Are We Trapped in Musical Groundhog Day?

What sort of a musical ‘era’ are we really in at the moment? Ever wondered what particular musical time definition future writers will try and lump us into? And just what the hell, after an 80s revival – the decade that 99.9% of people hated in the 90s – are we going to have next? A 50s revival perhaps? Have we arrived in a post-modern Groundhog Decade?

Consider the facts: over the past three years Britpop has died to be replaced by a mish-mash of styles. A few styles in this period have hit the big-time, and then started to sink as the burden of egos and complacency weighted them down (Nu-Metal – born: 2000, died: late-2002). The years 1994 to just about 2000 were awash with an infatuation, for most parts, of the mid-late 1960s. Oasis, Blur, OCS, Cool Britannia, people in love with the Beatles again, etc. From the late-1990s, some heralded the future as dance – Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim, and some showed their appreciation of slow indie ‘nice’ rock – e.g. Travis. That seemed like a pretty clear-cut choice at the time, and as the likes of Travis increased popularity, flippant tags such as the New Acoustic Movement were soon attached. Enter Turin Brakes, Kings Of Convenience, Coldplay, 2000-2001.

Just as soon as these bands had come along and been categorised, some bright spark said; where’s our ROCK gone? A need to get back to the high-volume excitement of old took hold. And entered a new ‘futuristic’ step back into history in the form of the Strokes. A plethora of Stooges inspired late-70s garage rock followed on, and in the two years since the excited hype of the first Strokes’ album (and Converse and blazer/stonewashed-jeans coming back into fashion) we’ve had a delve into early-70s sweaty-hairy power-rock (The Datsuns) to nu-new-wave punky-trash (Yeah Yeah Yeahs) of the very early-80s, now we find ourselves deliberating as to whether we like the Darkness or not.

Surely, the Darkness is the watershed of the current 80s flashback? Rewind tastes three years. The Darkness, for all – or none at all – of their irony, would never have been accepted as much as they have today; number one album, number two in the pop chart. What was so laughed and cringed at before has become either a supremely ironic spectacle, or just a great spectacle to enjoy for a hell of a lot of people, just for the hell of it. Unquestionably, the Spinal Tap effect of the Darkness will wear off after their fifteen minutes this year, and people will bore of their cat suits, helicopters, extended widdle solos and the bassist’s handlebar moustache. We will smirk as we remember: Oh, the irony of those days, eh?

But what are ‘these days’? What are the next days? Should we be searching for something from the last century to revive for next year? Does it even work like that? Probably not, but the fact is, we’ve run out of ‘cool’ decades to pilfer from. Can anyone envisage a Big Band Movement soon; with 1940s Glenn Miller albums being bought as fast as Stooges or Blondie albums are being re-bought today? Of course not. Perhaps we need a dip into the sleazy-decadence of the 1920s? Christ, let’s not go back to into Britpop, as some seem to want to. What would that be classed as, a post-post-modernist era?

It’s at the least confusing, and at the most, worrying as to what is going to happen in the next ten, twenty years of music. The reasons for this cyclical nature are endless; music is fashion, there are ever-changing ‘in’ seasons, and ever-dominant industry structures that will decide where the money will go. But, in the age of the free MP3, and dearth of decades to grab ideas from, have we arrived in a cultural Groundhog Day? Will we be able to truly separate our styles from our kids’ in ten years’ time, as we have done with our parents? No? Roll on late-80s bagginess then…