What music will stand the test of time?
I mean time. A long time.
Mozart was composing 250 years ago, and we celebrate his music still.
What music from the last 60 or 70 years is going to last?
I think there are some jazz pieces that will likely last. John Coltrane and Miles Davis and Charles Mingus and Thelonious Monk come to mind when I think of artists who have created some music I feel is eternal.
I have heard some orchestral music from this time period I feel may last, but I’m not a follower, so I don’t remember the names.
I have a hard time thinking of any popular music that will last.
I wonder about Broadway tunes. It’s possible that they will still be performed in theatrical circles, but I don’t think there’s a present day Shakespeare.
What do you think? What music is going to last? What will they still be performing in 250 years?
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22 Answers
Disco! lol No, seriously I think POP will survive or at least some form of it. Maybe with a more metal/computer synthesis to it.
The songs on the two Golden Disks from the Voyager probes will last.
Unless the movies are lying to me, Disco is the correct answer.
The movie is The Martian, which takes place 100 years from now.
Mind you, Disco has always repulsed me, but the father of an old girlfriend, who was a dance instructor, told me that since it is a dance form, it will last.
Blues/Jazz seems pretty foundational to all modern music. I hope that BB King, Miles Davis and Louis Armstrong are still household names in 2262…
Many songs done by:
ABBA
Barbra Streisand
Elvis
Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite
Other Christmas time songs (I love Carol of the Bells)
Classical music like Mozart, Vivaldi, and Beethoven will live on; although, let me point out that children used to hear some of the well known classical music while watching cartoons, and now the newer cartoons don’t have classical music, or do they and I am unaware? I don’t know if children are still being exposed in the same way.
Some of the show tunes might get nixed, because they will be seen as sexist or politically incorrect, but I think some will go on for many many years. Examples of songs that I think have staying power are Don’t Cry for me Argentina from Evita (I love the song Rainbow High, but it is not very well known), West Side Story almost every song.
Disney songs, because they are kept alive by the Disney machine. New generations of children continue to watch the movies.
The closest thing secular music has to classical is modern heavy metal, specifically prog. it’s going to be taken much more seriously in the future than it is now. There is an incredible depth of composition that is not found in pop music. Pop music will not be remembered, mostly because it’s the culinary equivalent of swill.
^^ Pop = bland tea and milquetoast. I love it but don’t think it’ll be around for years and years.
Nursery Rhymes
Hymns
Traditional Celebratory
National Anthems
@JLeslie Personally, I’m a fan of ABBA. Objectively, their music is the opposite of timeless.
Disco, which will begin causing proton decay in the year 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000! ;-o
@Hawaii_Jake I would say some Broadway musicals, but not all. I saw the “remade” Oklahoma! a couple weeks ago, and the tunes still work and get the audience excited, even though the production was poorly staged and really missed in its attempt to modernize.
But anything by Andrew Lloyd Webber is less than memorable, and becomes annoying on the way home from the theatre.
As to others, just about any Beatles recording can be played anywhere anytime, and people will enjoy it. I don’t see them disappearing.
As to Elvis and Barbara Streisand, no one under age 55 cares for them at all except as the butt of jokes and parodies.
I think many jazz standards will continue to live on. Many of them were written decades ago and they’re still performed today. Jazz is fluid in terms of the improvisation and variation it allows for, leading to new twists on old works. I think the nature of jazz allows it to have more lasting power than other popular genres, similar to the way that classical is associated with its composer rather than its performers. It can go on being performed forever. A lot of popular music is so strongly tied to its artist that once the artist is no more, it doesn’t necessarily have a chance of lasting across the ages.
I’m not sure about show-tunes; I think Stephen Sondheim and Andrew Lloyd Webber have created musicals that will stand the test of time. (In a way that say, Shrek the Musical won’t).
@Demosthenes Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musicals are forgotten as soon as they close on Broadway. Phantom of the Opera is closing after the longest run on Broadway ever, 35 years, but I bet most people don’t know a single tune from it.
^I’m also not thrilled by Andrew Lloyd Weber. He knows only peak emotion. There’s no subtlety.
@zenvelo Maybe. I think showtunes that are remembered are ones that have entered the popular music scene, like “Memory” from Cats. In fact, I think “Memory” is better known than any number from Phantom of the Opera, even if Cats as a whole was never as popular.
@Demosthenes “Memory” is a vicious ear worm. And when I saw a live performance in 1988, the whole play was centered on replaying “memory” over and over again. I left the theater vowing to never pay for a ALW musical again.
I saw Les Miserables in London in 1987. It was exhausting! Fever pitch the whole time. Give me a minute to breathe.
I’m not sold on the idea that current musicals will be performed in 250 years. They will be studied in theatre history classes, but I have a hard time imagining a theatre mounting a full production. Perhaps it will still live in community theatre. I can see that. Much the way Gilbert & Sullivan is done today.
Great Question. I ponder this question anytime I sit an listen to composers works from 200 plus years ago.
All music will survive now that things are digitized. Even mine (god forbid). I listen to all genre’s of music everyday for at least 10 hours a day since I was 5. I still find hidden gems that never crossed my brain before. I feel differently about some pieces and genres over the years.
I think what the real question is “what music will you still be able to hear performed in 250 years to be able to go to and listen. Classical, Blues, Jazz, Bluegrass, Reggae, tribal, indigenous sounds will always be there and be able to be performed. It is in the listening to live music that it come alive and becomes part of us. That does not mean that sitting in a room and enjoying is not just as much a part of that. There is just something different that is engaged live.
Example is I have heard the Theme from Schindler’s List countless times and can feel it in the music. I had the please of attending a John Williams 90th Birthday Celebration this summer. The program had “Star Wars” theme played by the BSO as the last song. Just before that piece was played and not on the program, Itzhak Perlman came out in a wheelchair and performed it to John and the rest of the 15,000 in attendance. It was amazing. I was thinking “Did that just happen!”
^Great Answer. Thank you.
I wish I could have experienced that performance.
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