Music Trends in Pop Culture 1950-2000

Music Trends in Popular Culture 1950-2000

For as long as there has been recorded history, there has been music. It affects the way we feel, it has been essential for communication, and it captures the essence of generations. The years from 1950 to 2000 represent the largest strides in all aspects of music: how it is recorded, sold, produced, distributed, and ultimately enjoyed by the consumer. The rise of country, the jazz and swing age, and payola in the fifties, the protest minded folk, and psychedelic rock of the sixties, the mega-superstars, punk rock, and arena rock of the 70s, new wave, rap, and music videos in the 80s, and finally grunge and metal in the 90s all make the largest expansion and public exploration the world of music has ever seen.

Pre 1950
The first half of the 19C saw many advances in how music was played, and how it was produced. The electrification of instruments (guitar, bass, etc.), better recording technologies, and the invention of the conception of a teenager as consumer with expendable income to consume the product. The way music was being composed was also rapidly changing, with the idea that you could have a building, with employees coming to punch the clock everyday, to churn out hits of all styles. Some of the time when an artist recorded an album, it rarely had original material, they were often drawing from these professional songwriting pools. Tin Pan Alley and eventually the Brill building in NYC pumped out the hits from as early as 1885 to today. By the 1950s jazz had become a cultural phenomenon, country was tearing up the airwaves, and the general wealth of most of North America during the 1950s allowed many families to have enough money to purchase a stereo system for their home. Along comes Elvis Presley, with his girating crotch and dashing good looks. Issuing singles, which were easy to make, and cheap for youth to purchase. Eventually the teenage sons and daughters started buying a new style of music, sometimes called crooning, which took the basics of the black popular music of the day, and giving it much more saccharine and definably “white” style(s) of music. This was the beginning of a huge escalation of the music industry as a whole, influencing generations of people to come….

1960s
The nineteen sixties are often spoken of .nostalgically, and then re-sold in many forms every decade to a new group of teenagers every ten years of so. The experiment of Woodstock was vainly reattempted, to mixed results in the late 1990s. This was as politically wild and culturally progressive time in history for sure, but it often seems like it was the MOST revolutionary decade ever, part of the sell to counter culture types who buy into it. But there is good reason for all this hype; there were some significant changes in music that heavily influence a variety of communities.

Developments in sound and recording technology, the popularization of drug use, the rise of folk and folk/rock, psychedelic rock, the protest song (which had been around for years and years, but now it was becoming incredibly easy to get and acoustic guitar and start a group), Many amazing artists from the early 1960s are often overlooked for the decade’s post 1965 musical/cultural icons.
One of the hottest politicians ever, increasing the new found teenage frenzy surrounding celebrities, was two time Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. And in the USA, Malcolm X, MLK, and many others would stir the revolutionary tide of the black mentality of the time. This resulted in some of the best music ever put to record being made.

International tensions of the cold war, the “illegal” war in Vietnam, recent memories of the now stale Korean conflict, and the black/women’s rights movements were all lingering in the air when many a young artists decided to express themselves, and tell their stories though song. One the most potent of these young singer/songwriters was Bob Dylan. Still writing songs and recording today, he is generally considered one of the most important artists of the 20th century. His mid to late 60s output especially because of its incendiary protest songs, and original beat poet like lyrical delivery made him a star very early on in his career. Songs like “Blowing in the wind”, “Masters of war”, “Rainy day women # 12 and #35, and of course, the song that changed everything, the top song on Rolling Stones’ 500 greatest songs of all time list: Like a Rolling Stone. At five minutes long, it was the longest single to be played on radio (up to this point, most singles clocked in at 2min 30sec or less), and its popularity coincided with Dylan’s going electric at the 1967 Newport Folk festival. He inspired a countless number of his peers, Jimi Hendrix and The Byrds both re-recorded Dylan tunes early on, to great success. The most covered, and probably most prolific artist of the decade, if not this half on the century.


Black and female artists started to make positive progress with their causes expressed through music by the late 1960s. The jazz of John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, the soothing and soulful records coming out of Motown (Detroit at this time..), the rise of female singer songwriters such as Buffie St Marie, and Joni Mitchell, showed the other that everybody should have the same basic human rights, without regard the race, gender, class, or religion.

