I used to watch Thritysomething during its original run and on re-runs on Lifetime because, well, I’m a sensitive new age guy, I guess. Maybe it was the fact that my girlfriend (who later became my wife) was a big fan of the show and I just kind of got sucked into it. Or maybe, it’s because the show was so full of navel-gazing angst that, for me, it was hard to resist.
One of the minor characters who was integral to the narrative arc was Miles Drentell — the owner of D.A.A. D.A.A. was one of the most influential advertising agencies in Philadelphia, and it seemed that the weird world of manipulation/advertising was wrought, in part, by Miles. During one episode, he and Michael Steadman (moral anchor of the series) were eating dinner with some mucky mucks from the heartland and talking about an ad campaign. Steadman and the Midwest mucky mucks were hitting it off, and Miles, increasingly alienated by the conversation, blurted out an aphorism that my wife and I quote from time to time: “The Decimalization of time is so arbitrary…” And so it seems to be when it comes to popular music. If I say “The ‘70s” what comes to mind when it comes to music? The folksy stuff of the early ‘70s? Disco? Arena rock? How ‘bout the ‘80s? New Wave? Michael Jackson? Rap? Richard Marx? The ‘90s? Grunge? Rap? Boy Bands? Britney? Okay, enough questions … I think you get my drift.
Well, what about “The 2000s?” (Crap, I thought I was through with questions!) It’s a decade that hasn’t really defined itself with a genre of music the way its predecessors did. But here we are at 2009, and if we’re slaves to the notion of decades, then 2010 means it’s the start of a whole new world. Could it be because of the way in which the Internet has fragmented music consumption, radio taking fewer and fewer risks when it comes to formats, and MTV creating niche channels that cater to certain demographic groups, that the power of a medium to frame the tastes in popular music has resulted in “The 2000s” not having defining characteristics that are easily distilled into unique one or two-word terms? (more…)
