Music of the Times, Research Paper Example

Introduction

The word “music” is defined as an art of sound in time that expresses ideas and emotions in significant forms through the elements of rhythm, melody, harmony, and color. It is as well  linked to humanity, and music has been a vital part of all societies since recorded time began. As music can evoke powerful emotions, ancient cultures employed it to imprint myths and belief systems onto young minds, and it has always been a major component in religious ceremonies. The Apostle Paul suggested that we encourage ourselves and other Christians in worship through song (Ephesians 5:19), as rabbis also serve as cantors, or music worship leaders. Almost all litany and congregational worship in Judaism is set to beautiful vocal music.

As music supports and elevates culture, so too does it reflect it and, in a very literal sense, define it. The music of a place is as specifically born from that place as is the music of a certain era, and these twin factors make music a valuable tool in learning what a past culture saw as  its priorities, its concerns, and its desires. Of equal importance, particularly in regard to more modern forms of musical expression, the lyrics set to the music are a code to the historian: “One reason…for studying the lyrics of popular songs is to gain a better understanding of a significant cultural expression of an era” (Franklin V 37). In a very real sense, we listen in on the dialogues of the past when we examine its songs.

In the following pages the extraordinary shifts in popular music in America will be noted, with an emphasis on how each variation in music either arose to express a societal mood then present or echoed conditions to which that culture aspired. As few eras were as marked by drastic changes in cultural outlook and behavior as the 1920’s, that period and its musical expression of choice, jazz, provides an excellent springboard to begin.

The Jazz Age

Scott Fitzgerald’s modest output of writing is as identified with the 1920’s as jazz, and with good reason; both jazz and Fitzgerald were seized upon as the true voices of the time, and it haunted Fitzgerald in later years that he was partially responsible for the era’s recklessness. “Flappers”, young women also known as “jazz babies”, personified a madcap spirit that craved hot jazz and deliberately crossed societal boundaries of proper behaviors. “If I had anything to do with creating the manners of the contemporary American girl, I certainly made a botch of the job” (Fitzgerald, Bruccoli, Baughman 112).

What in fact had happened was simply that the young and ambitious Fitzgerald, equipped as well with good looks, talent, and a fondness for society’s high life, gladly allowed himself to be the voice of the era in exchange for an exalted place within it. Fortunately for posterity, his talent surfaced and he recorded the times in which he was living in his fiction with genuine insight. More than any of his other works, The Great Gatsby sets before modern readers the jazz-infused spirit of the 1920’s, and it is no accident that specific jazz songs are frequently mentioned in the slim novel.

For example, ‘The Sheik of Araby’, a novelty jazz tune of 1917, is referred to early in the book to both highlight the real romanticism of the story unfolding and to mock the wild passions  running rampant in the culture of the time. Later on the the 1921 song, ‘Ain’t We Got Fun?’ is  brought into play to sadly expose Myrtle Wilson’s desperation as Tom Buchanan’s mistress and to, again, emphasize the frenzied, blind mood of the times.  Then, 1922’s ‘Three O’Clock in the Morning’ comes further on, a sentimental waltz that frames both Jay Gatsby’s confusion over his love for Daisy and the unavoidable regret facing the jazz age fanatics. “…Fitzgerald as a jazz age scribe records the jazz sounds so exquisitely that each song depicts a different aspect of the spirit of the age” (Stanley 313).

In defining his era, Fitzgerald had both an intent focus and a fine tool in his hands: jazz. It so captured the abandonment of post-Victorian America and its desperate need to express this through music that it colored every aspect of the times. Not until the coming of rock music would any musical form in America, or even globally, have such a shattering and pervasive impact.

In Gatsby, Fitzgerald does go beyond jazz as his metaphor. In the famous party scene early in the book, the musical imagery he employs is everywhere, and the actual music played is widely diverse: “Indeed the music is not all of an ilk. There is a ‘celebrated tenor’ singing in Italian, and a ‘notorious contralto’ singing ‘in jazz” (Bloom 64). Jazz, however, is Fitzgerald’s trump card. As Jay Gatsby is a man gripped by an enduring, classically romantic passion, the jazz surrounding him – and, notably, jazz he himself provides at his parties – is really the sound of his enemy.

Jazz, like rock music to come, was far less about a musical statement of an idea as it was about refutation. “Americans were weary of being noble, after a decade of intense progressive reform, morality, and self-righteousness” ( Olson 128). Jazz was rebellion, first greedily embraced by the young and then, like rock, modified for the less frenzied appetites of their elders. As a musical genre, it flew in the face of what had so long been acceptable popular music expression. Prior to its advent, Americans were uniformly lulled by sentimental ballads and uninspired operetta-style tunes clearly borrowed from European antecedents.

