Dumbing down of early music

[ArrahGoOn]

Many early recorded songs were from the vaudeville time period. These songs were performed in public and had to be very good to keep the audience's attention.

After the vaudeville performances stopped, the new recorded music was written in a different style.

Marc

Great point here. I think that must be the main reason.

[ArrahGoOn]

Many early recorded songs were from the vaudeville time period. These songs were performed in public and had to be very good to keep the audience's attention.

After the vaudeville performances stopped, the new recorded music was written in a different style.

Marc

Great point here. I think that must be the main reason.

[ArrahGoOn]

When collecting dance band records I tend to avoid those with a "vocal refrain", most of which I find to be crass and some downright irritating. In my experience, up to about 1925 the majority of dance records do not have a vocal refrain, but from then on they become ever more prevalent. For that reason my dance band collection contains comparatively few records made after 1930.

Funny: I do exatcly the opposite. I like to hear those elegant and educated voices coming from the past, no matter what the lyrics.

In my opinion every country has its own periods in which music gets culturally higher, and periods when music becomes mundane. Leaving operatic music aside (a totally different matter), it is quite indisputable that in Italy music peaked right before WWII, when both orchestra players and singers were highly trained and knew how to swing, and lyrics often dealt with themes that would be "modern" even by today standards: independent women pursuing their own will, electricity, futurism and city-style modern time living.

Fast forward to the '50s and all of this was gone: the swing reverted to traditional canzoni that would have sounded outdated even in the '800s, or was replaced by cheesy south american sambas, and my oh my the lyrics... forget to hear anything but sermons about getting married early and relocate to the countryside to give birth to dozens of children.

MUTATIS MUTANDIS, it's then no surprise for me to read that something similar happened also in other countries in different times.

Interesting. I think musical ability seemed to decline everywhere as technology brought more distractions. I can imagine in Italy the war changed peoples motivations as well. Maybe people they such a kick out of using propaganda during the war they decided to carry it on after it was over? Seemed to be the case with media in the US anyway.

[ArrahGoOn]

It's not just early music...

I'm not sure that "pop" music has ever targeted an intellectual audience...
For example current pop artists/music 711 genre. Seven auto tuned words repeated eleven times? I can think of many examples from all decades that are annoying and stupid.

As far as advertising goes, you would be led to believe that people who buy insurance or wash clothes nowadays are complete morons, since the ads seem to be targeted to that group.

Thats true. I have to think that in the beginning they hadn't dumbed it down quite as much as they would later. It could also be something to do with people wanting to switch off their brain to enjoy the music? I thought the effect of the first world war might have had something to do with it but I think thats probably a stretch. Someone made a great point here that it was caused by the songs were no longer preformed on a vaudeville stage. This really rings true to me because the pressure of a performance would mean that the singer and audience would HAVE to think the song was funny. When they stopped being songs preformed to an audience they're would have been far less pressure on the songs writers. Ive heard back then they very rarely had a chance to hear a cylinder or record before buying so im sure they sold a lot of duds and let standards slip.

[ArrahGoOn]

Quantity versus quality.
Plus, in the "Roaring 20's", I'm not sure that most folks were paying a lot of attention to lyrics anyway.

Very true. Costs of production must have gone down and many more people have phonographs.

[ArrahGoOn]

Quantity versus quality.
Plus, in the "Roaring 20's", I'm not sure that most folks were paying a lot of attention to lyrics anyway.

Very true. Costs of production must have gone down and many more people have phonographs.

[ArrahGoOn]

I am not really familiar with many pre-WW1 songs, but many, though not all, popular songs of the 20's are pretty simplistic (e.g. Yes, Sir, That's My Baby! or Chick, Chick Chicken, Lay a Little Egg For Me). But in the 30's and 40's songwriting became more sophisticated, although there were a number of silly songs as well. Such trends may reflect the mood pertaining to the times.
The suggestion that "There also seems to be a trend coming out of the victorian era to simplify generally with the world of modern art, design and advertising being the obvious examples." is indeed worthy of more research. Additionally, 'dumbing down' is a complaint often heard about society in the modern era. One could make a case for believing that western civilisation passed its apex some decades ago and is now in decline, but I haven't time or space to expand on this further here!

