Musical tastes change over time. As far as popular music goes, you can count on what was popular 10 years ago, not being popular today. That is just the way it is.
And the proven fact that music has gotten so chipped into specific classes makes things even that much more limiting. An artist must stay within their "category" or their label and perhaps even their audience will become agitated.
Yes, we've become the "give me everything" culture. Take Television. With cable T. V, there are at present so many choices that coming to a decision on what to observe often takes so long as the average show lasts. And who does not often watch more than one show at a time to help avoid those pesky commercials.
We often feel exactly the same way about our music. We'd like what we want... And we need it now. Thus we each have our own music on our MP3 players and rarely jump into new music. Long gone are the days of 60's radio when you never knew what was going to be played next and regularly heard new music and new styles all the time. You seldom got stuck in one category or one musical style.
Even the bands themselves back then, often played many fashions of music. One minute they played a blues song, next a country song, and next a folk song. You could not specify them into one type of music like today.
But Some Things Don't Really Change
It's strange how some fashions of music are always there. Although they may go out of favored style, they always appear to have an audience of some degree. The Blues is one of those styles. Although it was made over 100 years back, there's still a massive enough following for the style to have many magazines and online radio stations dedicated to the music.
What's the reason?
I think there are 2 reasons.
First, plenty of other styles are based mostly on The Blues. Certainly jazz, and country rock, and all sorts of rock and roll came right from the blues. After all , it was Muddy Waters who said... "The blues had a baby, and they called it Rock and Roll."
Secondly, as people learn more about the music they like, whether rock and roll or country or jazz, they want to learn lots more about where the music came from. And these types of music came straight from the blues. The chord structure and harmonic inclinations are direct descendants of blues musician's from over 50 years ago.
Yes music lovers want to know the history of the blues music they adore. So the music of blues guitarists like Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, T-Bone Walker, and tons of other creators of this music will always be popular. Sooner or later, they are going to be "discovered" by the next generation who would like to know the history. But in truth they're being "re-discovered" as they've been by each generation for over 100 years.
So that the lineage continues. Supporters of The Black Keys, are led to Howlin ' Wolf. And that leads them to Robert Johnson and Skip James and a bunch of blues originators who taught him. Sooner or later they're going to get back to the very beginning and W.C. Handy.
This search is inescapable. Just like it's inevitable that preferred music tastes will continue to change.
And the proven fact that music has gotten so chipped into specific classes makes things even that much more limiting. An artist must stay within their "category" or their label and perhaps even their audience will become agitated.
Yes, we've become the "give me everything" culture. Take Television. With cable T. V, there are at present so many choices that coming to a decision on what to observe often takes so long as the average show lasts. And who does not often watch more than one show at a time to help avoid those pesky commercials.
We often feel exactly the same way about our music. We'd like what we want... And we need it now. Thus we each have our own music on our MP3 players and rarely jump into new music. Long gone are the days of 60's radio when you never knew what was going to be played next and regularly heard new music and new styles all the time. You seldom got stuck in one category or one musical style.
Even the bands themselves back then, often played many fashions of music. One minute they played a blues song, next a country song, and next a folk song. You could not specify them into one type of music like today.
But Some Things Don't Really Change
It's strange how some fashions of music are always there. Although they may go out of favored style, they always appear to have an audience of some degree. The Blues is one of those styles. Although it was made over 100 years back, there's still a massive enough following for the style to have many magazines and online radio stations dedicated to the music.
What's the reason?
I think there are 2 reasons.
First, plenty of other styles are based mostly on The Blues. Certainly jazz, and country rock, and all sorts of rock and roll came right from the blues. After all , it was Muddy Waters who said... "The blues had a baby, and they called it Rock and Roll."
Secondly, as people learn more about the music they like, whether rock and roll or country or jazz, they want to learn lots more about where the music came from. And these types of music came straight from the blues. The chord structure and harmonic inclinations are direct descendants of blues musician's from over 50 years ago.
Yes music lovers want to know the history of the blues music they adore. So the music of blues guitarists like Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, T-Bone Walker, and tons of other creators of this music will always be popular. Sooner or later, they are going to be "discovered" by the next generation who would like to know the history. But in truth they're being "re-discovered" as they've been by each generation for over 100 years.
So that the lineage continues. Supporters of The Black Keys, are led to Howlin ' Wolf. And that leads them to Robert Johnson and Skip James and a bunch of blues originators who taught him. Sooner or later they're going to get back to the very beginning and W.C. Handy.
This search is inescapable. Just like it's inevitable that preferred music tastes will continue to change.
About the Author:
Rick Honeyboy Hart is a professional blues guitar strummer. He's played in numerous bands over the years and now helps others guitar players learn blues guitar on his internet site www.BluesGuitarInsider.com
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