Major musical changes and the body/brain dichotomy.

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Sometimes it feels that a lot of the changes within a particular genre follow the logic of moving from more cerebral/intellectual type of music to more emotional/physical type, and then back again. There's tons of examples: from early sixties rock and pop to psychedelia, from prog rock to punk, from punk to new wave, from old school party rap to conscious/political rap, from conscious rap to gangsta (okay, they started at the same time, but gangsta really broke through later on), from techno to rave, from rave to electronic listening music and IDM, from jungle to "intelligent" jungle and jazzstep, from "intelligent" jungle to techstep...

What I want to ask is, is this dichotomy an useful way of analyzing music? Are there any major musical revolutions that wouldn't follow the above logic? Is it a false thesis altogether, i.e. are the body -> brain / brain -> body changes the only type of changes we pay attention to and label as "revolutions", whereas different type of changes are called "progressions"?

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Friday, 30 September 2005 09:29 (twenty years ago)

Other examples that spring to mind: swing -> bebop, hard bop and free jazz of the sixties -> jazz rock and jazz funk of the seventies.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Friday, 30 September 2005 09:36 (twenty years ago)

It's the old art/entertainment divide. But isn't this the case for most of the arts in the modern era? Novels initially derided as non-serious literature for women, then eventually becomes "art"; movies originally music-hall style curiosity show, then eventually becomes an "art", etc. Genres are always migrating from the lowbrow "entertainment" level to the highbrow "art" level.

― jz, Friday, 30 September 2005 09:48 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, but in music, after a change has happened there often seems to be a backlash to the opposite direction within a decade or less, it's sort of a continuous seesaw. Also, note that I'm talking about changes within particular genres (where it's easy to say there really has been a change of direction), Western music in general is far too big to be submitted to such an analysis.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Friday, 30 September 2005 09:52 (twenty years ago)

Even the comments hurled at the other side of the opposition tend to repeat themselves... "Your music is just brainless commercial junk!" "Your music is elitist noodling and it doesn't connect with the people!"

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Sunday, 2 October 2005 10:14 (twenty years ago)

What I want to ask is, is this dichotomy an useful way of analyzing music?

in a word, no. the distinction between emotional/physical and cerebral/intellectual is purely subjective and hardly ironclad.

within a certain genre, whether bebop or punk, you could easily argue for the coexistence of both effects: Dizzy Gillespie (body) VS Thelonious Monk (head), Ramones (body) VS The Clash (head). Anyway the idea that pop movements or revolutions arise solely in reponse to other subgenres is a bit reductive -- a critical convenience.

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Sunday, 2 October 2005 11:06 (twenty years ago)

one year passes...

Revive! This should've maybe prompted more discussion.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Wednesday, 11 October 2006 18:11 (nineteen years ago)

swing -> bebop, hard bop and free jazz of the sixties -> jazz rock and jazz funk of the seventies.

surely this is the inverse?

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Wednesday, 11 October 2006 23:27 (nineteen years ago)

four years pass...

so geir didn't see this huh

― glumdalclitch, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 16:00 (fourteen years ago)

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