galacticjourney

Galactic Journey is all about spotlighting the exotic, from science fiction to the Space Race. Sometimes, the far out stuff can be found right here on Earth. I'm talking about music, man. Music.

Music is a weird thing. Unlike evolution in animals, which scientists believe is a smooth, unbroken process, music seems to evolve in sudden spurts. A genre will be born, flourish, and then become overripe. That's when another will spawn out of nowhere and supplant the old one.

For instance, in the 30s and 40s, popular music was all about Big Band Jazz. Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman, they all peaked pre-War and kept us dancing while our boys (and ladies) went to fight the Axis. After the War, that music evolved into a syrupy, schmaltzy mess. By 1954, the radio was almost unlistenable, filled as it was with crooning and orchestras.

Unless you tuned into the Black stations. There, a fusion of Western and Blues called "Rock n' Roll" was catching fire. The Crows and Chuck Berry were joined by White performers like Bill Haley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and, of course, Elvis Presley. All of a sudden, music was alive again. The late 50s, right around the time I started this column, were an exciting time for listening.

(Don't get me wrong -- Jazz was and is still a thing. Coltrane, Gillespie, Brubeck...just look at the recent popularity of Take Five, for instance. But it's for hipsters and hepcats, not for the hoi polloi.)

This may be a purely subjective view, but the 60s seem to mark another transition period for popular music. It seems to be floundering, torn between the classic (and now stale) riffs of the last decade and...something else. Of course, one rarely knows how a revolution will work itself out until its over, but there are a couple of movements might be indicative of where things are going.

(see the rest at Galactic Journey!)