What is most interesting in looking back upon the cultural effects of jazz is how a societal shift in popular music is carried such extraordinary power. Fitzgerald seems to have sensed this  defining element of jazz, even as it fueled his work and helped establish his success. This is in fact precisely why jazz so suited his purposes; its craziness was of the moment, and the perfect means of creating an atmosphere on paper. For Gatsby, he needed the despair that comes from foolish illusions and irrational ambition. He required a musical form to highlight the self-destructive spirit of hedonism. Jazz was on hand to give him everything he wanted.

The Big Band Era

It is probably not surprising that the 1930’s ushered in no new modes of popular music, at least not quickly. Simply put, the nation was busy trying to stay alive in the Depression years, and the only musical contributions of note of this time are, equally not unexpectedly, the mournful songs of the road and a rise in African American spirituals. Suddenly, the jazz era had burned out and the party was definitively over. People were jobless and hungry in unprecedented numbers in the nation’s history, and spiritual music was heard throughout the country.

There was, however, an interesting turnaround here, and it owed its life to that very dampening spirit of the shattered economy. President Herbert Hoover famously remarked to radio singer Rudy Vallee, “If you can sing a song that would make people forget their troubles, I’ll give you a medal,” and Mr. Vallee did it. He was not alone. As just getting by was a uniformly hard goal to achieve for many millions, popular music became, in very short order, an escapist outlet and a dream to which to look.

Escapism, however, is too light a way of describing how popular music was taken in by the culture of the day. If it was escapism, it was also infused with a substantial dose of gritty reality, as expressed in a signature song of the time, ‘Brother, Can You Spare a Dime’, by E.Y. Harburg and Jay Gorney. The 1931 hit song related the tragedy of the sense of failure within many Americans, and acted as a catharsis for them. Ironically, the song was a hit for Rudy Vallee.

Meanwhile, however, and with a huge assist from the movie industry, popular music was celebrating a kind of giddiness and sentimentality not seen since before jazz reigned supreme. As glamorous and wholly unrealistic scenarios of wealth and privilege were played out on movie screens by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, the songs they sang blatantly turned their backs on deprivation. Moreover, the otherwise bleak decade saw an emergence of songwriters who would become American icons: “The traditional popular song reached its peak in the 1930’s…when composers like George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Richard Rodgers, and dozens of others routinely created one classic song, or standard, after another” (Young, Young xiv).

This is perhaps the most noteworthy period in American popular music in terms of the duality of the music as cultural reflection and active force. In trying to forget their troubles, Americans turned to a wide range of musical forms: Gershwin was writing in a modern, lush, opera mode, while Kern and the Hollywood/Broadway composers were crafting infectious, easy melodies and optimistic lyrics. It is acknowledged that any art must serve to inspire, even as it itself is born from inspiration, and it seems evident that the music of the 1930’s helped to fuel a spirit of determination in the downtrodden people. This music was a form of escapism, to be sure, but it was escapism with an agenda. Maybe it presented better futures and happier days irresponsibly, yet the music kindled aspirations, and often romantic. “Very little music that reached large audiences addressed the issues of the day; instead, it talked of romance and relationships” (Young, Young 176). This music of the 1930’s, alternately sad, silly, classic, or vacuous, both expressed the confusion of a people displaced and created within them an impetus to make changes.

The War Years

It began in the 1930’s, and it would be foolishly naive to credit popular music with a reversal in public spirit more obviously linked to an economy recovering from wartime activity. Nonetheless, the 1940’s heralded a decade of popular music unsurpassed in richness, diversity, and a sense of American power.

It is commonly believed that jazz, with the possible exception of musical comedy form, is the only indigenous American contribution to the world of music. This view remarkably overlooks the intensely individual aspects of the songs of the Big Band era, for at this particular period in history did the nation show a talent for evolution in musical creativity that was not, as with jazz, an explosion of a rebellious impulse. Big Band was different, and a real effort to refine and make beautiful what had so long been merely fluff entertainment.

For one thing, the Big Band style of performance and songwriting was something no other American popular music had been: distinctly and unashamedly orchestral. “In 1942…big bands were everywhere and, whether it was Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington…or the many other ensembles, scores of orchestra were dominating the pop charts” (Yanow 305). Most of the hits had featured vocalists like Peggy Lee and Doris Day – it was also the time of the female lead vocalist, the band’s showpiece – but other standards were purely instrumental, and elegant and complex compositions which reigned over the pop charts.