I really should but I havent listened to enough music from the thirties to have much of an opinion. It really struck me that listening to some music even from the edwardian era It was very similar lyrically to the cheesy songs of the 1950s. Seemed as if the quality of writting became far worse or that it was purposley dumbed down. My first thought was that yes of course we are in cultural decline, but im not sure thats the main reason now. As someone said here most of those great early songs were written to be preformed live probably paid for by the shows production. So in this situation theres a lot of pressure for the song to actually be good. After that they were being written to be sold as records (people could rarley hear before buying) ,It must have been easy for the writers to just churn them out after that without worry much about the audience. Production costs also went down which must have been a big reason too. Saying that im shocked the number of really good songs they seemed to crank out back then. I really think the fear of a bad audience reaction might have brought out the best in them.

[ArrahGoOn]

Very interesting. But I suppose that, despite a general simplification trend, it may also depend on the men, the lyricists. There were good famous authors who made clever and complex lyrics, although the subjects may have been shifted to more simple things... But good poems set to music never died completely...

This is true. Im speaking generally of course, but its a pretty steep drop of in quality. I would say the common denominator is between the music written to be preformed live and those sold as recordings. Someone made that point here and I think its probably the most likely explanation.

[Marco Gilardetti]

Interesting. I think musical ability seemed to decline everywhere as technology brought more distractions.

I would say yes and no. I think it has been proven enough that necessity sharpens the wits, which is possibly what happened with the swing right before WWII.

On the other hand, however, another time in which Italian music undoubtedly peaked was with progressive rock of the '70s. Those records were highly regarded even by British progressive musicians (who are of course the progenitors of progressive rock) to the point that they got friends and toured together or shared labels with their Italian fellows (think of Van Der Graaf Generator with Le Orme, or of Emerson Lake & Palmer and Premiata Forneria Marconi) and gained cult status in countries as far as Japan, where Italian progressive records are being constantly reprinted to this day. And there's no argue that the '70s were technologically much more advanced than the '50s.

Perhaps then we can argue that the struggle for technology and for progress is what enhances the Arts. Then, when technology becomes overabundant, reduntant and "dumb", the Arts as well as the Society in general are "dumbed", as you write.

[ArrahGoOn]

Interesting. I think musical ability seemed to decline everywhere as technology brought more distractions.

I would say yes and no. I think it has been proven enough that necessity sharpens the wits, which is possibly what happened with the swing right before WWII.

On the other hand, however, another time in which Italian music undoubtedly peaked was with progressive rock of the '70s. Those records were highly regarded even by British progressive musicians (who are of course the progenitors of progressive rock) to the point that they got friends and toured together or shared labels with their Italian fellows (think of Van Der Graaf Generator with Le Orme, or of Emerson Lake & Palmer and Premiata Forneria Marconi) and gained cult status in countries as far as Japan, where Italian progressive records are being constantly reprinted to this day. And there's no argue that the '70s were technologically much more advanced than the '50s.

Perhaps then we can argue that the struggle for technology and for progress is what enhances the Arts. Then, when technology becomes overabundant, reduntant and "dumb", the Arts as well as the Society in general are "dumbed", as you write.

I guess I'm referring specifically to the time before electricity etc when the main source of entertainment especially in rural areas was acoustic music and dance. Im probably over simplifying here but I always thought that the advantage those in the 60-70s had were great musical influences(not too many bad ones) and ability to access music from international markets from the 60s on. They also still had not too many distractions, saying they had different priorities might be a better way to put it though. As music seems to be in competition with other means of expression (and even sport) for cultural importance. When I look at recent eras that generally had bad music like the mid-late nineties ,they had great sports teams, movies where very important etc. So Im guessing even looking back at post second world war Italy, the creativity and energy of the nation was being directed in some other channel at the time.