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1900-1910
At that time, music consumption was not within the reach of the entire population, music was heard live and there were almost no means of listening to music at home. Popular music consisted of operas and symphonies in the great cities of the world and Ragtime (the first approach to Jazz) would appear in the United States.
Here Enrico Caruso is performing "La donna é mobile" de giuseppe verdi. -
1910-1920
During the second decade of the 20th century, music begins to be heard everywhere and no longer only the upper classes will have access to it. The radio will be the invention that makes music popular, you don't have to go to a concert to enjoy it. The opera will continue to be very popular and jazz will continue to evolve and add instruments to its formations, like the Theremin, the first electronic instrument in history.
Here we can see a picture of the Theremin and its creator. -
1920-1930
In "the happy 1920's" Charleston music triumphed all over the world, it was born in the United States, but it soon arrived in Europe.
Jazz continues to be the most listened to music of the moment with Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong standing out and the great symphony orchestras still have a lot of popularity. The operas and composers left by this first quarter of a century are innumerable: Debussy, Strauss, Ravel, Mahler, Puccini, etc.
Here we can see a representative image of the Charleston -
1930-1940
In this period marked by the crisis of 1929 in the United States, "swing" appears as a style that will describe jazz and due to this crisis, many musicians in need of recording studios and stages, will seek work in Europe. Also, the Mainstream, needing an increasingly expensive subsistence, will be commercialized by receiving influences from the European tradition and music hall and sound films appear and new instruments are invented that will revolutionize music in the following years. -
1940-1950
The 1940s are the golden age of jazz. At no time did so many styles, so many virtus artists, and so much evolution in the possibilities of the instruments coincide. From the first Ragtime, through the Big Bands of the 20s, the Swing and the show of the 30s, to Bebop, the new jazz style, which triumphed in this decade. But, the bands were no longer Big Bands, they usually had a soloist figure. It could be a singer or an instrumentalist.
We highlight FitzGerald, Parker or Ellington.
Here, Parker: -
1950-1960
The 50's are marked by the birth of Rock'n'Roll, pushing Jazz aside and becoming the most popular music of the moment. Its birth and that of its first artists will condition to a great extent the music of the following decades and the evolution of its sound. We highlight Elvis Presley as the king of Rock. Other genres were Blues, Soul, and Rhythm & Blues.
The creation of television and its entry into most households was a breakthrough comparable to that of radio at the beginning of the century -
1960-1970
As with Jazz, Rock continues to evolve. The most famous bands of this decade will be The Beatles and The Rolling Stones who will sell millions of records all over the world and give concerts in front of thousands of people. Also, the Hippie movement appears that little by little will also reach Europe.
The Beatles were the "good guys" of Rock'n'Roll with their haircuts and their uniform suits while The Rolling Stones were the "bad guys". Their look was different, jeans, long hair, etc. -
1970-1980
In the 70's many variants of Rock were born. More popular sounds, harder sounds, softer sounds... in short new sounds and evolution of the music known so far. Pop Rock, Punk Rock, Heavy Rock...
As artists of this decade we can talk about Led Zeppelin, The Ramones, AC/DC, Bruce Springsteen or Pink Floyd.
Disco music is also starting to become popular, as well as Reagge highlighting The Bee Gees, ABBA, Stevie Wonder or Bob Marley. -
1980-1990
The 80s were the birth of a new genre, Rap (one of my favourite genres), which took part of Jazz, Blues, and combined it with disco rhythms.
Rock continues to evolve towards the hardest rock on one hand, Metal (Metallica), and the most popular and softest rock, Pop (Michael Jackson,who still holds the sales record with the album Thriller, which was the revolution of the decade, and whose choreography is still being danced).
In Disco music, Madonna or Cher will be very successful. -
1990-2000
In the last decade of the 20th century, new styles were also born, with the Grunge movement standing out, and its most representative band, Nirvana, which fused rock with punk, with a career as successful as it was short.
Two bands also emerged that quickly became popular. The Spice Girls and the Backstreet Boys, vocal groups of boys and girls, who were a real phenomenon among the youngest.
In opera music, it is worth mentioning Domingo, Pavarotti and Carreras.
