trying to figure out if I'm just old or there's a real cultural transformation. The '60s on seem to have produced an endless stream of tunes: movies, TV shows, pop music of endless varieties, that people still remember & hum to themselves. Do we now? 1/.
even advertising jingles, which were evil & designed to get caught in your head, seem to have been abandoned: I think in the '90s they started just recycling Classic Rock tunes that were already caught in your head & tried to piggyback 2/
one could argue the key move came in the '80s w the invention of "Classic Rock", i.e., recycling '60s & '70s stuff for a new generation, then of course Hip Hop w sampling was the first "postmodern pastiche" but there was still lots of new tunes for those who sought it out 3/
it just seems strange that you still go to, say, a restaurant in and they're playing a tape of '70s American pop tunes, half of which I hated at the time, but I don't notice anyone with equivalent cheesy pop tunes with hummable tunes from, say, the '00s. 4/
but crucially, I don't see contemporary equivalents of the Get Smart or Munsters theme song getting played by ska bands or any bands, as a joke, because everyone knows them. Breakbeat is all playing with '60s, '70s, '80s stuff. Will we be playing with it forever? 5/
presumably not. The question I'm trying to figure out is, has the artisanal production of music (i.e., actual bands) retreated into a more artsy or genre space where hooks & catchy stuff is frowned on, while the industrial music users have all the material they need already 6/
so they have no need to encourage the equivalent of start-ups, at least to produce catchy theme music, jingles, movie background music, pop hits, etc etc. Or, alternately, if I'm just missing out on the good stuff because I'm not cool enough. 7/
