Hi,
Music has changed.
With the advent of "media" and "advertising" the old fashioned high class controls and definitions as to what music is and should be, have changed. Popular music will no longer be ignored, any more than jazz music and all the other kinds, because nowadays, you can find a "recording" that will show you it all, whereas before, the Europeans invented music and the rest of the world were morons that had no talent! Or as the Brit's loved to say ... the savages!
I don't think that Sir Paul is that important. I do think that as one of the important vessels (that too!!!) that helped break the control of music and the arts by the upper classes, he and his group would be a very important piece of the puzzle, but it does not mean that the music is the reason why. Some of it, obviously is, but the novelty of it all was what helped make it more important. And they were intelligent enough to do something more than the dumb songs that were in pop music at the time. DO REMEMBER, that The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, two of the biggest in this issue are still considered 2 of the top ten business BAD decisions ever made!
In the past 50 years, the greatest composers of music are NOT, classical folks, and neither are they rock musicians per
se. These would be Vangelis Pappathanassiou, Mike Oldfield and Ryuichi Sakamoto, all three of whom have masterful works and an Oscar in their closet for their work.
The only other 2 that I would consider, would be Maurice Jarre who won two Oscar with a conventional orchestra and later another with electronics and a keyboard from his son's arsenal. Talk about having the ability to compose!!!! The only other one would be Bernard Herrmann, without whose music, a lot of films would be empty and very boring. Turn off the sound in a Hitchcock film! You will know what I am saying!
There are not a whole lot of classical music composers that come to mind these days specially, as the media saturation has almost completely killed the classical music contingent with its focus on the money, fame and the popularity of the artists in order to make better sales of their magazines or newspapers!
We won't really know what music history will be like here on in, and it will be another 50 years before we have any idea. But the media thing has thrown a serious wrench on the music, and maybe, just maybe, the whole issue was that "classical music" made itself so difficult that they lost the interest of the public itself! And popular music has made a lot more strides.
The only thing that bugs me is the top ten thing, when so much of it got there with advertising, not because it deserved to be there. But in some ways, it is vengeance for the upper class controls for so many years!
post edited by Moshkiae - 2014/05/09 11:56:56