Music that could not have been made 20 years previously

[Sloop John B]

I’ve been utilising the 1001 albums you must listen to before you die generator website (https://1001albumsgenerator.com/) lately and the last 2 albums Bauhaus Mask (1981) and Jurassic 5 Power in numbers - (2002) got me thinking that neither of these 2 albums could have been made 20 years previously (even 10 really) and then tried to think of albums from the past few years that could not have been made 20 years ago and could not think of any.

Is this due to my ignorance of what is happening in music currently ?

If so what albums form the past few years just couldn’t / wouldn’t have been made in 2002?

Serious question, not a modern music is rubbish thread, I just don’t know of anything as radically different as Glen Milder in 1942, the Beatles in 1962, Bauhaus in 1981 and Jurassic 5 in 2002.

.sjb

 

[Tony L]

Interesting question. I assume you mean stylistically rather than technologically?

To my mind the key thing that has changed is a shift of power away from major labels. The combination of astonishing recording and creation technology in the hands of anyone with a decent computer and digital audio workstation and the ability to self-distribute via Bandcamp etc has put the power firmly back in the hands of creatives. There is no longer the same need for an advance, let alone a situation where gatekeepers (labels, A&R departments, DJs etc) defined trends. It is a totally different world.

That said this different world has in a situation where everything is everywhere. It is hard to bring to mind anything that couldn’t have existed 20 years ago, but the trajectory has been to widen. Younger artists seem staggeringly well informed to me; you can hear echoes in so much modern music of so much history. Much is a cross-genre melting pot, e.g. the current London jazz scene is mixing everything from Alice Coltrane, Albert Ayler, Miles, CTI soul jazz, funk, R&B, hip-hop and house together in one giant melting pot, yet in a way that sounds fresh and has actually reconnected jazz, which had become a music mainly consumed by middle-aged or older white intellectuals, to young people in clubs.

Really not my area, but modern metal is another genre that has shifted hugely over the past couple if decades. I’ll let others make recommendations, but I’m thinking of the stuff that needs a maths PHD just to figure out the timing. Some staggeringly complex music there that to my ears has zero connection to old heavy rock or metal of the ‘70s, 80s, 90s etc. It is its own thing.

I’d argue everything had moved, but it has moved in its own organic way. Each genre allowed to develop itself free from the arbitrary fashion trends dictated back in the major label era. Everything is still out there, but it is doing its own thing now. It is not being forced to jump through hoops by trend-setting gatekeepers.

The negative is the good is harder to find as it is no longer served up on a plate to the end user. Folk have to know how to explore for themselves, be that internet searching, streaming apps, YouTube, directly following creatives on social media, signing up for shop and independent label notification emails etc etc.

 

[Darren L]

In short I don't think there's anything current that couldn't have been made 20 years ago but lots that wouldn't have been made 20 years ago.

 

[vince rocker]

Just a quick reply for now, but what about the increasing influence and visibility of lesbian, trans and queer people and their cultures in pop music over this century?

Edit to add that I realise this isn't always easy for the artists at the front of this influence.

 

[Mike Hughes]

Just a quick reply for now, but what about the increasing influence and visibility of lesbian, trans and queer people and their cultures in pop music over this century?

Edit to add that I realise this isn't always easy for the artists at the front of this influence.

At least 2 major recent books have pointed out that influence over the last century whether we chose to acknowledge it or not. Much of the language of jazz and the blues is queer slang. Whilst this might be more visible now I think there’s a decent argument that it’s far less influential now. It’s simply present.

Original question is interesting. I don’t see any of those listed as being radically different in those years.

