Scientists show there were 3 revolutions in popular music - punk wasn't one of them.

Buzzer · May 14, 2015

The 3 periods were 63-64, early 80s, early 90s. I've got to say I'm rather surprised by the results as I'd say that the change from, say 74 to 78, was greater than from 79 to 82 but the eggheads say otherwise.

http://www.economist.com/news/scien...-periods?fsrc=scn/tw/te/pe/ed/firstprincipals

It's all to do with the dips on this chart:

Love this quote: "Their conclusion, paraphrased, is that although the British did not start the revolution, they were perhaps its Bolsheviks—pushing it to a conclusion it would otherwise not have reached."

daveinprague · May 14, 2015

Ive noticed that, particularly in Reggae, and RnB/Soul... Foundation, early reggae, and 90s RnB are more popular than whats out there at the moment.
Ive listened to a lot of London soul parties of late, and seems to be all old school.

Really havnt heard much decent new stuff for a while.

Buzzer · May 14, 2015

daveinprague said:
Ive noticed that, particularly in Reggae, and RnB/Soul... Foundation, early reggae, and 90s RnB are more popular than whats out there at the moment.
Ive listened to a lot of London soul parties of late, and seems to be all old school.

Really havnt heard much decent new stuff for a while.

Prince Fatty's latest is quite superb. Mixing old and new, The Skints might be a little too poppy for your tastes but they feature Tippa Irie on a few tracks. And a few more very old school names still making good new music: Lee Scratch Perry and Sly and Robbie.

neilbard · May 14, 2015

daveinprague · May 14, 2015

Well, ive noticed in reggae that there are now new tunes coming out on very old rhythms.. of the new people, I rate Tarrus Riley, and like you say, some of the old names are still stepping up. 90s seemed to be quite an influential time for reggae and soul. Dont know about other genres

Machiavelli · May 14, 2015

What more tosh from The Economist?

Gwylan · May 14, 2015

I can't get the article to open but I'm a bit bemused by this idea of a musical revolution in 1980s, can't think of any significant band that transformed music then. New Romantics - really? The start of rap? Possibly but it really took off a couple of years later. We had the dying days of disco and the slow metamorphosis of reggae into dancehall. Love to know what the article thinks was so revolutionary

knocky1 · May 14, 2015

Revolutions in music started with the Gramaphone which was proceeded in a similar roundabout way by tape, the Cassette and the CD. The introduction of digitally compressed files curtailed the loops monopoly.

Megazone · May 14, 2015

Where did these music revolutions take us?

We've now got x-factor and Britain's got talent.

loz · May 14, 2015

So the advent of rock and roll in the 50s was not a revolution in music...well f my old boots!

KZNSeagull · May 14, 2015

Perhaps they mean guitar bands in the 60's, the rise of electronic music in the 80's and the rise of sampling and ripping everybody else off in the 90's? Punk was still guitar based, even if played in a very different manner.

KZNSeagull · May 14, 2015

Megazone said:
Where did these music revolutions take us?

We've now got x-factor and Britain's got talent.

What have those shows got to do with making great music? They are all about making money.

Buzzer · May 14, 2015

Megazone said:
Where did these music revolutions take us?

We've now got x-factor and Britain's got talent.

BINGO! I knew someone would come out with that line. If that's the only music you expose yourself to then you deserve the bad music.

It's been explained enough times before but music is in very rude health. The musicians might well be screwed by Spotify and iTunes and the like but there's as much great new music out there as there has ever been and talent shows have been a part of British telly since Hugh Green and Mickey Most. The trouble is that access to music and the formats have changed so if you expect to get spoon-fed then all you will get is what you describe. I've no sympathy for you.

Megazone · May 14, 2015

Buzzer said:
BINGO! I knew someone would come out with that line. If that's the only music you expose yourself to then you deserve the bad music.

It's been explained enough times before but music is in very rude health. The musicians might well be screwed by Spotify and iTunes and the like but there's as much great new music out there as there has eve been. The trouble is that access to it has changed so if you expect to get spoon-fed then all you will get is what you describe. I've no sympathy for you.

I listen to everything from The Taste (Rory Gallagher) to Joris Voorn.

By the sounds of things, you seem slightly out of touch and totally unaware of modern music. You have my sympathy.

Have you heard of Logic or Appleton? Very revolutionary in relation to modern music.

Bold Seagull · May 14, 2015

This is now only going one way....

Buzzer · May 14, 2015

Megazone said:
By the sounds of things, you seem slightly out of touch and totally unaware of modern music. You have my sympathy.

Genuine question - and I really don't want to start a willy-waving contest - but how have you possibly come to that conclusion from my reply?

Stato · May 14, 2015

I heard this being proposed on the radio last week. My immediate reaction was to wonder why they have taken their sample from just the American chart and why they think that singles charts can give the whole picture. This ignores underground music scenes, it ignores clubs, live music and albums. This means that, to provide some examples, what Barrett era Pink Floyd did doesn't get counted as it was in the UFO club, not the singles chart, the move away from song sheets to recorded music is not taken into account, the advent of Led Zeppelin type stadium rock is largely ignored because it was largely live and album based, punk gets ignored because it was largely a New York and British thing, Hip Hop is only taken into account when it starts finding its way into the singles chart, the synth era would be seen as starting nearly a decade after 'Autobahn'.

Their methodology is fatally flawed and they should have been sent back to think again before they even began research.

midnight_rendezvous · May 14, 2015

Can't believe after decades of trying no one has come up with a winning formula that isn't just Pachelbel's canon.

Megazone · May 14, 2015

Buzzer said:
Genuine question - and I really don't want to start a willy-waving contest - but how have you possibly come to that conclusion from my reply?

These days we have 'underground' music which means the silly chart you put up doesn't count for all music, just the silly pop stuff you've been fed.

Buzzer · May 14, 2015

Stato said:
I heard this being proposed on the radio last week. My immediate reaction was to wonder why they have taken their sample from just the American chart and why they think that singles charts can give the whole picture. This ignores underground music scenes, it ignores clubs, live music and albums. This means that, to provide some examples, what Barrett era Pink Floyd did doesn't get counted as it was in the UFO club, not the singles chart, the move away from song sheets to recorded music is not taken into account, the advent of Led Zeppelin type stadium rock is largely ignored because it was largely live and album based, punk gets ignored because it was largely a New York and British thing, Hip Hop is only taken into account when it starts finding its way into the singles chart, the synth era would be seen as starting nearly a decade after 'Autobahn'.

Their methodology is fatally flawed and they should have been sent back to think again before they even began research.

On a serious note, you might be onto something here. Maybe the music scene had different time-lags from underground to mainstream in the early 60s to the early 80s and as you say, the real revolution for the 80s started a few years earlier but just took longer to be reflected in the chart music.

The interesting thing for me is I can see the big change with Beat bands and the Brit invasion in the 60s, I can see the change in the late 70s/early 80s with punk and new wave (we'll agree to disagree with the scientists on the timing) but I'm struggling to see a massive change in the early 90s. Maybe because I'm looking at it through UK-centric eyes but the rave scene for us was a game changer and that was late 80s. Britpop was another but that was mid-90s.

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