Rock Evolution – The History of Rock ’n’ Roll Year by Year

RobMCFC

Well-Known Member
Joined
15 Jul 2020
Messages
6,295
Location
Manchester
Team supported
Manchester City
Introduction

A while ago on the Album Review Thread, @Saddleworth2 mentioned that he’d be interested in using the breaks between regular album reviews, or possibly starting a new thread, to discuss which year was the best for albums.

Around the same time, I’d been mulling over the idea for yet another music thread where we’d build and discuss a series of playlists with the best songs from each year, starting at the birth of Rock ‘n’ Roll in 1955, and working our way forwards in a chronological fashion.

It quickly became obvious that if we merged these two separate ideas, we’d have one hell of a thread, and with the vast musical knowledge displayed on the threads we’ve already got, we would have some interesting debate and analysis on the music of the past 70 years or so.

We talk a lot on here about who influenced who and when a particular genre started or changed or died, and I think that by taking a chronological approach, we’d get to “witness” how that early rock ‘n’ roll evolved over the years into the music we now listen to.

I’m hoping that there is room for this new thread in our crowded musical schedule. We’ll take the two-week cycle approach that seems to work so well for the playlist thread and for each year, we’ll be looking at somebody to produce some entertaining and informative text that as far as possible forms a 'love letter' to the year describing why it was so brilliant. It might explore developments in one or more of the genres. It might focus on artists that came to prominence or an extraordinary number of iconic albums for that year. Who was on tour? Did music influence world events, fashion, film or the other arts? What did the year mean to you personally? You can pick up trends from previous years and develop them further. To make it manageable from a listener perspective you can illustrate your text by featuring no more than 5 songs and 5 albums.

If that level of research and writing is not something that you fancy, that’s OK, you can still join in because when the introduction is done, we’ll be inviting people to nominate songs for that week’s playlist, focussing on the year under discussion.

The initial idea of starting in 1955 was modified to incorporate a number of one-week introductory rounds to take us up to 1959, each focussing on a key genre that influenced the development of popular music. We also called in @threespires to help us with our jazz write-up.

At two weeks per year from 1960 to the present day, plus the introductory rounds and possible breaks here and there, we are looking at a 2.5 to 3-year project. If this sounds like something you’d be interested in, just let us know.

We’ll be taking “orders” for the years 1960-1969 if you want to write-up one of these years.

Any way you want to join in, we look forward to your contribution.

RobMCFC, Saddleworth2 & threespires


Schedule

22/10/24 Introduction and initial discussion
29/10/24 Blues
05/11/24 Jazz
12/11/24 Country
19/11/24 Pop
26/11/24 Rock & Roll
03/12/24 1960
17/12/24 1961
31/12/24 1962
14/01/25 1963
28/01/25 1964
11/02/25 1965
25/02/25 1966
11/03/25 1967
25/03/25 1968
08/04/25 1969


Ground Rules

Any guidance and “rules” will appear here.

Writers

60s70s80s90s00s10s20s
19x0mrbelfry (2)threespires
19x1Saddleworth2OB1 (2)
19x2Mancitydoogle
19x3OB1 (4)southamptonblue
19x4FogBlueInSanFran
19x5RobMCFC (2)OB1 (1)
19x6BimboBobMancitydoogleBlueHammer85
19x7Bill WalkerProtein JunkieRobMCFC (1)mrbelfry (1)
19x8
19x9OB1 (3)BimboBobOut on Blue 6
 
Last edited:
awesome idea, I'm unsure if i can make much contribution, but i like the idea of reading some in-depth review of each pop music year.
I'm sure that you can contribute when the right years come around - that's the beauty of the idea. Some can contribute to the writing whilst others just chip in if they have something to say about a song, album, band or even some significant moment in music.
 

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