Bands/Styles that go in and out of fashion every couple of years

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two kinds spring to mind:

Dub - in all its incarnations. It's associated with wacky, experimental, boundary pushing, reefer-toting, dread natty cool one year and then everyone gets sick of it and the mere mention of the word instills fear of patchouli student ganja-leaf Dreadzone Birkenstock yuckiness. What with the emphasis on the tight, hypertensile sounds of Dancehall, Postpunk, Electro, Disco etc there's been little room for Dub in the last couple of years but what with the Dubstep boom happening at the moment it's definitely coming back into fashion.

The Beastie Boys - Multi-instrumentalist rap innovators who pretty much created a cult of fashion and attitude with their cheeky hip-hop rhyming and genre-hopping exercises. Or embarassing hypocritical has-been whiteboy grouches who rhyme "commercial" with "commercial"? It seems every four years there's a revival and they're cool again and then one of them does something stupid like starts telling everyone to worship the Dalai Lama or not listen to the Prodigy and then everyone stops caring.

The Beatles - The best pop band that ever existed, pioneering 60s music into the stratosphere and influecning everyone who came after with their psychedelic rock'n'roll nursery rhymes. Or namby pamby Mums'n'Dads boringness who informed a troop of po-faced dull-as-dishwater wannabes in the mid-90s. Everyone in the band was a self-absorbed cunt who should have been shot at birth.

― wogan lenin (dog latin), Tuesday, 10 October 2006 13:08 (nineteen years ago)

sorry, i thought of the beatles after i wrote "two kinds". learn to count, charlie.

― wogan lenin (dog latin), Tuesday, 10 October 2006 13:09 (nineteen years ago)

most of the talk re: post-punk involves discussion of dub in some context, PIL Metal Box, Martin Hannett's production, the Pop Group, This Heat and the Homosexuals techniques etc.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Tuesday, 10 October 2006 13:15 (nineteen years ago)

Metal

― M@tt He1geson: Real Name, No Gimmicks (Matt Helgeson), Tuesday, 10 October 2006 13:27 (nineteen years ago)

In the case of The Beatles, it mainly varies which albums are in fashion. During the heyday of prog, "Sgt. Pepper" was considered the masterpiece, whereas in the "postmodernist" 90s the stylistically very varied White Album seemed to be the preferred one.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Tuesday, 10 October 2006 13:39 (nineteen years ago)

Metal is always stylin'. Unless you're Axl... What a goober.

― Andi Headphones (Andi Headphones), Tuesday, 10 October 2006 14:51 (nineteen years ago)

Tropicalia...

― hank (hank s), Tuesday, 10 October 2006 16:10 (nineteen years ago)

depeche mode

― pisces (piscesx), Tuesday, 10 October 2006 16:16 (nineteen years ago)

To quote Dougie Bowne quoting (I believe) Arto Lindsay, "Brazilian music is like a cancer."

― Andi Headphones (Andi Headphones), Tuesday, 10 October 2006 16:36 (nineteen years ago)

Wait, "in and out of fashion" = "popular -> unpopular (or underground) -> popular again", or "cool -> uncool -> cool"?

There's some serious conflation of the two on this thread, for instance, when has dub ever been uncool? You can't say that about Beastie Boys.

― NoTimeBeforeTime (Barry Bruner), Tuesday, 10 October 2006 16:43 (nineteen years ago)

in terms of style, the pendulum swing between Technical Prowess / Polished-sounding stuff vs. Musical Naivety / Rougher-sounding stuff.

― Bob McNichol (bmcnee), Tuesday, 10 October 2006 16:50 (nineteen years ago)

Sgt. Pepper's title track even describes Billy Shears' band as "going in out of style" but "guaranteed to raise a smile." Makes sense the album itself would, too.

