CROSSWORD Music Style

Case Studies of Influential and “Forgotten” Music Styles

This section will detail several Music Styles, exploring their characteristics, peak popularity, reasons for decline, and enduring legacy.

A. Ragtime (Late 19th Century – Early 20th Century)

• Characteristics: An American-born music style, a piano-specific music style, originating in the late 1800s and early 1900s. It features “fast and syncopated” rhythms, with the right hand playing complex rhythms and the left hand maintaining a “steady beat.” Harmonically, it’s “fairly simple,” relying on tonic, subdominant, and dominant chords. Ragtime music was precisely written and difficult to play, demanding “machine-like precision.”
• Origin and Spread: Its “Central Hub was in the state of Missouri,” particularly St. Louis and Sedalia, where a vibrant piano playing scene thrived. Influenced by banjo playing, syncopated dances like the Cakewalk, and British Isles fiddle music.
• Key Figures: Scott Joplin, known as the “King of Ragtime,” is the most famous figure. His 1899 hit “Maple Leaf Rag” became “the quintessential ragtime piece.” Other “greats” include Joseph Lamb and James Scott, both of whom were influenced by Joplin.
• Decline and Legacy: Ragtime as a music style enjoyed about 25 years of popularity before being “overtaken by jazz music” around 1917. Decline causes included “technical difficulty, racial bias, oversaturation by simplified imitations, and replacement by jazz, which was easier to play and more dynamic.” Despite its fade, Ragtime “launched early jazz ideas and later influenced hip-hop rhythms.” Its “lively syncopated rhythm laid groundwork for jazz… swing music and later big bands.” It experienced a revival in the 1970s, notably through Joshua Rifkin’s classical approach to playing Joplin’s rags and its feature in the 1974 movie The Sting.

B. Doo-Wop (1940s-1960s)

• Characteristics: Developed as a music style in African American neighborhoods of New York City, Philadelphia, Chicago, and LA, doo-wop is characterized by “rich multi-layered harmonies” and “catchy songs with minimal instruments, simple rhythms, and romantic themes.” Groups often used “nonsense syllables such as ‘sh-boom’ or ‘doo-wah'” for rhythmic punctuation and to fill harmonic space.
• Early Development: Young Black men, often unable to afford instruments due to segregation, used their voices to create this music, practicing on street corners, in subways, and locker rooms. Early groups like the Mills Brothers were highly influential, blending “Negro spirituals with rich multi-layered harmonies” and mimicking instruments with their voices.
• Peak Popularity: The 1950s saw its height as a music style, with groups like The Platters, The Drifters, The Penguins, and The Five Satins topping the charts. Sonny Till and the Orioles are noted as the “first doo-wop band to break through those local circuits and achieve national notoriety.” The genre also saw the rise of female groups and racially integrated groups like the Dell-Vikings.
• Decline and Legacy: Doo-wop “faded with the arrival of the British Invasion and major social shifts in the early 1960s.” Factors also included “exploitative industry practices,” “whitewashed sound production,” and a move towards a music style called rock and roll. Despite its decline from mainstream radio, its “fingerprints were everywhere.” Motown adopted its emotional resonance, R&B its vocal layering, and “even hip hop decades later would sample doo-wop hooks.” Its harmonies continue to shape modern vocals from artists like Bruno Mars and Meghan Trainor, and it saw a resurgence in the late 80s and early 90s through films and revival tours.

