I've just finished reading Richard Leakey's The Sixth Extinction, which was a bit of a sobering read. It's about the sixth mass extinction in the history of life on earth, and it's being caused by Human destruction of natural habitat.
Part of the book discussed the Cambrian explosion, a period of evolutionary experimentation in Earth's history, occurring 530 million years ago, give or take a few. The main feature of the explosion was a plethora of interesting body types, which sure as hell hadn't happened before, and doesn't seem to have happened since. The current theory about why the Cambrian period was so creative is that at that staff the biological niches hadn't been filled, so there wasn't anyone established getting in the way. Ever since, there has been an established order (periodically kneecapped by comets), and alternatives haven't had a look in.
Okay, so I'm getting to my point. I was thinking about the history of pop music, and came to the conclusion that the first decade of rock from the mid 50s to mid 60s was a kind of Cambrian explosion. I mean, it's pretty wigged out that you went from Buddy Holly to Led Zeppelin in the space of ten years, or Elvis to Can in but a dozen years. How about three years from Love Me Do to Tomorrow Never Knows? Yes, the Beatles were the trilobites of pop...
The more sedate nature of later evolution is also mirrored in pop. It's not as if we have anything around now that wasn't around 20 or, largely, 30 to 50 years ago. It's a little depressing. But as long as we have recorded music, things aren't going to change as long as we have well-worn conventions to refer to. It'll take a comet to the musical libraries of the world to get any thing as exhilariting as the first ten years of rock again.
Well, whaddya think of that eh? Okay, goodbye.
Posted by stuart at April 19, 2006 8:38 PMI think you're onto something there, Dr Watson.
Posted by: buzzandhum at April 20, 2006 12:42 PM