Research into Two Decades

1970s

• How was music consumed? The way that audiences consumed music during the 1970's was through cassettes and cassette players, cassette players were big in the 1970's , artists used to create songs and they were then converted onto a cassette, cassette players were big because they were portable and you could take them with you (they were portable), this made them very convenient. Another way that audiences consumed music was through the radio, there were lots of different radio stations and they all played different genres of music, so audiences used to select a music station which suited them best, also people used to carry the radio with them, because some of the radio's were portable, however cassette players would be more convenient because they were smaller and they were easier to carry. Furthermore another way that audiences consumed music during the 1970's was through attending concerts, some of the biggest artists during the 1970's had huge turnouts in their events, the reason for the huge turnouts was because audiences wanted to escape from their day to day lives and let go and have fun at these events.

• Which artists and genres were popular during this time? The genre of music that was most popular in the 1970s was Pop and Rock, there was also a rise in Disco. One of the artists that were popular during the 1970's was Elton John he became arguably the decades biggest Pop Star. The reason why he was so famous is because he had a lot of hit singles, and there was also a rise in pop music. Elton John was a very successful singer and has more that fifty top 40 singles. Rock was another big genre during the 1970's, Led Zeppelin were a huge band during the 1970s, they were "very influential". Led Zeppelin received huge commercial success during the 1970s, there was huge turnouts at their shows for example in 1977 they did a tour of North America and they set a Guinness World Record for attendance at a single act show for that date, this shows not only how popular they were in the decade but how influential they were.

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2000s

• How was music consumed during the 2000s? Music consumption had moved from physical discs, vinyl and cassettes onto digital forms through distribution on computers. Sites such as ‘Kazaa’ and ‘Napster’ allowed peer-to-peer distribution of music, where sharing was made possible through downloads. This was due to the fact that people wanted to be able to listen to music on-the-go, and the introduction of MP3 players had meant that they could now listen to music downloaded directly from computers onto a small, and easily accessible portable device. This however also caused problems for music companies due to the fact that when people pirated music, it meant that they were not purchasing the music, thus the companies would not be receiving money that they would have otherwise earned if people had purchased a physical copy of the music.

• Which artists and genres were most popular during this time? During the 2000s, particularly in North America, Hip Hop was the most popular musical genre due to the rise of African-American culture, with rock music being second, but decreasing in popularity, but still being listened to due to people's disagreement with the government and 'the system' within America. The most popular Hip Hop artists of the decade were artists such as OutKast, The Black Eyed Peas, T.I., 50 Cent, Kanye West, Nelly, Nas, Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg, Missy Elliott, M.I.A., Lil Kim, Young Jeezy, Lil Wayne, The Game and Ludacris. Eminem was the biggest selling Hip Hop artist of the decade however, being one of very few successful white rap artists.

• What were some of the sub-cultures within Hip-Hop? Some sub-cultures within Hip Hop included Gangsta rap (American rap about gangs and violence) and Grime (UK based rap). Some artists however, created rap music that discussed the issues in society, such as racism and gang wars, however they were seen as ‘underground’ artists.

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