Most Important Music Cultral Movement EVER
 

Okay, here's a good debating question we had in the pub a while back.
Have you noticed great music often is tied to a social/political scene or movement?
I wonder if the climate is sometimes just wrong for a great band.
Like punk bands today would be selling loads had they been around in 79.
Black metal today is nothing compared to it's heyday.
The climate has to be right doesn't it?
Summer of love don't work now as we have the choice of thousands of summer love festivals all mainly corporate.
Beatle mania came out of a climate of new hope after Kennedy's death and a new government in the UK.
Punk exploded thanks to the system of old bands like the stones not reaching the kids mixed with a class system so terrible.
Britpop also came from a new Labour Govt.
What about Elvis and the birth of Rock?
What about the birth of metal with Zep and the Who and stadium rock.
Even the prog rock for it's amazing musical achievements?
I reckon many bands just come about at the wrong time when society is just past it or into something else and it is the explosion of cultral need and musical statements all coming together at once.
What about Rap in the US in the eighties for black movement?
I want to debate what you think was the most important musical movement EVER.
For me it was punk in 76-79 both here and in the States by far but I want to know what others think.
If you say the eighties electro movement you are in for a hard time!!!
I say this because I keep wondering what the next explosion will be. There always seems to be a lull where the ****e pop bands come back for a while till the next explosion.

Robert Johnson entering a studio is the single most important musical event in regards to popular music.

You know, many people will say that Elvis was the most important person who invented Rock.
The thing is, while I like a bit of Elvis like pissed on New Years eve but not at home if you get me and he is dated, I have to say that all the old people say that when he came on the screen it was just like God had arrived.
He was so different and unique as an act.
Pioneers are great but what I mean is what changed the world?
I would say Elvis, psychedilic movement as some right wing in the sates blame the liberalisation for all the problems today seriously they do and they have a point about family values.
But to me it was punk because it made so many bands just strum away and play both here and over the pond and it was political and artful and music and the full package and I was only 5 in 79 so I can only go on what I read and learn.

I'd have to say the internet. Not only does it allow us to be exposed to bands and artists that we likely never would have heard of otherwise, but for aspiring musician's its beyond a blessing. Long gone are the days where you have to get all sorts of books or pay for lessons (though these things should still be encouraged!) since all the information is so readily avaliable online.

But as for specific music cultures, I can only say that for me personally I find the 80s thrash movement to be the most interesting and had the most profound effect on my life. Megadeth, Slayer, Anthrax, Testament, Exodus, etc. really spoke to me about being a poor youth from a broken family and helped to vent frustrations about being pissed off with the world.

I think the Hippie movement was probably the most important cultural movement in America's history, not to mention musically.

Never thought of the internet.
That is true.
Has any band made it big yet through the net?
I know what you mean about a movement in your youth that grabs you and from then on you just love it.
You get pressed and gold plated in that era forever.
For me at my youth I loved the Who even though they were long gone and behind blue eyes is such a brilliant song I used to sing at school and get in trouble.
For me too the pistols and the clash were so energetic and the kids at school loved pop and soul music and I just couldn't understand why teenage kids like music for middle aged men with a mortgage.
I was never into heavy metal but I always liked kids who were because they were individual and they could play guitar....well!
The metal movement was massive. I always liked Maiden. That movement was huge.
By the way some people who know about this stuff say Chuck Berry changed the world!
I love Chuck Berry. I love Monkey Business as it makes me think of all those boring chores you have to do.

The shift from the 50's to 60's...as in the whole counterculture/Haight-Ashbury movement.. it's entertaining history.

Looks like the hippy movement will get it already.
What about Punk?
Someone come out for punk here!
Didn't the hippy movement fail?
Billy Brag said "the hippy movement promised us the earth but all they gave us was trenchcoats and broken dreams"
Punk spurned so many bands it is just unbelievable.
We can include iggy and co when we say punk.
Both US and UK.
DIY music.

Socially, I think the most important record release was The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. It gave a modern musical voice to the American civil rights movement. Even strictly as an artifact in the record-world, it remains one of the most influential reocrds ever (and one that still holds up).


But as far as a movement goes, I have to cast my vote for the punk explosion of the late 70's. Every band that's mattered since then owes a debt to some of those bands. It doesn't even really matter how narrowly you define punk; even if you exclude bands like Talking Heads and PIL, the influence the original punk bands had is mindblowing. It didn't change the world as it was supposed to, but it gave a few generations enough hope to suppose that it might happen.

Punk also had an effect on the way news and magazines etc were made and some would say the way art was produced.
DIY culture and anyone can attitude that prevails today.
For me, instead of the hippy movement which challenged the ruling order's ideas the punk movement made new rules and started a new movement.

Easly the hippies in the 60s. Monterey Pop and Woodstock.

I'm quite worried that there's never really going to be a proper musical movement in my lifetime, the internet is the closest i've got so i'm going to go with that.

http://fusionanomaly.net/clashfullthrottle.jpg
http://www.cbgb.com/shrine/photos/New_Folder/BGR-1.jpg
http://vietnamnet.vn/dataimages/orig...SexPistols.jpg
http://www.southern.com/southern/ban...crass_live.jpg

Two words.

Chuck Berry.

