My Favorite Scene, and a Digression

The whole film is great, but the scene that really won me over was when Uncle Aaron took Miles into the subway to paint. The finished piece looked amazing, and the entire scene leading up to its creation was just sooo good. It gave me chills. It also made me realize how little things have changed.

I was Miles' age in 1983, at which point going into a New York subway with spray cans of paint, throwing up tags, while rap music blasted from a box, would have been completely relevant and cool. 36 years later, nothing has changed? That got me thinking further. When I think about the music my father would have heard at age 13, which was 1930, and compare it to the music of 36 years later, the difference is staggering.

1930 was the era of ragtime, the Charleston, and the early years of big band jazz. 1966 was when the blues and rock & roll were giving way to psych rock and Motown, and those sounds were anathema to people my dad's age. So much had changed, and so many music styles and categories had come and gone in that 36 year span.

Meanwhile, if I think about the most popular music in the mid 1980s it was rap, rock, and electronic music. In 2019 the most popular music is... rap, rock, and electronic music. Nothing has changed.

Did the internet do this?