C. Psychedelic Rock (Mid-1960s – Early 1970s)

• Characteristics: This music style surged in 1966, driven by the use of hallucinogens. It featured “mind-expanding sounds,” “surreal lyrics and studio experiments,” often mixing “Eastern instruments and odd rhythms.” It was a “sound of rebellion, spiritual awakenings, and mind-expanding activities.”
• Key Figures and Centers: San Francisco became a hub with bands like Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, and The Doors. The Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” and The Beach Boys’ “Pet Sounds” were pivotal. British psychedelia was defined by Pink Floyd and The Yardbirds.
• Decline Causes:Deaths of Key Figures: “The untimely deaths of its brightest stars” such as Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison (all at 27 years old) “left the genre in shambles,” creating a void in its soul.
• Backlash Against Drug Culture: LSD, initially a symbol of free thought, became demonized due to “sensationalized stories about bad trips,” mental health crises (like Pink Floyd’s Syd Barrett), and the Manson family murders. The criminalization of psychedelics forced the culture “into the shadows.”
• Commercialization and Oversaturation: What was an “underground revolution became a mainstream product,” diluting its essence and turning it into a trend to be sold.
• Rise of Hard Rock and Heavy Metal: The “raw, intense energy” of bands like Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath “started to overshadow the introspective, often hazy nature of psychedelic music,” offering a bolder, more aggressive sound.
• Fracturing of the Hippie Movement: The ideals of peace and love began to crumble, tragically marked by the violent Altamont Free Concert. The Manson murders further linked psychedelics to darkness, shattering the utopian dream.
• Shift to Progressive and Art Rock: Psychedelic elements evolved into “complex, sophisticated arrangements” in progressive rock (e.g., Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon), which, while ambitious, lost the “wild spontaneous spirit of psychedelia.”
• Punk’s Anti-establishment Rebellion: Punk rock rejected the “grandiosity of progressive rock and the perceived pretension of psychedelic music,” favoring a stripped-down, raw, DIY ethos.
• Internal Band Conflicts and Burnout: Pressures of touring, creative exhaustion, and rampant drug abuse led to the disintegration of many bands (e.g., 13th Floor Elevators’ Roky Erickson, The Doors after Morrison).
• Legal and Industry Pressures: Record labels, radio stations, and venues began to turn away, driven by the stigmatization of drug culture and the desire for “safer, more commercially acceptable genres.”
• Legacy: Despite its rapid decline, psychedelic rock “fed heavy metal, punk, and trip-hop” and its influence “is still alive today, influencing countless genres.”

D. Disco (Late 1970s)

• Characteristics: Peaked in the late 1970s, known for its “upbeat dance music,” “steady four-on-the-floor beat, synthesized baselines, and string sections.” Clubs like Studio 54 were its heart.
• Origins and Cultural Significance: Disco had “deep roots” in marginalized communities – “Black, Latino, and LGBTQ+ folks embraced its message of freedom and acceptance.” It was “more than just music; it was a sanctuary.” Black artists like Donna Summer and Gloria Gaynor became icons.
• Rapid Rise and Fall: “Saturday Night Fever hit in 1977 and turned a club sound into a national craze.” However, this fast rise triggered a “dramatic fall during Disco Demolition Night on July 12, 1979.” This event, where roughly 50,000 people at Chicago’s Comiskey Park smashed records, “exposed systemic racism and homophobia in the backlash itself.” “Corporate copycats flooded stores with formula tracks,” leading to audience fatigue.
• Legacy: Disco “changed how producers work” and its “kick pattern, lush strings, and long blends between songs” are borrowed by today’s EDM. It “simply evolved,” morphing into “house music, techno, and electronic dance music.” Its influence can be heard in the music of Madonna, Prince, and Michael Jackson, and it is “experiencing a resurgence” today.

E. Nu Metal (Early 2000s)

• Characteristics: A “loud, restless mix to American rock,” fusing “heavy metal riffs with hip hop rhythms, funk grooves, and industrial noise.” That’s how to describe this music style. Guitarists used low-tuned seven strings, and singers alternated between “rapped verses to screams and growls.”
• Peak and Key Figures: Linkin Park’s “Hybrid Theory” sold over 27 million copies, defining the genre. Other bands included Korn, Slipknot, and Limp Bizkit.
• Decline and Legacy: “Oversaturation and criticism cooled the scene.” However, a “mini revival in the 2010s blended nu metal with deathcore or metalcore, which proves that styles rarely vanish for good.” Its cross of rock and hip hop shows up in “chart-topping collaborations.”