 

[Alex N]

what albums

Holly Herndon - Proto
DJ Rashad - Double Cup
Jlin - Dark Energy
Skream - Skream!
Arca - Xen
Lil Yachty - Lil Boat
Blackpink - Square Up
Young Thug - Jeffery
Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp a Butterfly
Kwengface - The Memoir

Last year’s tech-step rework of Kweng’s ‘Freedom’…

Man cut tru, buss that
Peng ting gimme that Whatsapp
But when I hit you, better bring me that rucksack
On the opp block with a bruck back…

I thought of loads more. For example, as you might expect, underground French hip hop is next level just now…

 

[Mike Hughes]

Holly Herndon - Proto
DJ Rashad - Double Cup
Jlin - Dark Energy
Skream - Skream!
Arca - Xen
Lil Yachty - Lil Boat
Blackpink - Square Up
Young Thug - Jeffery
Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp a Butterfly
Kwengface - The Memoir

Last year’s tech-step rework of Kweng’s ‘Freedom’…

Man cut tru, buss that
Peng ting gimme that Whatsapp
But when I hit you, better bring me that rucksack
On the opp block with a bruck back…

I thought of loads more. For example, as you might expect, underground French hip hop is next level just now…

Please explain why those could not have been made previously. Damned if I can see it.

 

[Alex N]

Everything’s always wrong with you, lol. I’ve no time for it.

For starters, the Holly Herndon uses AI, and most of the others are from genres that didn’t exist twenty years ago. Once more…

 

[tuga]

The negative is the good is harder to find as it is no longer served up on a plate to the end user. Folk have to know how to explore for themselves, be that internet searching, streaming apps, YouTube, directly following creatives on social media, signing up for shop and independent label notification emails etc etc.

I find it hard nowadays to find new music I enjoy listening to.
It does exist but it’s hard to find.
I wish that there were better radio stations and programs.
My experience with suggestion algorithms hasn’t been positive.

 

[Tony L]

For starters, the Holly Herndon uses AI, and most of the others are from genres that didn’t exist twenty years ago. Once more…

I’ve got her album Platform (Amazon) and it is really good. A stunningly good sounding record too, up there with the best electronica cuts I’ve heard.

 

[paulfromcamden]

Were The Beatles, Glen Miller or Jurassic 5 really that innovative? They didn't come out of nowhere and they weren't the only people doing what they did.

Everything steals from what came before.

I'm old and spend too much time listening to old jazz records - I have to crank up Google to find out what the genres are when I read Resident Advisor review - so I'm obviously the last person the ask.

But I do think there's loads of stuff which is new, as in couldn't have existed 20 years ago because it's developed out of genres that weren't around then.

Here's Skepta a few years back heavy on the grime influence.

And the pride of Shepherds Bush guesting on a afrobeats track from last week.

 

[Darren L]

What's these new genres @paulfromcamden ?
Or are they more sub-genres or fusions?

 

[kjb]

Some disconnected thoughts

1) The book Dilla Time makes a compelling case for J Dilla being the difference - developed in the last 1990s but - but his influence is now everywhere in the 2000s

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dilla-Time-Afterlife-Producer-Reinvented/dp/1800751745?tag=pinkfishmedia-21

The music could have been made before the mid 1990s but it would have sounded different.

If you've 20 minutes free ( and it takes while to get there.....)

In this podcast Nate Chinen places Dilla's innovations on a line through Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, James Brown....

Digging into 'Dilla Time,' and the legacy of a rhythm pioneer

Jazz United digs deep into the trailblazing rhythm legacy of hip-hop producer J Dilla — in conversation with Dan Charnas, author of an essential new book, 'Dilla Time.'

www.wbgo.org

2) Frank Ocean's Blonde is another interesting case. It was released in a different form as Endless for one day before Blonde was released, and was , I think I'm right in saying, available for one day on vinyl then only available to download. It makes very creative use of things like autotune, spoken intermissions, blends hip hop, soul, rock, sampling. It's maybe my favourite new record of the last decade or so

I'm always blown away by this track even though I've played it hundreds of times. I'm not sure it could have come from 1995 but feel free to make the case.

3) From another angle, I recall re-reading ( but can't for the life of me remember where) that innovations in how we consume music have replaced innovations in music . In this article the ipod was being praised as in the cycle from from - Elvis > Beatles . Summer of love > punk > rave / electronic.

