The Long And Winding Roads

By David E. Thigpen

Like all families, 20th century popular music is a product of its own past, complete with eccentric uncles, country cousins and prodigal sons and daughters--different from one another, but still kin. Somewhere in the noisy postmodern collages of Beck one can find echoes of Irving Berlin. Though Chuck Berry may roll over when he hears it, devil-rocker Marilyn Manson counts among his musical offspring. Whether he likes it or not, Puff Daddy's pop hip-hop is a direct descendant of Hammer's Las Vegas-style rap. The Spice Girls may not be the apex of musical evolution, but they do have their links to Cole Porter. It is in this endless cross-fertilization of country and blues, jazz and heavy metal, rap and alternative rock that the unpredictable genius of popular music can be found.

--By David E. Thigpen