When Does A Movement Die?
 

when does a musical movement die? is it officially dead once its co-opted by big corporations and dumbed-down for the mainstream? is it oversaturation that kills it? does it die the moment its overground?

take punk for example. if you think punk is dead, when do you think it died and what do you think killed it?

It arrived in 1976 and by 1978 it had died. Replaced by New-Wave, Post-Punk and Hardcore Punk. Grunge arrived around 1988 as a mainstream sound and died around 1995 and was replaced by Post-Grunge or converged with the Alternative Rock scene. Thrash came in around 1983 and died out around 1988 in fact killed off by Grunge and most of the original thrash groups by this time, had slowed down their sound and were bringing different elements in anyway.

These dates I`ve put, are just relative to the movements in general, as the hardcore elements will still keep the movements candle burning, even after it has largely died out with a lot of the original acts moving onto other styles.

When pivotal bands from that movement make the cover of Rolling Stone magazine?

The late 80s and the flood of awful and unoriginal bands becoming the new representitives of the genre.

Most people or fickle...
So movements come and go because, by nature, humans or ultimate copy cats.
So when someone or something new comes along, it most likely will get masses of followers.

Then more new things come along.

The multitude of of copycats often kill off a movement and certainly dilute the quality of the overall sound, from the heights reached by the original artists. Its most impressive though, when a group comes late onto the scene or at least late to the publics attention and really takes a tired genre, and breathes new life into it, as Sepultura did in the late 80`s with the thrash movement.

Punk for me felt officially dead when I noticed there were songs accepted as proper punk that were about trivial things like hitting on girls and driving cool cars in the US. There is no one point in time when this happened - for example the Ramones sang about all kinds of largely irrelevant nonsense and I could accept that. It relates more to when I personally discovered this and felt the rebel spirit in punk was almost completely gone from the music of the contemporary punk mainstream.

Today, I wouldn't say movements die though. Only in a highly relative and subjective way ;)

I think the idea that a movement dies when it becomes mainstream is pretty off though. It wasn't popularity which killed off prog in the 70s .. It probably had more to do with the subsequent rise in popularity of guys like this and their beliefs :

http://www.pinkfloydonline.com/johnnyrotten.jpg

Any one of us can of course appreciate Sex Pistols and Pink Floyd at the same time, but the truly massive scale popular opinion can't. Different bands and genres are competing for a limited resource, our collective interest, and thus there are winners and losers. I think a movement would die when (or rather "if") there's no interest in it anymore or, more arguably, when it's changed so much that it's become something completely different and noone has interest in the original shape of it. In the latter example, it may have passed on some genes to it's offspring. ;)

When people with horrible taste in music start listening to them.

A lot of punks had pretty deplorable taste in music overall. I mean they were supposed to be anti commercial and everything but these guys were sh*tting on progressive rock which just happened to be big at the moment while praising stuff like Bay City Rollers and The Ohio Express, I mean come the holy f*ck on.

That's not quite what I meant but never mind.

When band's material start to deteriorate and their songwriting isn't as good as it once was and people lose interest could be one reason, or the style of music changes and it isn't the same sound as the music they were making at the start of the movement.

It's to me clearly a major, and very understandable, part of Ramones World, but I feel that it was a feeling that was shared through The US in The Mid-Late 70's.

I have a feeling that it was mostly with Early Punk fans (or really just plain outsiders) in The States, especially in the Midwest and other areas where there was not so much support for it, and those who did not buy Album Rock (Sadly the worlds of Prog and the more Mainstream-driven Album Rock were clearly blurred) were finding it tough to find anything sharp sounding. So, sadly it was even to stuff like "Saturday Night" or "Sugar Sugar" to find some kicks. There was no difference between great Glam and Bubblegum (Usually equaling Power Pop by the Late 70's), listening to the kick of the songs was all that mattered in that excitement-barren time.

