the geeks, they only end up mainstream 10-20 years later.
you are right about punk and hardcore but not grunge. It was incredibly mainstream from the get go.
as far as im concerned indie is fucking dead. look up indie on youtube and you get billie eilish, imagine dragons, etc.
its all corporate drivel now. anything otherwise is so fucking gay and tryhard with their stupid fucking denim jackets, cuffed-hem jeans, converse, striped t shirts and pluckly inoffensive attitudes (and for some stupid fucking reason they always take photoshoots in bright, empty, white rooms).
indie is obnoxious now. for all I'm concerned indie died along with the guitarist for Women. Animal Collective, Radiohead, and a LARGE amount of other artists all churning out great indie music in the 2000's and it just burned the fuck out when shit like foster the people got popular.
Indie was given a formula and suddenly, being independant didnt mean anything when straying from a formula meant no streams, downloads, or anything.
indie is dead. that daughters album being as popular as it is is proof of exactly that.
This is kind of tangent to your post but I hate how the "dream pop" label was stolen by normalfags to describe the most soulless, boring pop of the 2010's. Basically if you want anything that sounds like dream pop from the early 2000's and before, you have to look for shoegaze and hope you get lucky, because what they're calling dream pop now is not the same thing at all.
Acid and rave culture is too hard and scary to follow. Also the parties are literally illegal so that makes it cooler than everything else clearly
indie is dead, but so is 60s psych / pop.
It was a powerful movement much like the 60s, I never claimed it lasted forever.
The age of discovery is coming to an end in entertainment. The "map" is mostly drawn.
These are only regarded higher than music from other time periods because of boomers.
No, the march of technology has made that impossible. The era of bands, albums, live concerts, tours all of that is being left behind.
why did you intentionally leave out the beatles
Because youth culture became monopolized by big business