"Pastime Paradise"/"Gangsta’s Paradise"/”Amish Paradise"

@ReneeT Ah, but the time so far has only been, what, fifty years so far? Two generations is no test of time.

I wonder how much of the pop music produced from the 1960s to now - so within about 60 years - will still be played in some recorded form, or even better [i]performed[/i], in its centenary years?

Probably very little, however good the lyrics, though some of the more melodic music might survive in purely instrumental arrangements. That has been happening for a long time with The Beatles' music.

Fashion and personal taste, which are not necessarily synonyms, are one thing. Any worthwhile popular music now is threatened by the rapidly changing recording and disseminating methods, the commercial radio stations and worst, the exploitative, ephemera-creating "streaming services". Well, [i]they[/i] claim to be "services".

You might think Stevie Wonder's songs the best ever or standing the test of time, because you still enjoy it. Will they will still be popular or thought worth listening to, two generations on again from us? Or even known of, widely? Or even easily available?

Other than by printed, sheet-music - ironically likely to remain the only way any music or literature created now can survive for more than a few decades, but still assuming anyone wanting to play it.

@ArishMell They probably will still be popular in some circles, the same way blues and ragtime from a hundred years ago still has its aficionados. But what Stevie Wonder has done, like many soul singers have, has made this type of music internationally popular. As the covers illustrate, his music has not only been performed by other artists, it’s been used to create [b]new[/b] songs in other genres. Nothing to be dismissed.

@bijouxbroussard I am not dismissing Stevie Wonder's music at all. Far from it. It's not to my taste but I recognise he has a huge following and II greatly admire his overcoming blindness to play the piano - and to write music.

I like blues and some jazz, but not soul so much, but I like music from all sorts of eras and genres created over hundreds of years anyway.

Instead I questioned if his or anyone's pop music will be able to survive.

Stevie Wonder's own music and the general style may or may not last by fashion and personal taste. His work has not been around long enough yet for a fair time test.

It's also possible for a given style to go right out of fashion but be "discovered" by later generations: that happened to J.S. Bach's works!

Much more importantly and worryingly, I asked if his or any other such music from now will be allowed to survive in readily-accessible forms, not by fashion but by a powerful combination of commercial acts and technical developments.

@ArishMell Unless society régresses, and technology becomes stagnant, I can’t imagine why it wouldn’t survive. If humankind is here and still progressing (with the inclusion of all voices) our music should be here, too. 😳

@bijouxbroussard The threat is the opposite: not stagnating "technology" but developments rendering in any contemporary recording and archiving format no longer playable.

So far, music, like all the arts, has been growing and surviving, even thriving and we can enjoy something written 500 years ago as much as something written only 5 years ago. That availability is due very much to the past centuries' media - ink on paper - not being obsolete.

Unfortunately modern, electronic media are changing so rapidly that without proper care to protect it from degradation or built-in equipment obsolescence, anything recorded in [i]our [/i]own time could simply vanish within a couple of decades.

For alongside the technical developments, are also commercial interests:

"Streaming services" are notorious for discouraging new artistes by paying little or no royalties, and apparently keeping material only for limited times before deleting it from their archives. I do not know how wide are their genres though: are they pop-music only?

While those whose only radio listening is to commercial stations supported by advertising are very unlikely to be exposed to fresh, new ideas or wider genres. I can't imagine most such stations commissioning new work and supporting new talent, in any genre, either.

@ArishMell That only means that some music may be enjoyed by the privileged few (like in the past) unless new ways are found to share it. And also some people will remain closed to certain genres—just like some are now, just like before.

@bijouxbroussard Well, I don't know what mean by "privileged", but we may find a lot will disappears, over the decades, discarded by commercial imperatives to concentrate on the latest and most ephemeral for pure sales and advertising-agency reasons. Or on media no longer physically useable.

That's what worries me about your "test of time": It is not what we hear now, be it by Stevie Wonder or Hildegard of Bingham, but what will be available in 50 or 500 years' time. Actually around [i]9[/i]00 years for the Mediaeval abbess... Though anyone claiming to predict human societies 50 years hence is guessing at best, and over 100 years away, fantasising!


What do you mean by "certain genres" being "closed" to some people? Your word "privileged" seems to imply economically. Yes, public performances can be too expensive or inaccessible geographically, but are not the only way to explore the vast and ever-growing world of music. So I cannot think of any that are "closed" to anyone merely by availability.