While there was a good deal of a lush sentimentality in the ballads of the day, there was as well the driving force of “swing”. This particular genre, born from jazz and infused with further syncopation and structural layers of composition, did not exist apart from the other popular music expressions; every band of the day had both ballad and swing in its repertoire, and the spirit behind both was an extraordinarily true reflection of the spirit of the people. Patriotic fever was running high, as was faith in a recovering economy, and “swing” as a label then had as much to do with an economic turnaround as it did with the swinging of a saxophone, or a partner on the dance floor.

Here again the question surfaces: what  in the culture was defined by the music, and what was responsible for it? The answer is that the two were and are not mutually exclusive elements. In the 1940’s America was enjoying a robust and nearly adolescent spurt of confidence. It had weathered the Great Depression and was now actually asserting itself as the mightiest of global powers. In such a scenario, the question is not really one of what came first because the audience had to be in place before the music could fill the need. Composers and songwriters, it must be remembered, live among us; they breathe the same air and are subject to the same shifts in cultural feeling. It’s is only logical to conclude that the writer of the big band hit was affected by the same mood and tempo of the people who would, a week later, dance to his song.

Post-War Years and the Birth of Rock

The trajectory of styles in popular music, as becomes evident, is inextricably linked to the life and movement of the culture. At its best this produces the sophisticated fun of the popular music of the 1940’s, when Benny Goodman could not do a show without including the infectious and wildly percussive ‘Sing, Sing, Sing’. At its worst, the music mirrors an apathy and an inertia which, for whatever reason, the country is undergoing.

So it was, largely, in the 1950’s. Societies and cultures are organic things, and not all that different from individuals in their reactions and behaviors. As World War II was brought to a victorious end for America, a complacency rapidly overtook the nation. With prosperity came inertia, and the early years of the decade were marked by a pervasive blandness and a clinging to older styles of popular music simply because nothing had arisen to replace them. “As late as the 1950’s and early ’60’s, songs from Broadway musicals could top the music charts” (Traubner xxv).

There were of course stirrings under the surface. The sound of Motown was born in this decade, as African American singers, musicians and producers stepped up to fill the gap. Surprisingly, this new genre exploded with the growing Civil Rights Movement, but did not get directly involved. “Despite being an inspirational icon for the Civil Rights movement, Motown was firmly entrenched in the mechanisms and ideologies of the mass market, and on the mass market’s terms” (Neal 44). The African American community in music made an astounding leap to take control behind the scenes, in production and creativity. The common element of cultural empowerment is inescapably evident, despite Motown’s remaining distant from actual politics.

Then there were all those baby-boomers from the war years. They were growing up, they were the first “entitled” American generation, and they were bored. It is doubtful that rock and roll could have had the astounding impact it did, even as imported from England, had not this massive element of an audience waiting for it been present. The very furor with which rock music was embraced only serves to underscore how its quality of being, ultimately, radically new and different was desperately wanted by the young people of the era.

The parallels between rock music and jazz are clear, as regards each arising from, and then defining, a widespread cultural atmosphere. In the 1920’s, the industrial revolution had ensured a period of affluence unknown of previously, and subsequently led to a succeeding generation’s restlessness. In the 1950’s, America had fully regained its standing and was, again, a generally prosperous place to be, with children who were being raised to simply fall into place and keep the status quo nicely humming. In both instances, as often happens with individual offspring of wealthy parents, these plans go awry because the children are uninterested. It is as though they must find a struggle for themselves where no struggle exists, and rebellion is inevitably born.

Also as with jazz, rock music, even in its most accessible and light incarnations, brought with it a concurrent change in other forms of expression, notably clothing and hair. Popular music always directly affects the other ways by which we identify ourselves as a culture and, as the great rebellion associated with the jazz age found expression in the then-outrageous act of a girl “bobbing”, or drastically cutting, her hair, rock music simply inspired the opposite fashion and long hair became synonymous with danger, lack of respect for authority, and of course rock music itself.

Millions of older Americans would spend years blaming the Beatles for corrupting American kids, as those kids everywhere copied the long hair and hip clothes of the band. Because of the enormous popularity of the Beatles, hair became a bigger issue than the music: “The Beatles directly inspired this struggle. At the time (conflicts over hair length) took on the cast and language of other fights for individual freedom” (Stark 177). This was as pointed a case of popular music directly changing popular culture as has ever been seen.

