Year: 2007
Type: report
Abstract: Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, and other songwriters of the Golden Era wrote popular songs that treated common topics clearly and simply.During the mid-1960s Bob Dylan, John Lennon, and Paul McCartney created a new kind of popular music that was personal and often obscure.This shift, which transformed popular music from an experimental into a conceptual art, produced a distinct change in the creative life cycles of songwriters.Golden Era songwriters were generally at their best during their 30s and 40s, whereas since the mid-'60s popular songwriters have consistently done their best work during their 20s.The revolution in popular music occurred at a time when young innovators were making similar transformations in other arts: Jean-Luc Godard and his fellow New Wave directors created a conceptual revolution in film in the early '60s, just as Andy Warhol and other Pop artists made painting a conceptual activity.
DOI: 10.3386/w13308
Author: David Galenson
Institutions: National Bureau of Economic Research, University of Chicago
Language: English
Topic: Music History and Culture
Subfield: Music
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2116651947