2008 vs 1968: The Year In Music
I found this article in the Boston globe. I hadn’t realized how significant 1968 was in the world of music:
In 2008, a flurry of releases arrived to remind us of the inventive vibrancy of the pop music scene . . . of four decades ago.
Albums by the Beatles, Stones, Jimi, Janis, Aretha, Marvin, Otis, Sly, Miles, and Zappa were among the 1968 releases getting major play and press last year. Fortieth anniversary sets reminded us of a time when imaginative artistry ruled the pop charts, revealing numerous creative influences that still permeate our culture.
The music business has changed dramatically in 40 years, but 1968 and 2008 bear comparison. Both were turbulent years with watershed presidential elections, unpopular foreign wars, and major upheaval – social then, financial now. 1968 saw the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., racial tensions, and the ensuing riots; in 2008 we voted our first African-American president into office.
Will the albums on 2008′s best-of lists measure up to the astonishing number of classics from 1968? A few decades from now…
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