Not on the major Defense for The Rollers, the Express or any others of the Class of Bubblegum, but there was a point back in The Late 70's (and no other time in my opinion). The acceptance of Bubblegum was clearly a return back to the simplistic Three Chord Wonders that immediately hit the ears, especially in The States where Corporate Rock Radio turned seriously crap (If you survived any albums by Styx, Foghat, Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band, the Breakfast in America-era Supertramp, and the like, you will know how bland things got). In a way, most of the Rock that was making it in was clearly not fun to listen to if you were on the outside and that fun was certainly out of the picture, so the sounds (I'm sure if they knew the histories, they would not have been so big on them...so little was written about them then) were the thing, and it was time to bring back some of that excitement by digging through the used record collections or Oldies Radio (As most of the classic AM stations were either MOR or Disco if they were not Talk) and getting some inspiration there. Over in The States, things were getting desperate to the point where something calculated and fake was preferable to hearing "Slow Ride," or worse, on the hour every hour.

Sadly, the powers that be used that spark and decided to use it for the New Wave...and everything fell flat from there.

I usually give things in The US Four Years, or sometimes about Three if Pop Based. It's a bad attempt at an outline of a trend, or movement, but here it is...

This is mainly what I would call my High School Theory-or, is more "Alternative," Community College.

Year One - The rush of excitement that surrounds something that the Hip portion of the media catches and starts to Hot Trend it. This is usually the year that's called when things were for real during the movement's most popular time later on.

Year Two - The difficult Second Year, where all the major outlets get to find out just how this new trend works and see who is with the business. Many of the defining "First Hits" or at least best known songs are found here. The public takes notice.

Year Three - Here is where all of the major hits start to add up more and more. The public that usually waits for things to be big or when established stars pick up on some of the characteristics to look cool and not as out of date as their music still suggests. Either that or when bands who form the "acceptable" wave (In Punk's Case, Power Pop, the early form of New Wave in The States) start to get more notice. This is usually when all of the Avrils start to get their time in the spotlight.

Year Four - The feeling that a New Thing is now a part of history. About half of the older fans no longer look for new bands, unless they look for more Underground or more Serious scenes (This usually happens at College-Level, usually forming part of my Community College "Alternative Music Scene" theory), thinking their music has sold out and is now a part of the soundtrack of their lives...and this is where the search for a new thing (Usually a variation of what happened through the last four years in a new coat) happens. Many sad or interesting albums (or at least singles) by the once-new happen around this time.

Anyone surviving is either very lucky, has met up with the right Producers and Image-Makers..or have seriously considered music to be their calling and continue to gain respect with real music fans who just dig the sounds for what they are.

Time for revisionism of usually sneered at happenings...about 8 years to a decade, The "Oh yeah, I actually like that, I'll admit it" Time Smooths Most Things Theory.

I don't think trends ever really die especially if the fans keep it alive.

Especially through the last decade, I can see that more and more. Even though trends still come and go, in a way thanks to better exposure of music, "Movements" have not been as trendy with the exception of those based in Mainstream Pop, and then best of each (No matter if you like the music or not) usually sticks around.

movements don't die. they just lose topical relevance and speed to the youth of the day before being re-appropriated about 10-20 years later as a 'post-' version of its previous self.

very good post

I'm not even aware or conscious that the punk and hippie movement has died......

I'm still pretty much a hippie/punk hybrid

When a scene becomes too popular for the hipsters and they have to move on to new obscurities skulking amongst the underground. Others invariably follow.

This.

movements die when they leave the colon.

When it basicially becomes so mainstream it is a fashion statement and listened to by people who usually listen to ****.

^what? thats when hot topic gets on board and you get swamped by 13 year olds. recognize! payday!

I think a certain movement lives on a bit after it "dies." By that, I mean that it lives on in either its influence on music or the still-active musicians affiliated with that particular movement.

But I do agree that the trend theory that has been previously stated is plausible and makes sense.

Stereotypical movements such as heavy metal, punk and grunge those movements died when it started to parody themselves. I remember vaguely while growing up that Barbra Walters was doing an interview in Seattle in the mid to early 90's and was decked out in flannel. That was the nail in the coffin for that decade. Metal was perfectly stereotyped in Spinal Tap and brought to a darker light in The Decline of Western Civilization of what was going on at the time. The word movement to is pretty vague. If you're talking about '67 as flower power/psychedelia or '77 the era of punk '85 heavy metal '91 grunge ect. Those "movements" never really died people have taken a great many influences from them to this day and incorporated it in there music. And there's also plenty of revival groups around that do bring back that sound. Granted they're not as popular as they are today.