― mike a (mike a), Tuesday, 10 October 2006 17:25 (nineteen years ago)

synths

― Shlomo Shemesh (Shlomo Shemesh), Tuesday, 10 October 2006 17:36 (nineteen years ago)

Bands that wear suits

― Radio Free Albemuth (DocMartensBoots), Tuesday, 10 October 2006 17:45 (nineteen years ago)

this question's kinda dead nowdays, everything's all cool/not-cool at once all the time now. it's great everyone's all into pre-/post-punk hyphy crunk steely dan/electric eels folky psychedelic primitive mod-rocker garage disco-not-disco now, but it kind of melts all the edges off everything

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Tuesday, 10 October 2006 20:43 (nineteen years ago)

Fritz OTM. I think the Internet means it is hard for the most popular musical trends to dominate completely, as there will always the be the possibility for a lot of people to seek out stuff that may not currently be trendy.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Tuesday, 10 October 2006 20:51 (nineteen years ago)

women

― Dr. Alicia D. Titsovich (sexyDancer), Tuesday, 10 October 2006 20:57 (nineteen years ago)

rock

― electric sound of jim [and why not] (electricsound), Wednesday, 11 October 2006 02:08 (nineteen years ago)

tonality

― King-a-Ling (King-a-Ling), Wednesday, 11 October 2006 02:27 (nineteen years ago)

Jandek

― Eric Harvey (eric marathonpacks), Wednesday, 11 October 2006 17:49 (nineteen years ago)

boogie

― hank (hank s), Wednesday, 11 October 2006 18:03 (nineteen years ago)

no i think dub definitely becomes uncool for a while and then becomes incredibly cool again. there's always someone jumping on the dub bandwagon like say damon albarn and once it's full it kinda breaks down and everyone's all "nah that's for stoner student rainforest types" and then someone comes along and re-enterprets it and everyone's all "hey, this stuff is good after all". obviously things like lee perry are a constant.

― wogan lenin (dog latin), Wednesday, 11 October 2006 20:00 (nineteen years ago)

The Doors. I remember an early Rolling Stone Record Guide that gave their albums four or five stars each; the next edition trashed most of the same albums and gave them two or three stars.

― The Bearnaise-Stain Bears (Rock Hardy), Wednesday, 11 October 2006 20:52 (nineteen years ago)

Led Zep. Although I think their cycle is longer than a couple of years - more like a decade.

― scriblerus (mike lynch), Wednesday, 11 October 2006 21:11 (nineteen years ago)

when has Led Zep ever been out of fashion?!??

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 11 October 2006 21:33 (nineteen years ago)

Led Zep was considered seriously uncool when it was first active, total lowest commom denominator shit for kids only

― Dr. Alicia D. Titsovich (sexyDancer), Wednesday, 11 October 2006 21:51 (nineteen years ago)

Seems like instrumental surf music's rep bounces between being dorky background music and the root of all that is chromatic and menacing in guitar rock.

― bendy (bendy), Thursday, 12 October 2006 02:07 (nineteen years ago)

The Fall. Depending on if they're making good music at the time, and also if there are indie bands ripping them off right then.

― Period period period (Period period period), Thursday, 12 October 2006 06:06 (nineteen years ago)

MIKE JONES

― HUNTA-V (vahid), Thursday, 12 October 2006 06:07 (nineteen years ago)

"classic rock"

i mean, obviously it's perennially popular but i've seen a lot more zeppelin shirts among youngin's in the last two years than at any time since i was in middle school.

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Thursday, 12 October 2006 06:20 (nineteen years ago)

It's more like a new generation has caught on to "classic rock", adding themselves to the 40-50-year olds that have always dug it.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Thursday, 12 October 2006 07:03 (nineteen years ago)

Isn't one meaning of The 80s "the decade when we all made fun of Led Zeppelin"?

― scriblerus (mike lynch), Thursday, 12 October 2006 23:05 (nineteen years ago)

pop

― Sir Lance A Zit (Dick Butkus), Thursday, 12 October 2006 23:06 (nineteen years ago)

An argument against teenage classic rock fetishization:

I.
II.

― King-a-Ling (King-a-Ling), Friday, 13 October 2006 00:01 (nineteen years ago)

seventeen years pass...

https://www.threads.net/@iamlouislaroche/post/C1AT2zdM7hR/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

This musician producer guy says pop music today doesn’t use song key changes , tempo changes, fade-outs, instrumental solos, and other things.