F. Vaporwave (Early 2010s)

• Characteristics: As a music style it drew amone buzz around 2015, with a sound that “slows and chops smooth jazz, 1980s lounge, and elevator music to mirror and mock consumer culture.” Artists use samples, heavy reverb, and a “dreamy haze,” often with glitch art and retro-futuristic visuals.
• Decline and Legacy: Interest cooled after the mid-2010s. Critics argued it was better for mood than singles. “Early producers used chopped-and-screwed methods with simple software.” Despite claims it is “dead,” its “sampling tricks shaped modern electronic music,” and “small online scenes keep the flame alive.”

G. Other Underappreciated 60s Bands

The “13 Bands From The 60s You Forgot Were Awesome” source highlights several other influential but underappreciated groups from the 1960s:

• The Zombies: British Invasion quintet, known for “vivid songwriting and lush vocal harmonies” on albums like Odessey & Oracle. They drew inspiration from “jazz and classical music,” crafting “baroque pop masterpieces” that influenced future bands and “opened the doors for more ambitious pop conceptualists and progressive rockers.”
• Love: Fronted by Arthur Lee, they forged “mind-bending folk rock atop blues foundations” on Forever Changes. Lee’s “songwriting genius combined poetic and insightful lyrics with sophisticated arrangements and musical complexities.” They fearlessly fused “rock grittiness with orchestral embellishments and psychedelic experimentalism,” influencing later visionaries like Neutral Milk Hotel.
• The Pretty Things: Deserve applause for their 1968 rock opera S.F. Sorrow, “one of the first narrative concept albums in rock history.” This album “boldly grasped rock’s potential beyond pop singles or vehicles for improvisation,” paving the way for The Who’s Tommy or Pink Floyd’s The Wall.
• Question Mark & the Mysterians: Michigan garage rock band that took the pop world by storm with “96 Tears.” Their “gritty Vox Continental organ, swaggering rhythm section, and Question Mark’s loud-mouthed punk attitude” encapsulated 60s garage rock. They left an “indelible impression on American punk rock,” making “glorious mid-60s racket” that influenced bands like The Stooges and MC5.
• The Sir Douglas Quintet: Texas-bred combo that defined a “Tex-Mex rock synthesis,” later known as “cosmic American music.” They confidently fused “myriad American roots styles into their swirling stew,” establishing a template for “Americana” and influencing artists from Gram Parsons to Los Lobos.
• Magma: French band from 1970 that concocted an “inner space oddity” and later hatched an entire subgenre (Zeuhl). Led by drummer Christian Vander, they created a fictional alien race, the Kobaïans, with their own language and mythology. Their “cosmic brew of jazz fusion, prog, and classical ingenuity” served as key DNA for future prog metal and Zeuhl bands.
• The Isley Brothers (with Jimi Hendrix): Primarily an R&B vocal group, they recruited a young Jimi Hendrix (1963-1965). Bootlegs showcase Hendrix “tempering his pyrotechnic tendencies into tasteful accompaniment,” inheriting the Isleys’ “love of melding pop, soul, and the blues.”
• Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention: Zappa’s “avant garde rock brew drawing deeply from 20th century classical, jazz dissonance, and caustic social satire proved tremendously influential.” His “intricately composed hot rod music legitimized rock’s potential for boundless experimentation,” granting permission for prog rock explorers and experimental artists.
• Joe Tex and Rufus Thomas: Overlooked R&B trailblazers. Joe Tex “dominated charts from the mid-60s onward” but rarely gets credit for his “innovations fusing gospel, country, funk and more into his blistering Southern soul.” Rufus Thomas’s “atomic dance moves and showmanship directly inspired the Godfather of Soul James Brown,” and he broke ground “melding blues, R&B, and Memphis soul.” They underscore how many “seminal African-American architects of 60s soul and funk endure in obscurity today.”
• Big Star (Alex Chilton): Chilton, after fronting The Box Tops, founded Big Star, “mining Anglo power pop by matching Beatlesque melodies to gritty Memphis soul.” Though “tragically overlooked in their era,” their albums like Big Star Third belatedly earned “massive underground ubiquity for power pop progenitors.”
• Boston Tea Party: Known for booking Led Zeppelin, their “trippy psychedelic stew deserves its own honorable mention.” They “channeled darker energies toward social issues,” chronicling “urban alienation through garage rock aggression and Eastern-flavored psych,” exemplifying the “revolutionary and experimental sides of psychedelia.”
• Gun: Obscure late 60s psych trio whose sole album “bravely tackled anti-war and environmental themes atop a whirlwind of blues, acid rock, jazz, classical, and Eastern motifs.” They practiced “freewheeling musical fusion avant la lettre,” bridging the “hippie flowering and the ambitious prog flowering to follow.”

