New Music Friday: A Legacy For Justin Bieber And One Direction?
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - On May 16th, 1966 two of the most significant albums from two of the most important artists of all time were released. Today they stand as not only cultural moments in music, but also as the touchstone for remembering the people who created them. The fact that they were released on the same day is astounding.
For The Beach Boys it was the manic and meticulous touch of Brian Wilson that crafted Pet Sounds into a layered masterpiece. The album could never be duplicated and trying to practically drove Wilson insane. Meanwhile Bob Dylan's Blonde On Blonde is the third in a trilogy of albums over the course of just a year and change that changed music forever. For Dylan - the generation's greatest writer - it was his most complete and cohesive masterpiece.
Pet Sounds and Blonde On Blonde are The Beach Boys and Bob Dylan, a band and a singer that would help define a time and create with those albums a measuring stick throughout all the music that followed.
When we look back at music that was important – landmark albums that shifted the culture – these two are a big part of the conversation. It all happened on May 16th, 1966.
Nearly 50 years later on November 13th, 2015, here we are with new albums from Justin Bieber and One Direction. For Justin's Purpose it's a comeback collection where he softly sings about heartbreak, the voyeuristic fascination people have with him, and oddly enough "the children". Here he's backed by a batch of Skrillex beats and midtempo grinders with a few guest spots from Halsey, Travi$ Scott, and Big Sean. For One Direction's Made In The A.M. it's a mature set of atmospheric pop out of the school of One Republic, one last breathe before a hiatus as we also place wagers to see which one will emerge as the Timberlake and which one will be the Kirkpatrick.
If you measure popularity and cultural significance in google results and Instagram followers (which how else would you in 2015?), then you have to at least pause for a second and see the correlation. These are our stars of today for better or worse, but in 2065 will we remember Justin's Purpose or 1D's Made In The A.M.? When space kids are combing through old tweets in their eye-libraries will they wonder what a "Belieber" is, or will they marvel and ask us what it felt like the first time we heard "Drag Me Down"?
These are the icons we have built, and when your twelve-year-old niece who puts emoji's in her Twitter handle turns future generations on to "old school" music when it was "good" she might throw one of these albums on and talk about today. Or the legend could fade and these two could become quirky nostalgia.
The point being that the biggest stars of that time on that day have held up and even grown in legend over time, the fate for Bieber and One Direction remains to be seen.