The walkman and CD led to longer records that were, in content, more of the same, and often recycling of older records in new formats. The i pod made that even more so and moved away from the primacy of the album, Spotify etc have again transformed how we consume the same thing and to some extent how records and music are made.

So there are lots of records being made now that we consume in different ways to in 1999 but I'm not sure anything revolutionary has happened to the music itself - except perhaps Dilla's beats?. The changes have become about what is in the mainstream ( way more black, female and queer artists) rather than the music. I think there are digital production sounds that place records in the last 10 or so years - the sound of St Vincent's records would be an example - but maybe not the content of the music.

Maybe there'a similar point about the way the live experience works. Taylor Swift could not have done what she's done with the eras tour in the last century - but the music could have easily been made then. Ditto Coldplay at Glastonbury last week.

That said, if you dare to put radio 1 on, the music is very different to what you would have heard in 1990 - things have evolved but maybe not radically changed (or, being of a certain age, got better)?

 

[paulfromcamden]

What's these new genres @paulfromcamden ?
Or are they more sub-genres or fusions?

Grime and afrobeats. I'd say Central Cee is pop drill.

 

[Seanm]

Still the only thing I've heard that sounded completely new to me at the time, in the sense that it couldn't just be explained in terms of the different currents feeding into it, has been jungle, a long time ago. Other things have sounded innovative and exciting but I could imagine them existing years ago, as a sort of logical variation of other forms. Like the first time I heard footwork I thought, Wow. But if I'd been told it was from 1994 I wouldn't have been shocked.

 

[paulfromcamden]

Still the only thing I've heard that sounded completely new to me at the time, in the sense that it couldn't just be explained in terms of the different currents feeding into it, has been jungle, a long time ago.

Even with jungle it was a new sound for sure but it wasn't such a massive leap from the sort of hardcore Shut Up & Dance were doing a few years earlier.

 

[Seanm]

Even with jungle it was a new sound for sure but it wasn't such a massive leap from the sort of hardcore Shut Up & Dance were doing a few years earlier.

Yeah I'm actually thinking of that moment when people used the terms hardcore and jungle to refer to pretty much the same thing(s). It all felt pretty new. You could trace the influences but it was obvious something new had come into the world. I imagine hearing e.g. Buddy Holly, Beatles etc. at the time must have felt the same

 

[Mike Hughes]

Everything’s always wrong with you, lol. I’ve no time for it.

For starters, the Holly Herndon uses AI, and most of the others are from genres that didn’t exist twenty years ago. Once more…

It was a genuine question. Get over yourself. Eno was using machine learning long before Holly for example. The genres assertion is a stretch at best. The modern tendency to label anything which is slightly different a genre does not make it so. Nothing in your list strikes me as being in any genre which didn’t previously exist.

 

[kjb]

It was a genuine question. Get over yourself. Eno was using machine learning long before Holly for example. The genres assertion is a stretch at best. The modern tendency to label anything which is slightly different a genre does not make it so. Nothing in your list strikes me as being in any genre which didn’t previously exist.

Mike, can you give some examples of music from the past century that was being in a genre that didn't already exist?

I'm not sure I can think of anything

 

[Alex N]

Even with jungle it was a new sound for sure but it wasn't such a massive leap from the sort of hardcore Shut Up & Dance were doing a few years earlier.

Yeah, I thought about this when, of all things, you posted that daft ‘We need jungle’ meme with Amol Rajan… Hardcore seamlessly starts turning into jungle, and from there, into drum and bass. This sounds pretentious, but kind of organically, like it’s evolving.

Change starting from tunes like this early Goldie for me, which will be about 1992…

I wish I could easily show my working with more examples, but I don’t know what I’m on about I can’t remember as I never bought much. When I started going to NY Sushi though late nineties, drum and bass had become different altogether, much sleeker and cleaner-sounding. Yet you could still kind of tell where it came from.