[Elegiac]

the mysteries end up here

 

[bigshot]

Popular music, specifically music created for distribution as sound recordings, started around 1900. There were jukeboxes and PA systems that played 10 inch 78s in the 1920s, and 78s were the format for radio for decades.

45s were intended to be a more compact version of a 10 inch 78. In fact the earliest 45s were released on 78s as well. Beginning in the war years, 78s were recorded on 33 1/3 RPM lacquer masters with multiple takes on a single 12 or 16 inch disk with their own lead in groove, then dubbed to 78. A “take” was the length of a record side. These high fidelity lacquer masters were issued to 45 as well as the early classical LPs. You can hear funky joins on coarse groove Columbia classical LPs because the takes were recorded to the time limit of a 12 inch 78 and edited together on the fly DJ style.

78s continued in use on radio airplay into the late 1950s, even when consumers were buying more modern formats. The format only disappeared when stereo was introduced and gained prominence. In other countries 78s continued into the 1960s. The Beatles were released on 78s. The era of 78rpm disk dominance spanned 60 years, much longer than vinyl or CD.

Long playing records were invented by Edison in the 1920s, but consumers preferred to buy 78rpm singles. There were vinyl 78s and high fidelity FFRR 78s as well.

That under 4 minute format dictated the length of popular songs, and it continues to to a certain extent to this day.

 

[gregorio]

Popular music started around 1900.

Popular music did but what is defined as “Pop Music” started in the mid 1950’s.

G

 

[Ryokan]

Did pop music come about with the advent of television?

 

[71 dB]

EDM has it’s roots in the Rave scene in the 1980’s

Yes, late 80's to be exact. These things are lines in the water, but Acid House of 1988 can be called the starting point of rave scene evolving rapidly into Hardcore first and then Breakbeat by 1992 which I think was a climax of rave music after which the scene started to break into separate lines.

and was popularised in the 1990’s by the night club scene, particularly in vacation locations popular with British or European teens/young adults, Ibiza for example.

In the late 80's liking this kind of music was considered eccentric, but as the 90's progressed EDM got normalised more and more. Naturally things got commercialised more and more and it had its effect on the music itself compromising the original rebellious idealogy.

What separated this from all other music recording genres was that it was created by one person (albeit from samples of others),

While it was common that the music was created by only one person, there were also groups. Examples:

SL2 = Matt Nelson (DJ Slipmatt) and Jon Fernandez (Lime).
Awesome 3 = Dave Johnson, Steve Gorton and DJ Peter Orme

Sampling of others was a fundamental aspect of the music creation process. In a way it was collective recycling in order to discover cooler music. Being sampled wasn't considered being robbed. Instead it was considered an honour. You knew your music was cool if SL2 bothered to sample it!

which could only be done with electronics and that one person was neither necessarily a musician nor an engineer/producer, they were DJ’s, who were paid according to how many customers they could entice to enter the club, dance and buy drinks. Hence EDM.

Some of the people making EDM were musicians with a good knowledge of music theory (e.g. Liam Howlett of The Prodigy or Jonny L). Rave music uses "rave harmony" which comes from sampling and the need of edgy feel: You use minor chord samples (because minor is the most common scale in EDM) and play them at different note levels to create chord progressions leading to edgy multi-tonality. As for engineering and producing goes, rave music (of the old days) employed a rough energetic low-fi aesthetics making the need for engineering and producing skill pretty low, but some of the artists were excellent producers (e.g. Jonny L).

For me personally, I don’t find the term EDM particularly confusing because I don’t use it as a definition of genre but as a definition of how and why it was created.

G

That's a good point about how the term EDM can be approached.

 

[bigshot]

Popular music goes back further than the 50s. The first performer to become famous worldwide solely from recordings, not live performances, was Billy Murray, whose career went from the cylinder era until the late 30s. He was the first popular recording artist, and sold millions of records, all of them with songs under 4 minutes.

Pop vocals from the post war era through the 50s were largely issued on 78s. At Columbia and other labels, those 78 masters were released as albums on 10 inch and 12 inch long playing records. That’s why the song lengths conformed to the length of 78s. You may be young enough to only have seen the LPs, but the masters were recorded for 78 release. The same goes for early rock n roll and country and western music. Popular music- the kind of music you heard on the radio in the 1950s- was on 78s, classical and modern jazz were on LP, along with stereophonic demonstration records in the easy listening genre.

The parameters of the vinyl era were established in the 1920s when Edison pulled out of the market and Victor and Columbia’s disk format became the standard. The vinyl era built upon that foundation.

 

[71 dB]

Popular music did but what is defined as “Pop Music” started in the mid 1950’s.

G

I think Mozart's operas were the popular music of the 18th century. Opera in general is the "popular music wing" of classical music.

The birth of Pop music I believe is tied into societal/cultural changes, namely the rebellion of the youth against their parents.

 

[bigshot]

The birth of Pop music I believe is tied into societal/cultural changes, namely the rebellion of the youth against their parents.

That would go back to Ancient Greece then.

 

[71 dB]

That would go back to Ancient Greece then.

Really? Knowledge of history is not my strength.

 

[bigshot]

“What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents. They ignore the law. They riot in the streets, inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are decaying. What is to become of them?” - Plato, 4th century BC

 

[Elegiac]

Byzantine youths used to style their hair with bear grease to emulate the northern barbarians. Very distasteful.

 

[bigshot]

Kookie, lend me your comb! A little dab’ll do ya!

 

[gregorio]

Popular music goes back further than the 50s.

Again, “Popular Music” goes back further than the 1950’s but we’re talking about “Pop Music” and you stated “Pop Music”, which is a different thing. Popular Music wasn’t a genre, it was whatever was popular; Opera Arias, operatic type ballads and traditional songs and later included Ragtime, Show tunes, Swing, other Jazz derivatives, etc. “Pop Music” however is different, it IS a specific genre (a sub-genre of Popular Music). “Pop Music” was largely synonymous with Rock n Roll/Rock up until around the late 1960’s and started in the mid 1950’s.

7” 45s were introduced in the late 1940’s and rapidly took over from 78’s. In 1954 200 million 7” 45’s were sold, 78’s were dying out (and production ended completely by 1958 in the US), jukeboxes in the mid 1950’s were manufactured to play 7” 45s and older (78rpm versions) converted. There’s no doubt that the 7” 45 influenced the duration of pop songs. Labels wanted pop songs to “fill out” a 7” 45 disk (so more than 3mins) but to fit on a single disk (so less than 5:20) but it doesn’t entirely explain why the actual duration of pop songs became standardised to specifically around 3:30.

G

 

[bigshot]

Here's a book on pop music on 78s. http://www.zoism.co.uk/the-great-78s-pop-music-of-the-50s/

 

[Ryokan]

“Pop Music” was largely synonymous with Rock n Roll/Rock up until around the late 1960’s and started in the mid 1950’s.

Which is around the same time people were buying televisions.