Which artists legacies have improved/worsened during the 2010s?

I keep thinking about this viral tweet about Netflix show Someone Great about how a black girl would never have a photo of Elvis in her room, which makes me think that people have long forgotten the era of kitsch/Velvet Elvis/etc

Tbf the very notion of 'bad taste' has taken a severe beating over the past 15-20 years.

i think the '50s fading has been pretty natural, it seemed like the peak nostalgia for that era was the '80s, and now thirty-plus years later the peak nostalgia is for the '80s. Stranger Things is like the new Stand By Me etc.

G-Eazy and Logic still embrace that turn-of-the-50s Rat Pack aesthetic tho

Should I pitch this as a Slate essay?

jazz d-bags are really the only ones keeping the 50s going at this point imo

Probably helped along by 50s music largely disappearing from oldies stations. I remember tuning into Nick at Nite as a kid and the bumpers were that 50s aesthetic, lots of I Love Lucy etc. Now I see it broadcasts Friends and Full House!

Also, like, there is a lot more representation in media and I can’t imagine a lot of non-white Americans have the fondest memories of anything that happened before 1964

xxp speaking of which, Sun Ra's profile seems higher than ever, tons of great new remasters/reissues coming out all the time

XP Rockabilly D-Bags still keepin' the '50s alive too.

i think the '50s fading has been pretty natural, it seemed like the peak nostalgia for that era was the '80s, and now thirty-plus years later the peak nostalgia is for the '80s. Stranger Things is like the new Stand By Me etc.

― omar little, Thursday, July 11, 2019 11:40 AM (nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

looking forward to the next remake of stephen king's it in 2043, with timelines in the 2040s and the nostalgic 2010s

feel like my kids are gonna think That 70s Show was actually filmed in the 70s, same way I thought Happy Days was actually from the 50s

I figure 50s kitsch was also big in the 80s/90s because you could still find stuff from that era in thrift stores

They should do a remake of “Back to the Future” where a kid goes back to the 80s, and everything is pretty much the same, except he can’t get his iPhone to work.

"Huey! Huey, it's Billy. Your cousin, Billy Lewis? You know that new sound you're looking for? Well, listen to this!"

Tell me, Future Boy, who's President of the United States in 2019?

oh man

They should do a remake of “Back to the Future” where a kid goes back to the 80s, and everything is pretty much the same, except he can’t get his iPhone to work.

― stan by me (morrisp), Thursday, July 11, 2019 10:09 AM (thirteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is a subplot of the movie detention (the character travels back in time to 1993)

there's a thread about which song a 2015 Marty would play in 1985 to blow the kids' minds

Gangnam Style?

guess it was 2006 Marty:
If Marty McFly went back in time thirty years ago today, what song does he play at the dance to blow everyone's mind?

which song would Marty blast into his dad's ears to torture him and which future villain would he dress up as?

Sun Ra's profile seems higher than ever, tons of great new remasters/reissues coming out all the time

Nah, the Sun Ra wave (and subsequent total distortion of jazz discourse among rock critics who heard Ra and almost nothing else, and thus had no way of placing his work into historical context) crested in the late '90s and early '00s.

which song would Marty blast into his dad's ears to torture him and which future villain would he dress up as?

― omar little, Thursday, July 11, 2019 5:26 PM (twenty-eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

6ix9ine

I would disagree strongly. The arkestra is touring more than ever, he's being referenced in non-music specific artmaking contexts constantly, and there is a deluge of new product in record stores - mostly live material but still steadily coming out.

xpost

xp 6ix9ine works for both aspects of the question

I figure 50s kitsch was also big in the 80s/90s because you could still find stuff from that era in thrift stores

I wonder what "vintage" 2010s stuff will exist for the future revival (assuming they aren't living in a Mad Max hellscape by then). It's hard to imagine American Apparel clothes or IKEA furniture lasting 50 years the way Sixties or Seventies vintage did... Cutesy enamel pins?

He'd stick the "AirPods" in his dad's ears, one of them would fall right out -- "Sorry, wait a sec" -- nothing would happen while the Bluetooth is pairing -- "Just a sec, I'm trying to pull up Spotify... nuts..."

sadly pfunk isnt as strong as it was in the 90s.

I think all funk music has trended way downward as 70's/80's R&B's stock has risen

Such a great thread.

Up: Grateful Dead

Down: Sonic Youth

Everyone is Xanned and CBD'd out of their gourds and would rather listen to Teddy Pendergrass than Kool & the Gang. You hate to see it.

He'd stick the "AirPods" in his dad's ears, one of them would fall right out -- "Sorry, wait a sec" -- nothing would happen while the Bluetooth is pairing -- "Just a sec, I'm trying to pull up Spotify... nuts..."

"Sorry, BMG has restricted this content in your country era."

when called to "get down with the boogie," the youth of the 2010s said "no thank you."

Trap hip-hop has a higher stock now obv? I mean the trap sound is currently all over the place in mainstream pop, from Ariana Grande to Billie Eilish.

kinda hard to figure out a critical legacy for something so current as trap music.

trap hasn't really gone away since "Don't Like"

Elvis has had two massive Xmas released albums in recent years, i.e. the ones where they strap his vocals onto new orchestral arrangements.
so, yeah, he is still a big thing commerically.

I think all funk music has trended way downward as 70's/80's R&B's stock has risen

the trap sound is currently all over the place in mainstream pop

these things are related - the primacy of funk rhythms has receded as trap rhythms have come to the fore, so the currency of acts like P-Funk has declined (along with my interest in rap and R&B)

I actually think there's something to be explored there about how generations get keyed into certain rhythms early on and then as that generation's impact on music declines those rhythms start to vanish as well, to the point where you get people on either end of the spectrum (young or old) totally baffled about things like "how do you dance to that" because their bodies just don't respond to the rhythms

also just think it's interesting to chart the ascent and decline of rhythmic templates over the course of pop music - from swing to the blues shuffle to rock's straight 4/4 to funk to disco to house etc

That's interesting—reminds me whenever I read that anecdote about Dylan saying, "Wow, you can dance to that!" in response to the Byrds' "Mr Tambourine Man", I think, "How?.

Yeah it's interesting how 80 - 100 bpm beats just do not exist in rap now (not counting things like dancehall, bounce, etc), unless it's half-time. Or self-consciously throwback. They had a good 20+ year run though.

there's obviously a lot of variety in the cracks and at the margins but it is interesting to me how broader musical culture often coalesces around specific rhythms/bpms and just kind of all agree that "whelp, this is what people are dancing to now". afaict pop music these days basically rotates through either trap beats and 4/4 house-type beats - rock and jazz rhythms are completely gone.

"The critical legacy for the artist "trap music" is higher in the 2010s than the 1980s" is the insight Geir fans have been clamouring to have return to the boards

It's hard to imagine American Apparel clothes or IKEA furniture lasting 50 years

IKEA furniture is holding up at 40 years already, it'll probably go another ten without crumbling to dust

I feel like I don't see as much interest these days in outsider/weird artists like Daniel Johnston. Maybe shifts in culture about mental illness.

there is no outside, everybody is online

I.e. there is only the outside.

I feel like I don't see as much interest these days in outsider/weird artists like Daniel Johnston.

I had a dream last night where Tonetta showed up at a nightclub, and was playing ripping guitar solos over the DJ

haha that is awesome

Tonetta's Bandcamp page is :0 btw