1970s

As in the nineteen sixties, the seventies saw many major changes in the industry, and the world. The cold war was looming above the world, living with the constant though that nuclear war could break out at any second. If Woodstock was considered the apex of the sixties hippy/positive love scene, then the Rolling Stones concert at Altamont Speedway in California on December 6, 1969, was the end of that ideological dream world, and the begging of the world’s harsh realities setting in on that generation. Music had become a more and more consumable product, the introduction of the cassette tape, eight track tape, and soaring sales of vinyl would dominate this decade, leading to massive never before seen profits in the record industry. As bands like the Rolling Stones got bigger and bigger, and sound and lighting technologies were being revolutionized, a new breed of concert tour, and expression of consumer demand, led to stadium rock concerts that seemed to just get bigger and bigger as the decade went on. The “stadium rock” is still used today to describe mega selling bands that play huge venues with huge stage shows.

As the general youth were becoming more and more cynical and jaded, music started to pop up everywhere that had so far never been heard. Heavy metal, punk rock, and funk were formed from the ashes of discontent of the previous era’s ideals were burnt to a crisp. Adult contemporary was another new type of music to emerge. As the teens of previous generation who had consumed the sweet sounds of their youth, wanted something the same as they got older. AM radio along with stadium tours prompted a huge rise in record sales for these wuss rock groups. The deaths of some of the world’s greatest musicians in the early half of the decade also left a void that needed to be filled. Led Zeppelin, who had some home grown success in the UK in the late sixties, would rise to be the penultimate rock and roll machine of the 1970s.

1980s

The 1980s saw another development in the cultural phenomenon that was now popular music: the music video. MTV hit the air waves on August 1st 1981, and forever changed the way we hear, and more importantly see, music. The new connection between image and sound would from this day forth be an important part of the business. The giant stadium soft rock and hard rock bands of the seventies all of a sudden had to worry about how they looked. MTV stuck mostly to a small rotation of white artists as the station’s popularity increased. The release of Michael Jackson’s epically hit album “Thriller” in 1982 would quickly change MTV’s tune. The album was a smash success, but they still wouldn’t play it until the record company threatened to pull all its white artists that were getting play on the station. MTV reluctantly agreed, helping to make Thriller and its related videos, some of the best of all time.

Many artists from the previous decades were starting to feel left out. The sudden focus on youth and beauty via the music video didn’t suit some of these (now dubbed) “dinosaur rockers” of the previous decades. A new young breed of music (video) star emerged: Madonna, MJ, etc. would dominate the charts for this decade.

Rap had its roots in 70s funk, poetry, jazz, and protest. Although somewhat visible in the late seventies, by the late 80s rap had exploded onto the mainstream. With the success of artist such as NWA, Sir Mix A lot, MC Hammer, among many others brought mainstream attention to the genre. As in previous decades, and with any new expression of art, there will always be detractors. The violent imagery of street life, drugs, and extremely poor attitudes towards women, cause many an uproar, eventually leading to the formation on the PMRC (parent’s music resource center). This group came up with the now infamous “Explicit Content” stickers on most music.

Punk rock also made a comeback, underground this time. A number of small independent records labels popped up all across the world, to help release music by bands that would normally not have a chance to. Minor Threat, Black Flag, the Dead Kennedys, and their contemporaries taught a whole new generation to rock hard, think for themselves, fight against the horribly right wing politics of the time. Many bands in California, specifically the “Sunset Strip” in LA took the lessons they learned from the blues rock stadium Gods and punk rockers to make what would become “hair metal”. Honest and earnest at first, the genre became watered down and filled with “power ballads” by the early nineties. A couple notable bands of this genre would be: Poison, Motley Crue, GnR, etc.

1990s

By the early nineties, it looked like we were in for another decade of schmaltzy sweet power ballads, and power metal hairdos, until …..Nirvana. Thankfully they came along and saved the day for rock and roll, and completely changed the tide of the industry in the early nineties. This new rock, “grunge” by the media’s definition, was nothing new. Most grunge bands were influenced by the stoner-rock, heavy metal, and punk rock that came before them, therefore lumping the countless sub categories into one, media friendly term.

Rap also surged in popularity among all kinds of youth, black and white youngsters were soaking up the violent message these gangster rappers were often spewing. Although at the same time, mainstream producers were taking the basics of rap into high end studios and producing a newer updated version of R and B that seemed to fill the void of people who wanted a cleaner artist to listen to. Heavy metal also came out of nowhere in the nineties to top various charts and sell huge amounts of records. Without having any regularly played videos, I might add….

The dawn of the internet’s popularity as a household item began around 1995, and exploded over the next decade, leading into the 2000s and the downloading debacle that will dominate this next decade…..