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Jon Timbrook
In this blog I will explore the genres that make up the pop charts over the last 50 years, and maybe how we can figure out how to get people to start rock n’ rollin’ some more.
The next graph shows the classification of popular song into genres such as country, rock and roll, and rhythm and blues as well as a multitude of subgenres such as dance-pop, synth-pop, heartland rock, roots rock, etc. Graph. As you can see, the (X) axis is each genre numbered, containing roughly 3-4 sub genres. The vertical (Y) axis is time in years, with grey shading representing years of musical revolutions. The interesting part is you can see the popularity of each genre can be seen by how wide across the (X) axis each color expands. For instance; look at the first column, the red one, #2 for hip hop/rap/gangsta rap/old school. You can see that around late 1990 it begins to get wider. This means that the amount of songs in the top 100 that feature musical qualities associated with these genres was very high.
I will use this graph and my knowledge of popular music throughout history to give an explanation as to why popular music may seem to be in the shitter right now (no offense Adele, T Swift, Bruno Mars, Beyoncé, and probably like Maroon 5 and Coldplay or some shit). Each revolution that I mentioned before comes with years following where most of the popular music is the charts are NOT very musically diverse. After the 1963 revolution, soul & rock genres dominated the charts, the 1983 revolution is associated with the expansion of 3 styles (8,11,13) New Wave, Disco, and Hard Rock and a contraction of 3 styles (3,7,12) soft rock, country, soul and R&B related tags. The largest revolution in 1991 is the expansion of rap mentioned before. This revolution I feel we are still seeing the fruit of.
As I have talked about in recent blogs, my music taste has always been kind of peculiar to those who share the same generation as me. I grew up listening to bands such as Bob Segar, Motley Crue, and Rush, not Justin Beiber, One Direction, or the Jonas Brothers, and way to many other Disney and pop stars like most of my peers. Don’t get me wrong there are plenty of people my age that listen to what I do, real bands, and other good music, but a large majority of my generation (millennials) are still riding the run off from the rap/hip hop train or even MOST of the time I notice too it is pop country or some other pop icon like Lady Gaga or Katy Perry or whatever DJ happens to sample one of their songs (mad respect for those 2 ladies though). I really didn’t get into popular hip hop and rap of my time, but I did enjoy previous generations rappers like Eminem, Tech N9ne, Juicy J, Jay-Zm Ice Cube, Dre, nas,Biggie, Pac, and the early 90’s late 80’s old school/ gangsta rap opened that door for the genre, and by that time I was in high school and it was the mid to late 2000s and that train had left already, leaving us with a generation of kids who want to be rappers just like Kanye. Fortunately my generation also has the choice to listen to any music almost ever created in any time at the click of a button by youtube and torrenting sites. As for the fluctuation of popular music style through time, as a rocker, I firmly believe it will take something like the punk movement in Great Britain in the early mid to late 60’s with bands like the sex pistols or the punk movement in the United states in places like LA and New York that lead to the music of the 80’s and bands like War, Bad Brains, Fear, and suicidal tenancies, and guns n’ roses.
My hopes are that bands like Fidlar, Royal Blood, Halestorm, Dead Poet Society, Arctic Monkeys, and Jack White, are out there influencing kids to keep Rock n’ Roll alive. We just need the kids like me who grew up listening to Nirvana, Pantera, Slipknot, Godsmack, Avenged Sevenfold, Killswitch Engage, and Disturbed, like me to start making music of their own to spark a new generation of Rock n’ Roll. Like what happened to all those kids who listened to Oh, Sleeper, Haste the Day, and Devil Wears Prada? Lets show people that there are still plenty of who like to have a energetic, fast paced, live shows that leave the crowd sweaty and horse from screaming. That’s what it should be about, instead of going to worship the person on stage.
Looking back at the Graph mentioned above, if you look closely at the top of the graph in the area for the year 2010 you could see which genres are growing as to declining in frequency in the hot 100. Numbers 13, 9, 6,11, and 1 seem to be the most frequent. Even though it is 2016 right now and there is 5 years uncounted for, Female Vocalist, Singer-songwriter, dance and blues-rock, alternative, and country are pretty prominent genres today. I still think EDM and subgenres like Dubstep is today’s disco but I’ll save that for another time.
I think what I have decided is to just stay away from pop music and discover your own stuff because that’s where the real fun is.
I look forward to seeing Fidlar with James in November. I can’t wait to be apart of that crowd LOL. Check them out on youtube. You can listen to the whole first album in 39 minutes so quit wasting time!
