The 14-year Generations of Popular Music

The history of popular music can roughly be broken down into fourteen-year periods, each of which embody a collective spirit of the age.  From 1962-1976 the first pop explosion brought rock, motown, jazz fusion, and funk into the world.  Folk rock, jazz, blues, soul, and country had already been strong on the charts, but they dwindled through these years.  Some famous bands from this era were The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, and Led Zeppelin.  They symbolized the "hippie" spirit of the age, which gained momentum through the 60s and died out as the Vietnam War developed.  Lyrically I would say it was the most talented generation of song-writers, because of folk singers like Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell.  This was also a period when poetry was still thought of as one of the higher arts, so many musicians fine-tuned it in their lyrics. 

The second generation took place from about 1976-1990.  This was when the influence of synthesizers helped bring anthemic power ballads, disco, dance, glam rock, and new wave to the top of the charts.  Punk rock and heavy metal were also at their strongest during this period, mainly as reactions against the growing power of pop music.  Say what you will about the 80s, but the truth is that pop peaked during that decade, with mega-selling acts like Michael Jackson, Madonna, Fleetwood Mac, Van Halen, Boston, Guns N' Roses, and Bruce Springsteen- all of which released some of the best-selling albums in history.  The ease with which artists could write a catchy pop song using the simple combination of synth, power riff, and energetic vocals allowed music sales to reach unprecedented heights. 

Generation X brought a revolution of alternative rock and hip-hop to the 1990s, lasting from about 1991-2006.  Pop still ran strong with acts like Mariah Carey, Britney Spears, and all the boy bands, but it wasn't as concentrated in popularity as before.  This generation also witnessed a Latin revolution ala Ricky Martin, the invasion of grunge and post-grunge (Nirvana, Pearl Jam), the new age scene, a return to rock roots, and the peak of goth/industrial.  The nu-metal scene can't be ignored either, with bands like Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, Marilyn Manson, and Korn breaking people's ears with fits of agony.  Some of the other biggest artists of generation x were Green Day, Radiohead, Tool, Tupac, and Eminem.  Anger and alienation were the strongest emotions of this generation, most represented by its best-selling album: Jagged Little Pill by Alannis Morisette. 

Currently we're in the millennial generation of music, which has been dominated by eclectic sounds from the Indie scene.  Thanks to the ease of music-sharing on the internet, we have more access to up-and-coming bands than ever before.  It started in about 2007, when artists like Arcade Fire, Coldplay, Kanye West, Taylor Swift, and The Killers took center stage.  Since then it has welcomed Lana Del Rey, Adele, One Direction, Katy Perry, and Imagine Dragons to the party.  Pop has maintained its core of predictable acts, but the genre is even less concentrated than it was with generation x.  The angst of alternative has completely transformed itself into the free-spirited Indie movement, while the quality of rap and hip-hop has suffered a slow decline over the decade. 

The next generation of pop music should come to rise in the early 2020s.  There's no telling what kinds of sounds the shift will bring.  It could be as obscurely-defined as the last shift from 2004-2008, or as radical as the Gen. X revolution of the early 90s.  It will be interesting to see which genres resurface, or what new combinations will be made from them.  Some international music may finally rise to the surface, especially from the far east.  For now, we'll just have to wait for the torch of the millennials to carry music forward. 

Sleep Paralysis and the Zohar

As I was reading the Zohar I came across this portion of text from Genesis, Chapter 3: 
 

When King Solomon went down into the garden of nuts, as saith the scripture: "I went down into the garden of nuts" (Cant. vi. 11) he took up a nutshell, that gave rise to reflections and ideas that enabled him to understand the reason and cause why anything that is pure and holy becomes environed by what is evil, as the nut enclosed within a shell. He perceived that evil spirits attach themselves to the pure and good, environing them similar to shells by exciting and producing certain kinds of pleasing emotions and feelings, the tending of which is to defile and corrupt, as it is written: "The pleasures of man produce and bring forth evil spirits" (sadah and sadoth) (Eccle. ii. 8) which occurs during the hours of sleep. It was necessary that the Holy One should create them in the world in order that it might be complete. 

 

The idea here resonates strongly with many episodes of sleep paralysis I've had.  The last time it happened, I woke up and felt something moving around inside me.  It didn't feel like my own body, or the astral body that separates itself from the physical one during dreams.  It felt like a foreign entity feeding off my energy, which might sound creepy to most people but is completely harmless.  When I read this passage, it immediately occurred to me that King Solomon, or the Jewish mystic who wrote it, might have also experienced being surrounded by evil entities trying to occupy his or her body.  If evil spirits really attach themselves to the "pure and good", then it proves that I am more benevolent than most- though some would argue otherwise!  I've also been able to sustain tremendous suffering, which is something shamans describe evil beings as being attracted to.  Shamans themselves must be able to withstand the suffering of spiritual attacks in order to practice Chod- a form of meditation that has its origins in Tibetan Buddhism. 

The connection here between sleep paralysis, Chod and the Zohar is admittedly loose; I just find it interesting that “Solomon” knew about evil spirits trying to attach to good ones during the night, when people are asleep.  It sounds remarkably like Chod, which is more of a conscious act than an unconscious one.  In Chod the shamans consciously enter a meditative state in between sleep and awake to offer their bodies to discarnate entities as "food".  This helps the entities regain the energy they need to rise through higher astral planes and become light.  Shamans also use conscious sleep paralysis to ward off "demons" from people in their community, fearlessly lending themselves to the darkness knowing that they are strong enough to fight if anything attacks them.  I stand in awe of their courage because I have not had the strength or willingness to lend my body to evil spirits, much less consciously project myself onto the astral plane in order to help others.  I'm always afraid of the darkness clouding my light, or worse, possession.  I know it seems impossible, but when you're as vulnerable as you are during sleep paralysis, you have no choice but to believe that demons are trying to steal your body.  That's what makes it one of the scariest feelings in the world. 

Spinoza and Darwin: Natural Selection as Evidence of God

 

Being one of the first pantheists, seventeenth century philosopher Baruch Spinoza believed that God was Nature itself.  In his Ethics, Spinoza argued that God was made of the infinite number of things in the universe, i.e., all natural things: not that He was a body that existed outside the universe, as the Catholic Church had people believe. 

Natural Selection is a term Darwin gave to the evolutionary phenomenon that allows an organism to adapt to a change of environment.  An environment is a setting of Nature, and if we are to believe God and Nature are interchangeable, as Spinoza did, then we must believe that God is what creates the changes needed for an organism to survive- changes such as the development of wings, camouflage, and horns.  After reading about Darwin's ideas, Spinoza would have argued that everything an animal uses to survive was given to it by God, by Nature, by a metaphysical force that still retains the description of being natural, rational, and scientific.  He might have even pointed out that natural selection can't really be a scientific term, since selection by definition is something that must involve a choice, and therefore consciousness.  Yet somehow it became a scientific term, allowing nature to become the first (and possibly only) thing in the history of the universe to "select" something without requiring a form of consciousness. 

By this reasoning, any so-called pantheist would probably accept that natural selection is God's way of creating an organism.  I'd be interested in hearing their thoughts on the matter.