Which decade of the 20th Century do you feel was the most musically diverse?

For some reason, this came into my head the other day. I thought it would be either the 1960's or 70's, but I was curious what people's opinions from the forum are about this.

Discuss

 

I agree with Steve.

 

Gotta be the sixties.

No radio "formats" - everything was wide open. My local stations would follow the Beatles with Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, Wayne Newton, Al Hirt, James Brown, Freddie and the Dreamers, Paul Anka, Lorne Green (!), Sgt Barry Sadler, Alan Sherman, Walter Brennan, Hermans Hermits, Monkees, Striesand, Peter Paul & Mary, etc, etc, etc.

There is No exception. THe technology was just gaining momentum, and the radio was our window on the world of music.

Remember when the stations would leak the "next" Beatles 45? I remember WPOP in Hartford has "Across the Universe" as an "exclusive". I went wild trying to find it. It turned out to be the Wildlife version.

Each local station tried to outscoop it's competition.

Wow, what a wild time. It will never happen again...............

 

Gee Steve, we both typed the same thing at the same time!!!!

 

Can't beat this answer.

 

Overall, I'll go with the 00s, but if you're talking pop music, Steve's probably right.

The 00s were before the spread of recorded music. Regional music ran rampant. At any given moment in America alone, I can't even begin to guess how many types of music were being played. Throw in the whole world, and the mind whirls.

Well, my unsteady one does, at least...

Shalom, y'all!

L. Bangs

 

I had to choose the 30's (mostly late 30's). A time when rural music spoke to the community it came from and was about as diverse as the people who lived here in the U.S.

Here's a little excerpt about the Lomax's documenting the music and the times from the Library Of Congress website:

Gotta love it!

 

I also flipped back and forth between the 60s and 70s, but I have to go with Steve. He said it all!

 

Interesting answer Kevin.

 

Ah, but if you were living in that (or any) pre-recording era, you'd have heard less diverse music, even though the overall range of styles nation- and worldwide was, as you point out, probably wider than today. But trapped in one of those locales, physically and temporally, you'd only hear the folk and formal music of your region and era.

Diversity for listeners may be at its greatest now. The evolution of the music distribution system should result in a homogenized mass culture, augmented by a plethora of micro-markets of niche music. If you think about it, that's what we've got: Clear Channel and Diane Warren on one hand, and on the other all those genre-specific websites, boutique labels, and carefully screened festivals, not to mention file-swapping services for immediate transmission.

Right now, you and I could download Pygmy songs, Aboriginal Didgeridoo, medieval wedding marches, virtually every song released on an American label, and the raw mixes of the latest and greatest's upcoming number one debut to be released next month, all without spending anything more than our monthly Internet fee.

 

THE '60s


Once the Beatles broke things wide open, anything was possible. It was an exciting time. The 50s would be a close second. In both eras, Rock'n'Roll, R&B, soul, pop, what have you, were side by side on the charts and, often, on the radio. That will never happen again.


ED

 

I went with the '60's myself.

But, the '70's aren't too far behind. In the '70's, you had the vestiges of the dying hippie movement at the beginning of the decade just as heavy metal was beginning to become more noticed (Sabbath, Deep Purple), while just a couple of years later, say 1972, glam rock was pretty much at its peak, and prog-rock was just becoming popular with bands such as Yes--although prog-rock would pretty much become dead in 1976 with Rush's 2112. Incidentally, 1976 was what I consider to be the birth of punk. The Ramones put out their debut in '76, headed over to England, and next thing you know, the Sex Pistols put out their debut a year later. Unfortunately, punk was practically out of the scene by '77, as the disco trend was alive and kicking by then (and that includes funk, as well), and at the same time, post-punk new wave bands were emerging.

And I didn't even mention arena rock, which pretty much grew out of prog-rock. And of course, Southern rock, etc. etc. etc.

So yeah, the '70's come damn close!

 

Here's a link to some more great info on the musical period and the Lomax field recordings which have been reissued by Rounder Records:

The Lomax Archive

 

Gotta be the sixties... what other decade offered pharmecutical LSD legally?

But seriously folks, yeah. the sixties...

However, there was that rye bread incident in the middle ages, but with the lack of tape recorders, we are left with no historical record of the probable musical diversity of that time.

 

The 60's...the ultimate time to be growing up! I have incredible memories and still have the same friends from my childhood...although I lost a few dear ones...

 

No argument here. I answered the question asked. For an individual, we obviously have more access to diverse music today, with more means of getting music and the mass of the past century (including the pop music of the 60s) at our fingertips.

So, you're right, but that's really another question...

Shalom, y'all!

L. Bangs

 

the 60's ... wonderful music...

 

Also in the 1970s, Gordon Lightfoot, Carole King, John Denver, and other singer-songwriters would have their breakthrough hits in the US.

 

You had all those in the 70's too, plus a few new genres, like disco and punk.
Prog rock, heavy metal, and jazz/rock didn't really flower until the 70's either.

Since few genres ever die out completely, logically the most diverse decade of any century would be the last one.

 

Yeah, but the 60s was SO extreme! I mean.....Beatles and Ray Conniff? Stones and Peggy Lee? Elvis and Dean Martin? Pat Boone and The Supremes? Simon & Garfunkle and Frank Sinatra? Wilson Pickett and the New Vaudville Band?

There are hundreds more I could post if I had my old Billboard book. These songs were heard back-to-back on mainstream radio.

THAT was diverse!!!

I guess you had to be there to appreciate it..........

:-jon

 

The 60's.

As noted in previous posts, we have unprecedented access to a mind-boggling variety of music. However (and if we're talking strictly in terms of western popular music), this doesn't appear to translate into a preference for or appreciation of diversity, if contemporary commerical radio is any indication. So while we have greater access to diverse music, popular music culture, it seems, has become more fragmented. Is this a "good" or a "bad" thing? I don't know. One could reasonably argue whether or not a 60's-era pop chart that included "White Room", "Who's Making Love", "Those Were the Days", "Hey Jude", and "Wichita Lineman" represented true musical diversity. But *someone* must've been buying and listening to those records to get them into the Top Ten. And I submit that being able to hear such songs on your transistor radio in 1968 (as they co-existed in the week of Nov. 30) gave you a greater breadth of musical experience than anything offered by most of today's Top 40 or classic rock programming.

Jim W.

 

The way I weighed my ultimate choice was to consider the many types of music that was popular with the widest ranging audience during a given time.

Musically, I do think the later decades have more to offer, but in the 60s, most people got a taste of virtually everything out there. Virtually every type of music hit the charts in the 60s, where music is so fragmented now that one couldn't (easily) get a sampling of all that is out there if one tried.

In other words, in the 60s, and a large part, the 70s, people at least were exposed to other types, where today, most are content with sticking to their own little sub-genre, and claim total ignorance to all else.

So, for diversity, the 60s win hands down. But, having said that, this seems to hold true more for the "mainstream" audience. For the R&B/soul or country audiences in the 60s, or at most any time in the R&R era, they don't seem as accepting of different styles.

When I was in high school in the late 70s, many of the hard rockers may not have cared much for soul music, but you can bet they all liked some Earth, Wind & Fire! They may not have admitted it then, but they probably secretly enjoyed some Captain & Tennille and Barry Manilow too! But, nowadays, pick some high schoolers from my alma matter, and they will say they like only punk or rap, and won't know a damn thing about any other music.