=]

the internet by a ridiculous order of magnitude.

while the hippie and punk movements were significant to their generations, and those who want to try living up to ideals from the past, the initial cultural movement they provided was rather limited in its scope.

10 years later (as in when napster started and p2p sharing really took off) the internet is still finding new ways of providing new music to people in ways most people never imagined. and unlike the other music/culture movements it hasn't started losing its popularity in the mainstream.

we might not have a face or a festival to brand the net with yet but i think it's foolish to deny the massive impact the net is having on music and culture in our modern day.

In terms of influence on modern music, I think the Delta Blues movement takes the cake. Nothing, I mean NOTHING would have happened if there we never had the blues legends like Muddy Waters, B. B. King, Bo Diddley, Otis Redding, etc. There were earlier blues musicians and guitarists (like one of my favorites, Robert Johnson) but it was largely those legendary Chicago blues that brought it out as a real musical genre. And as far as I can tell, there wasn't too much that predated the blues aside from African-American spirituals and call-and-response music. I shudder to think what would have happened without them. We'd still be stuck with goddamn cracker music until the end of time.

1960's pirate radio.
From a British perspective.

I'm glad to hear that Europe doesn't exist.

1960s hippie movement. I so wish I was there to be part of it. :(

And where do you think The Beatles, The Who, The Kinks, and The Stones got their music? Surely not from other European bands? I can't think of a single early rock band that wasn't heavily influenced by delta blues or Elvis Presley. No, I can promise you we'd be living in a much sadder musical universe if it weren't for those few blues royalty.

He was referring to those obscure european hacks like Mozart, Brahms, Haydn, etc.

Ah! Those Hacks! Could'nt write a tune if their life depended on it.

Yeah fuck Beethoven! What did he ever do for music? Classical rubbish.

No choruses or guitar riffs either. Useless.

Deaf as a post too...and it shows.
Fuckin' amateur!

Mozart has some brilliant ass stuff.

Though I'm not the worlds biggest classical music guy and stuff from the baroque and classical era dosen't interest me as much as romanticism and 20th century stuff like Schoenberg and Stravinsky.

Mozart was a penniless layabout who put it about a bit. Apparently he wrote a couple of tunes too.

Mozart didn't even have the sense to die at 27.

...and gospel. That wasn't the point. Most rock bands were, and probably most blues artists were heavily inspired by romanticism and European folk.

Ummm...nope. European rock artists may have been influenced by European folk (The Stones and Led Zeppelin come to mind), but there weren't too many bluesmen living outside of the States prior to 1960. And no, they weren't influenced in the slightest by European folk. The blues were (forgive my generalization) entirely African in origin. The closest ancestor to the blues were old slave spirituals and call-and-response music; in short, the blues were African folk songs. Not European.

But I won't deny the influence of gospel. Aretha Franklin, Sam Cooke, Mahalia Jackson and Jackie Wilson are excellent examples of gospel and soul artists, and they in part influenced motown artists of the '60s. But not much (or any of it) led to the creation of rock n' roll (though I will admit its influence upon current RnB artists is astounding).

If you want to bring classical music into the argument, it becomes a very, VERY different discussion. I was referring to an era and its influence on modern music. Classical eras spanned hundreds of years and were as diverse as music is today. I have neither the knowledge nor the willpower to argue about the many phases and genres of classical music. So cut the defensive bullshit. I wasn't attacking Europe or its contributions to modern music, so stop act like I put a fucking "insignificant" brand on it.

Classical musics influence on modern music is pretty understated, you don't just hear it in prog and metal but in some electronica as well, and early Jazz musicians learned some things from the great composers too.

I'm not much of a fan of pure blues, and I'd rather listen to Bartók than Robert Johnson.

Early blues pioneers like Johnson absolutely set the foundation for most variations of RnR in both the UK and US. For that, it has to be considered the most important movement in music in the West. Like sam said, if you want to bring classical into the discussion, you have to separate the discussion itself into the movements of the West and that of Europe. It simply goes back too far and is too diverse to really compare to what we would call modern music.

As for the greatest thing that has happened to music in terms of it reaching the ears of the world...hands down the Internet. No contest.

Outside of the actual music-making element...I believe there is much to be said of the advent of the Neilsen Soundscan system in the US and Canada in '91. It brought a completely different level of competition in music sales to the West and with that, sometimes compromised the quality of music being produced. Think about the explosion of early-'90s teen pop...is anybody really going to advocate for that style of music and similar types which have spawned from it as opposed to that leading up to that time?

I don't agree with the internet.
It hasn't done anything yet has it?
or perhaps I am a dingbat

you have any idea how hard it was to find non-mainstream music before the late 90s? how about full discographies of non-mainstream music, and now in a convenient single download...

you're right in the sense that it hasn't actually physically changed music, as in creating a whole new style. but on the other hand it's been monumental in providing new music to people who would otherwise be entirely dependent on tv / radio / walmart to learn about new music.

i think the fact that the internet is still growing also makes it tougher to really consider the full impact it's having on music, culture and society.

Exactly right. It hasn't necessarily created its own genre, but it HAS transformed social means of attaining what is out there. Also, it gives anybody the hope of creating music and being heard because there is little to no more leg work involved. You just click some buttons and listen. Which I would classify as a cultural movement of sorts.