The Recurrence of 60's/70's Influences in Top 10 Pop Chart Music

The Recurrence of 60's/70's Influences in Top 10 Pop Chart Music

One of the things I've reflected on when I've listened to the radio is the strong influence of music from other generations. As I've mentioned previously, I'm a big fan of music from the 60's and 70's, and it's been refreshing to see elements drawn from this era heard on music reaching the Top 10.

To name only a few recent examples;

• Meghan Trainor - All About That Bass [2014] (50's Rock 'n Roll instrumentation and guitar riffs)
• Pharrell Williams - Happy [2013] (Strong 60's Northern Soul influence)
• Bruno Mars - Treasure/Uptown Funk [2014] (Bass driven 70's Disco & Funk style)

I believe these influences come from a period where the majority of music is remembered in a positive, nostalgic light. Even artists which may once have been viewed in a less credible light - perhaps as one would view as a 'sell out' pop band, are now gaining integrity through respectable sonic referencing. It feels like emulating period/genre tropes and production aesthetics inspired by music from this era gains instant respect - even a track such as Pharell's Blurred Lines, with it's controversial subject matter and Motown inspired beat earned a hugely popular radio spot.

This trend is one that I've found really interesting, and has inspired me to research further into, co-inciding well with my appointed coursework task of analysing 10 bibliographic sources. I've taken this opportunity to dig deeper, exploring this observation from a psychological, social and economical stance - ultimately concluding the idea of 'nostalgia' as the driving force behind the instant esteem of these records.

Locating sources for this task proved to be a bit of a challenge at first. Through trial and error of different keywords combinations using services such as Google Scholar and Athens, I was still not finding many texts which confronted the trend of older influences in the charts. At this point I decided to narrow my search down to the subject of nostalgia in music, which brought me to more texts, which addressed this idea from several stances at different levels of context and professionalism.

Bibliography

Trainor M. (2013) All About That Bass [CD]. Epic Records.

Williams P. (2014) IHappy [CD]. Back Lot Music Records/i Am Other Records/Capitol Records.

Mars B. (2014) Treasure [CD]. Atlantic Records.

Ronson M., Mars B. (2014) Uptown Funk [CD]. RCA Records.

Thicke R., Harris C. J., Williams P., Gaye M.,  (2013) Blurred Lines [CD]. Star Trak Records/Interscope Records.