War and music

I haven't posted in a while, not that anyone missed me crying about the Mets or other such things, but I'll get onto off-season plans for the Choke Artists from Flushing, the happiness of another college basketball season, thoughts on religion and something about the Anti-Christ that is Obama but I was running with this thought during my job this afternoon...

Listening to "Grown Folks Radio", i.e. R&B and soul from the 60's, 70's and 80's and the lyrics from yet another love song, I noticed that the lead singer was asking for love, it was a far cry from the singers of today who demand it and tell hoes to drop it like it's hot and the like.

It got me to thinking, something you have a lot of time to do when your job entails of moving files from one location to another. This is still a work in progress, one that could easily die with a Tampa Bay win tonight (and who's really rooting for the Phillies? I mean, how can anyone root for a team that isn't even loved in their own city?)

Anyway, as I thought it back through my head, it seems that the major wars in US history from the last century has forced changes in the music of the day. Like I said, this is all off the top of my head and could just be an idiot savant with too much time to think.

AFTER WORLD WAR I, music was lead by the conductor and big bands ruled the day. While Lawrence Welk didn't have his syndicated radio show at the time, he "performed with the Luke Witkowski, Lincoln Boulds, and George T. Kelly bands, before starting his own orchestra."

The US involvement in WORLD WAR II creates a new black man in this country. He realizes that the rest of the white world doesn't view him like their white American counterparts. That freedom, from the soldiers that returned home to those planting the roots of the Civil Rights Era, led to rock and roll and white people like Elvis Presley who "went to blues as well as hillbilly venues. Many of his future recordings were inspired by local African American composers and recording artists, including Arthur Crudup, Rufus Thomas and B.B. King."

With the Army's interest in the Asian theater, i.e. KOREA AND VIETNAM, the music would change again. As white bands like The Rolling Stones, The Beach Boys and the Beatles whose "initial musical style was rooted in 1950s rock and roll and homegrown skiffle, the group explored genres ranging from Tin Pan Alley to psychedelic rock."

Just like the style of warfare changed, from trench to guerrilla, the music moved with the times. Bands like The Who varied from early sounds like "My Generation" to conceptual work like "Tommy".

As the Vietnam War came to a close in the 70s, so did the music once again. While groups like Pink Floyd took conceptual music to new heights, Motown's artists that took rock and roll into rhythm and blues and morphed it once again into soul, funk and disco.

The latter from both genres introduced technology and the late 1970s/early 1980s brought about another change. Rock would get real 'interesting' with groups like Frankie Goes to Hollywood. I could get into New Wave and Synthpop but what's the point?

At the same time, the Second Cold War between Russia and the United States was reaching its height with Afghanistan, Beirut and Grenada. I could get into all of this but what's the point?

The late 80s/early 90s actually becomes a split as original rock bands like Van Halen and Aerosmith turn pop and the roots of Heavy Metal (1986 - Master of Puppets) and Grunge music were planted and began to thrive.

On the other side of the spectrum, Hip Hop had become the dominant music force in the "black community" and it would take a change of its own. From its roots on the streets of New York City to low-budget production on Video Music Box, rap would take a split in 1986 with Run DMC's release of "Walk This Way" with Aerosmith. It's not that rappers hadn't been using rock samples throughout, but this was the first time they put a visual to the process.
Not Run DMC, but rappers became either about the music and the message or about the money. That's how you have groups like Public Enemy and N.W.A on one side of the velvet rope and Kid-N-Play and Kwame on the other.

The Cold War officially ends in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the focus of the US government was split from one enemy to multiple ones around the world. Think Panama, Columbia and the war against Drugs and of course the first invasion of Iraq.

With the original Bombs over Baghdad and the New York Giants' Super Bowl victory, rap split yet again with the introduction of a new age that combined the pursuit of money through quality music with a message (of sorts). From "The Low End Theory", Nas and the Wu-Tany Clan to Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg...

The latest chapter of this seems to go with the sign of the times. The music and the politics of the country both suck, whether you think of Limp Bizkit and Nelly or the second invasion of Iraq and the ongoing search for Osama Bin Ladin, it sucks right now and I'm left to wonder what world-altering event needs to happen next to allow better music on the airwaves?