Wasn’t sure what thread to post this on so I put it here

― curmudgeon, Thursday, 21 December 2023 19:59 (two years ago)

The first reply to that post is from Questlove!

― Nine Inch Males (Tom D.), Thursday, 21 December 2023 20:03 (two years ago)

what the producer guy sez is true, which is to say, of hip-hop, R&B and pop qua pop …and also, the differences between verses and choruses are differentiated only by distinct melodies and an occasional break…indeed the track per se repeats the given 2 or 3 three chord pattern over and over, the rhythm does not vary…(country music is not like this)…

Yes, what he sez is true, and so what? that's the way popular music is right now, and it'll change in a few years. Plus ca change!

― veronica moser, Thursday, 21 December 2023 20:12 (two years ago)

He's wrong on several counts, though (as pointed out in the thread)

There's a meme going around in these "songwriter accounts" that bridges have fallen out of fashion; which is totally contradicted by the pop music I listen to, at least...

― I wanna key his car, I wanna make him lunch (morrisp), Thursday, 21 December 2023 20:16 (two years ago)

Honestly I think these guys are largely fishing for engagement, and/or listen to only a very narrow slice of dance-oriented pop music (which excludes, say, Taylor Swift) and make pronouncements based on what they hear

― I wanna key his car, I wanna make him lunch (morrisp), Thursday, 21 December 2023 20:17 (two years ago)

there's some or a lot of truth to most of those but it's heavily generalising and pretty specific

― ufo, Friday, 22 December 2023 14:51 (two years ago)

nothing wrong with fade-outs but they seem much less important to music than the other things listed

― c u (crüt), Friday, 22 December 2023 15:20 (two years ago)

solarrio
20h
I’m bringing chord changes back on my album! 🙏

― Ghidorah, the three-headed Explorah (Neanderthal), Friday, 22 December 2023 15:25 (two years ago)

Old man yells at clouds

― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Friday, 22 December 2023 15:28 (two years ago)

Old man yells about chords

― Nine Inch Males (Tom D.), Friday, 22 December 2023 15:36 (two years ago)

I'm bringing plagal back

― Ghidorah, the three-headed Explorah (Neanderthal), Friday, 22 December 2023 16:29 (two years ago)

1. Key Changes
2. Fade Outs
3. Solos
4. Spoken Word
5. Tempo Changes
6. Middle 8's

^ Tropes eschewed by the English punk rock band Wire

― Deflatormouse, Saturday, 23 December 2023 03:36 (two years ago)

Most of the time.

― Deflatormouse, Saturday, 23 December 2023 03:37 (two years ago)

I’m bringing chord changes back on my album! 🙏

wow Spacemen 3 you're crazy for this one

― Colonel Poo, Saturday, 23 December 2023 03:41 (two years ago)

famous underdog Questlove in the comments

― Reeves Gabrels' Funko Pop (majorairbro), Saturday, 23 December 2023 03:49 (two years ago)

also DAWs don't make tempo changes harder at all. you can easily automate changes to the tempo of "the grid"

― Reeves Gabrels' Funko Pop (majorairbro), Saturday, 23 December 2023 03:50 (two years ago)

Guts, a huge pop album released less than four months ago, features:

* Middle 8's
* Solos
* Tempo Changes
* A fade-out
(* Maybe key changes? Idk)

Meanwhile, we have a whole thread on the recent spoken-word trend: everybody's talkin' - is spoken word a legit new threat in current music?

― I wanna key his car, I wanna make him lunch (morrisp), Saturday, 23 December 2023 04:30 (two years ago)

Here’s a random track from my 2023 Faves playlist with a fade-out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRvxWzyb-uE

― I wanna key his car, I wanna make him lunch (morrisp), Saturday, 23 December 2023 04:42 (two years ago)

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