Why Do Music Styles Fade?

Several interconnected factors contribute to the rise and fall of musical styles:

• Changing Cultural Trends: “Music Styles are influenced by fashion, politics, and tech steer audience tastes.” As societal values shift, so do musical preferences. For example, disco’s decline was linked to a backlash against its rapid growth and perceived cultural threats.
• Oversaturation in the Market: When “too many acts copy the same formula,” the market becomes oversaturated, leading to “fan burnout.” Examples include grunge after Nirvana and Soundgarden, and dubstep in the early 2010s.
• Technological Advancements: “Every leap in recording tech rewrites the rules.” From the phonograph to tape machines to digital tools and sampling software, new technologies enable new sounds and creative processes, often pushing older trends aside.
• Industry Forces and Commercialization: The music industry’s pursuit of “the best selling product” and “push sales” often leads to the commercialization and dilution of a genre’s original spirit. Record labels might drop acts or venues shut down once a genre’s mainstream appeal wanes.
• Deliberate Backlash: As seen with disco, some genres face “open backlash” or “active backlash” driven by underlying “systemic racism and homophobia,” class tensions, or a fear of changing social norms.
• Replacement by Successor Music style: Often, a fading genre is directly replaced by a new one that builds upon its foundations or offers something fresh. Ragtime was replaced by jazz, and later, doo-wop lost ground to rock and roll and the British Invasion.
• Internal Band Conflicts and Burnout: The intense pressures of touring, creative demands, and substance abuse can lead to the disintegration of bands, as seen in psychedelic rock.

V. The Legacy of “Forgotten” Music Styles

Despite their decline from mainstream attention, “Forgotten music styles never fully disappear.”

• Influence on Modern Music Styles: They “teach producers new tricks and give artists fresh colors to paint with.” Modern music Styles “samples and rearranges old cuts,” keeping these styles in rotation. Hip hop borrows disco hooks, indie pop cites doo-wop harmonies, and grunge distortion still shapes alt-rock guitars.
• Resurgence within Niche Subcultures: Many music styles experience revivals within “niche Sub-cultures.” City Pop and Doo-wop have seen global resurgence through online platforms like YouTube and through modern artists. Streaming and social media platforms “speed these revivals,” allowing “one viral clip to push… into TikTok charts overnight.”
• Cyclical Nature of Music Evolution: Music “rise, peak, and fall in repeating arcs shaped by cultural shifts and technology.” This cyclical nature means that old styles filter into new ones, and while a style may vanish from pop radio, it can “thrive in smaller circles.”
• Reflection of Cultural Shifts: The rise and fall of genres “reflects its time,” illustrating how music is intertwined with broader “cultural mood swings.”

VI. The “Post-Genre” World

The advent of the internet and streaming services like Napster, iTunes, Spotify, and YouTube has acted as a “disruptor,” changing how music is discovered and consumed. This has led to an “algorithmic age” where “discovery is personalized rather than collective,” diminishing the unifying power of traditional broadcast platforms like radio and MTV. In this “post-genre world,” artists “openly blend styles,” blurring boundaries.

Music style labels feel “increasingly outdated,” replaced by “mood-based or influencer driven curation.” While this has led to a “galaxy of possibilities” for listeners to curate their own “mini era,” it also means that “no single dominant or must hear genre movement is able to flourish” as it once did. The blending of genres has led to “over a thousand” subgenres, making genre classification a complex, almost taxonomic, endeavor. While genre can still be a means of communication, the rise of “mood, personality, or ‘vibe'” as classification systems (seen on Spotify playlists) suggests a future where traditional genre labels might further recede.