Talk:Music of the United Kingdom (1950s and 60s)

Clean up

This article seems to need a clean up, which I am prepared to undertake. If you have suggestions now would be a good time to post them here.--Sabrebd (talk) 10:53, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

The order of the genres

There is no reason to put the less popular British music genres at the top. We have to present the music genres of each decade according to their popularity worldwide (In the same way we have done here for example). It makes absolutely no sense to put the more obscure genres at the top (For example - Sabrebd put the "2 Tone and Reggae" section at the top of the Music of the United Kingdom (1980s) article. Please explain to us why we should order it differently. TheCuriousGnome (talk) 17:44, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I am not sure where you get the imperative that we must present the genres according to worldwide popularity: perhaps I am missing something, but I cannot find anything on that in Wikipedia guidelines. The only real principle I can find is that articles should be logical (see Wikipedia:The perfect article). The choice of 2000s in music is a curious one, since it does not appear to be in that order, rock comes first, then pop and later hip hop/urban: pop has pretty consistently outsold rock, and hip hop/urban took over from that some years ago. This is also an article tagged for multiple issues, including a lack of a worldwide perspective and reading like an essay - hardly something we should be keen to emulate.

The problem of re-ordering this series of articles is less acute in some of those for later periods, but it is particularly problematic in this article. The re-ordering meant that the British Invasion came before Beat Music and British Blues, which were both fundamental to creating the later invasion. These came before British rock and roll from which they were derived and that before skiffle, which was critical to the creation of that movement. It should be evident that this is likely to be very confusing to a casual reader and that the chronological-based order works much more logically.

It also raises the issue of and why popularity is a major criteria and how it is to be assessed. Notability is an important principle of Wikipedia, but popularity is not. Is it based on record sales or participation? In terms of participation skiffle would probably rate higher than any other genre, since, briefly, it involved a huge proportion of British male teenagers of the later 50s and early 60s who then moved to almost every major genre. In terms of record sales anything that appeals to the USA is likely to rate the highest, since American record buyers massively outnumber British ones, but why is the popularity of music in another country a valid criteria? Afterall these are articles on Music of the United Kingdom, not internationally popular Music of the United Kingdom.

Also how is popularity to be assessed: it would be almost impossible to aggregate world record sales for each genre and then compare the numbers. The truth is that such an assessment is always going to remain subjective and the changes made suggest that this is the case. 2-tone was moved down to near the bottom of the 1980s article below jazz, but in that period it was one of the best selling genres of music in Britain and probably outside British jazz even worldwide. A chronological approach is used in a number of articles, most obviously rock music and works very well there. The order of sections is certainly not set in stone, but arguments from the basis of greater clarity or comprehensibility are far more persuasive than from a principle which does not seem applicable or helpful here.--SabreBD (talk) 00:55, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I believe that main dispute here is actually about the main focus of decade articles - you believe that these articles should focus mainly on presenting the chronological development of all the different British musical genres (this might be a good idea for a different article or a short sub-section in these articles or even for charts which you could add to these articles) while I believe that these articles should provide an overview of the most prominent events in each genre for each decade.

I believe it would be a mistake to try to distribute all the genre overview sections of each article according to the chronological order of the time they were first developed, mainly because this would be impossible - the majority of the genres lasted more than one decade and If we choose to only focus on presenting the chronological development of the various genres we’ll have to avoid presenting an overview of the prominent events of prominent genres in some decades, such as Alternative music in the 2000s, just because they developed in the previous decade/s.

In my opinion, presenting the different genres sections in the order of their popularity worldwide would be the best way to present the sections in the articles, especially since the English Wikipedia is mostly used by users from around the world and not just by British users. Indeed, the popularity extent of the various genres in each decade is a subject of debate – nevertheless, we should strive to reach a consensus about the order in which they are presented in the discussion pages, hopefully in a discussion which would include many users. TheCuriousGnome (talk) 06:00, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I think I have made my case over this and so I wont pick up the individual points here, but we should perhaps wait to see if any other editors wish to contribute. However, given that this is clearly an area of debate, if you with to get consensus perhaps you could hold carrying out new changes to the order without discussing it here first. When you do that I am faced with a choice about whether to just accept it, revert or adjust it. This is a great way of getting into an edit war, which I am desperate to avoid. The articles have now been changed so that all the rock genres have been grouped together. That is not a change to which I am adverse, however, they do disrupt the sense in some articles, so I have moved some around in an attempt to solve these problems within this framework. If you wish to make some other major change please raise it here first (or on the individual pages), then we can discuss it, rather than having to express ideas through editing.--SabreBD (talk) 08:30, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Please refer to the problem which I have raised above concerning keeping the problems which would be created from putting the focus on the chronological development of the various genres. Please explain also why you choose the order you did in all the articles (the order you choose in the 1980s article for example makes no sense). TheCuriousGnome (talk) 16:19, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

The reason for wanting synth pop and new romantics before the 2nd British Invasion is that a reader needs to know what genres were invading.--SabreBD (talk) 17:10, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

What about the order of all the other genres in that article? does their current specific order really matter? TheCuriousGnome (talk) 17:17, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I might have missed something, but I don't think that matters very much as they do not directly relate to each other. I have another suggestion that might help sort this out. The problem with synth pop and a lot of new wave is that it straddles the pop and rock cultures. We could legitimately take the synth rock section from British rock, offering synth rock and synth pop as main article connections. Then it could go in the top of the rock section and allowing it to flow a lot better. Then it doesnt matter if pop goes after rock. That looks a lot more complex on the page so I hope that made sense. I am copying this to Talk:Music of the United Kingdom (1980s), as otherise an interested editor might miss this conversation, so it would be great if you could reply to this point there.

On a more general point, it might be a good idea to keep most of the genres in a similar order in the articles. Pop tends to be more derivative so I would think it might be better to put rock towards the top and pop afterwards, other genres perhaps mainly after that. The difficult one for me is the 50s/60s, where I would argue, there are developments that need to go before rock and roll begins (jazz and skiffle etc). I think this problem is partly caused by the fact the article covers two decades. Perhaps we should look at dividing the article into two decades. I am sure more could be said about the 60s.--SabreBD (talk) 08:12, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

OK. We have progress. I will try to implement the changes you have agreed upon. Go ahead and implement the changes you suggested in the 1980s article and we'll discuss that afterwords and see if it works for the best. The main reason I think the Rock genre should be at the top of the 50s/60s article is because this genre gained the most attention and popularity world wide - why do you insist on having Jazz, Traditional pop, Skiffle and Folk music and roots revival above the Rock Genre? TheCuriousGnome (talk) 13:05, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Because each contributed to each other and then to rock and roll. I will have a look at the 80s and then think about splitting this article.--SabreBD (talk) 13:11, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Is Folk music and roots revival considered a style of Folk Rock ?

If so it should be in the Rock section. TheCuriousGnome (talk) 13:57, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Nope, definitely not at this point. If there is a 60s article then a folk rock section will probably be needed (it got to Britain about 1967).--SabreBD (talk) 16:33, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Proposal to split this article

Just to flag this suggestion up from the above discussions: it has been proposed to split this article into Music of the United Kingdom (1950s) and Music of the United Kingdom (1960s), which would help solve some of the issues about the order of sub-sections and might encourage the articles to grow. I will undertake this in about five days if there are no serious objections.--SabreBD (talk) 16:33, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I support the split. TheCuriousGnome (talk) 17:28, 16 April 2010 (UTC)