So by taste and comprehension?


Not everyone will [i]like [/i]all genres of music and all music within even those genres they otherwise enjoy as a whole - obviously, but that's purely by personal taste.

For example, I still have a cassette album of Bonnie Tyler, and whilst enjoying her [i]Total Eclipse Of The Heart[/i] think her version of [i]Band Of Gold[/i] a disco travesty by an arranger too lazy to think about the lyrics. Rather odd, I thought, for a woman singer to treat it like that.


Not everyone will [i]understand [/i]all music they hear, player or not. Some does need you to[i] listen[/i] to appreciate it fully and not just [i]hear[/i] it as washing-up music, but that understanding is by choice, is related to taste or interest, and has parallels in most worthwhile leisure pursuits.

For example, it was years before I realised Classical (capital 'C') piano sonatas do have melodies inside their blizzards of semiquavers and meandering variations. It's still not my favourite style but at least by listening I learnt to a modest level usually to identify the basic tunes, even though I can't play the piano.

.....
[i]
Coda: [/i]

I have no idea if that cassette tape is still playable, being a magnetised coating on plastic ribbon needing a special machine to play it, so not likely itself to stand the test of time.

@ArishMell There is a certain snobbery about music, especially classical, when compared to later genres like pop, jazz, hip-hop, or even country. And "closed" meaning personal choice or taste, but also [b]bias[/b]. That’s especially true with hip-hop, metal and country. Some people won’t listen to them on principle.

So by "privileged" I was just acknowledging that not everyone is exposed to all kinds to music.

I can’t predict the future and won’t pretend that I can, but 500 years from now if [b]humankind[/b] still exists, I imagine our music will, too. Who knows, there may even be the option of having a chip implanted so one could listen to music by touching one’s nose !

Interesting speaking with you ! Thanks for your input.

@bijouxbroussard Oddly, I have encountered far more snobbery around pop-music than "classical".

Many people might not be exposed to a wide range of music but I think most of them from their own choice, not from lack of opportunity.

If humankind exists 500 years ahead.... Mercifully neither you nor I will be here to find out.

@ArishMell [quote] Many people might not be exposed to a wide range of music but I think most of them from their own choice, not from lack of opportunity.[/quote]
Yes, and no. That’s where bias comes into it. If one’s family (for example), isn’t interested in certain genres, it’s not likely to be a part of your world unless you seek it out for yourself. My parents both came from musical families and liked everything, so I was very lucky. But I have friends who don’t understand my tastes.

@bijouxbroussard I can imagine that most of the music that has been popular over the last 20 years will not be around in another 20.

@ReneeT Same here. For every artist whose music is being "sampled" 50-70 years later, there are so many others who were only popular back then. And I strongly suspect those doing the sampling of original music will have [b]their[/b] 15 minutes and then vanish, as well.

@bijouxbroussard I think "sampling" - mixing random quotes and synthetic rhythm tracks to create purely-ephemeral material - is cheating, by people unable to create anything original for themselves, and usually ignores credits and royalties to the original composers and performers.

Covers, though, are a different matter and provided it respects the work is the best way to keep music alive long after its first appearance - even centuries after its composers' lives.


Kept alive in unexpected ways sometimes. Many of us will have heard various orchestral or brass-band arrangements of Beatles or Kinks melodies, but I switched on my radio one day just inside a "classical" string quartet piece. After a few bars, I thought the tune sounded like Led Zeppelin's [i]Stairway To Heaven,[/i] and that, "Oh, so that's where Page & Co. found the melody!" Then the cadenza started. Eh? That does not sound like Haydn or Mozart, nor even a Romantic-era piece! It was indeed Led Zeppelin's [i]Stairway To Heaven,[/i] the presenter afterwards telling us the chamber-music quartet (sorry, I forget its name) having recorded a note-by-note transcription to violins, guitar solo and all, as a 70th Birthday present to Jimmy Page!


Yet I think it's always been the case that only some music survives. For all that is still known from Mediaeval to present time there must be a lot that has gone for ever. A lot of that perhaps did deserve to sink without trace, but with it must have been much still worth playing.

Very occasionally something pops up as a fading manuscript found in some attic or museum, and enjoys a new life! Or a composer who never made the Big Time in his her own era, becomes recognised by later generations.