Rock music enjoys a reputation as perhaps the most meaningful and rugged form of popular music ever to impact upon society. This is debatable; it is just as likely that the birth of jazz had repercussions just as profound and enduring in America. Nonetheless, certain aspects of rock were indeed revolutionary, and quite apart from the music itself.

For one thing, this was the first genre of popular music that had an evident political base. If its introduction was relatively random, it rapidly took on focus and became the music of resistance to an authority and government which, having given us both the Cold War and the Vietnam involvement, could not be trusted. Then, rock broke down long-established bases of production: “Unlike the pop music of the first half of the 20th century, which was largely conceived by an industry based in New York and watered down to appeal to the largest audience possible…rock and roll was from the south and middle states, and was decidedly rural, lower class, and dynamic” (Larson 2).

In cultural terms, rock music was essentially born in a vacuum, but it secured an enormous place as a vital form of musical expression through an almost cunning strategy. It simply existed only until it found an anchor for the rebellion it inherently espoused in its sound. Once rock fans directed the sound at the “establishment” they could not trust, rock itself became a cultural anthem.

Today’s Popular Music Front

It is tempting to say that today’s extraordinary access to technologies unthinkable only a few decades ago is not all that influential in determining where popular music is emerging. The argument could well be made that new technologies always affected styles, as they brought about changes in the markets for the music themselves.

Nonetheless, any enormous change in quantity typically translates to some sort of change in quality, and this is best represented by the variety of popular music forms heard today. Access to production capabilities, and on very sophisticated levels, has been available to the average person since the 1990’s, and this in turn has created something of a whole nation of producers. The constraint of budget is gone; no expensive studio is necessary to record a professional single or album, and so too does the Internet enable marketing in ways that have notoriously crippled the once-monolithic recording industry.

With this access has come the widespread audience base for hip-hop. In years past, this sub-genre would have survived only as a niche product, sought and produced by nearly only the lower-class African American community, with whom its messages of injustice and street survival most resonate. The largest audience for hip-hop, however, is in white, mainstream America, and this has rendered it an industry unto itself. “It is statistically possible that…young whites are hip-hop’s primary consumers” (Kitwana 99).

There is no way to foresee how technology has changed the face of popular music in our culture now because the change is occurring on virtually a daily basis. With increased speed of access comes a faster weariness on the part of the public, and even major recording stars are forced to reinvent their own, successful images and recordings to keep pace with expectations not yet known. As an example, the immensely popular star Beyonce has begun to create music videos for every song on her albums, whereas only a few years ago a major artist needed to only put forth one or two videos to generate sales.

Popular music in today’s culture is an arms race, and one of dizzying speed. Technology is so advanced and pervasive that it oversteps its production bounds and is in fact viewed as a creative element. A mediocre song may be a hit merely by virtue of a controversial video. Multimedia attention on a new singer may erupt globally, but not for any actual song. Function is a vastly complex and advanced component, and function now largely dictates form. It will be interesting to see how popular music, the essential element at the core of it all, evolves as its foundations spin ever more quickly in today’s culture.

Works Cited

Bloom, H. Jay Gatsby. Broomall, PA: Chelsea House Publishing, 2004. Print.

Fitzgerald, F.S., Bruccoli, M.J., and Baughman, J.  A Life in Letters. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, 1995. Print.

Franklin V, B. Colonial Literature, 1607-1776. New York, NY: Infobase Publishing, 2010. Print.

Kitwana, B. Why White Kids Love Hip-Hop: Wankstas, Wiggers, Wannabes and the New Reality of Race in America. New York, NY: Basic Civitas Books, 2005. Print.

Larson, T.E. History of Rock and Roll. Dubuque, IA: Kendall Hunt, 2004. Print.

Neal, M.A. What the Music Said: Black Popular Music and Black Public Culture. New York, NY: Routledge, 1999. Print.

Olson, R. U.S. History, 1865 – Present: From Reconstruction to the Dawn of the 21^st Century. Franklin Lakes, NJ: Career Press, 2004. Print.

Stanley, L. The Foreign Critical Reputation of F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1980-2000. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004. Print.

Stark, S.D. Meet the Beatles: A Cultural History of the Band That Shook Youth, Gender, and the World. New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2005. Print.

Traubner, R. Operetta: A Theatrical History. New York, NY: Routledge Press, 2003. Print.

Yanow, S. Swing. San Francisco, CA: Miller Freeman Books, 2000. Print.

Young, W.H., and Young, M.K. Music of the Great Depression. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2005. Print.

Young, W.H., and Young, M.K. The 1930’s. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002. Print.