Recently a friend and I were compiling Spotify playlists of favourite music from our childhood and teens.
I realised two things:
Firstly, I have a slightly deluded fondness for the 80s, which I associate with favourite bands such as The Cure and The Smiths, when in reality these were largely crowded out by some of the worst pop music ever made.
Secondly, and far more depressingly: this decade just gone, which will have been the most musically formative era of my life, has to be the worst of the past 60 years.
Popular music has been a mixed bag in every era, but one thing that seems very different about the 00s is that it was the first decade that nothing really radical happened for the whole 10 years.
In the 70s there was Punk. I wasn't alive then, but I've always been fascinated by it. If you haven't seen it, I wholeheartedly recommend watching The Filth And The Fury. Never has music been so life-or-death.
In the 80s they invented electronic music. The Smiths blew people's minds by being so completely alternative. People got passionate and motivated to follow them, just like with The Sex Pistols in the 70s.
In the 90s I was a schoolboy when overnight Nirvana made every kid I knew want to pick up a guitar. They stirred people up, inspiring generations of bands in the future.
So who were the main protagonists of the 00s?
According to Wikipedia, Coldplay, The Killers and Amy Whinehouse were some of the big players.
Other than selling a lot of records, did these people change the world that much?
Of course there there was plenty of good stuff. For me, The Libertines were one of the most exciting bands there's ever been. But they were pretty underground compared to The Sex Pistols or Nirvana.
I don't think you can say that any major revolution took place on the scale of previous decades.
So if music didn't excite people any more, what did?
Facebook. X factor. God knows, but social media, and information in general, seems to be far and away the most important factor in people's lives. Especially since a lot of music seems to be an extension of TV programs.
Maybe I was just getting old in the 00s and so less excitable, impressionable or whatever. But I'd be pretty sad if I had kids who didn't have music that they got the same feeling from as I remember having in the 90s.
Come on tweenies, lets see what you can do.
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