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Also, I think the '50s had a great combination of music.
There was still some leftover big-band sound (Jimmy Dorsey, for instance), popular solo type (Perry Como, Doris Day, Patti Page, Nat King Cole), real Rock 'n' Roll, vocal group sounds (The Platters, The Flamingos) country and folk.
The '50s was an incredibly innovative decade for jazz. TBF Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie had begun in the '40s (as did Cole, who besides his pop-jazz vocal stylings also was reknowned as a pianist and even played with Parker) but after that there was Miles Davis, Art Blakey, Chet Baker, Shorty Rogers, etc. and the decade ended with Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane making some of the most radical music ever made up to that time. As you pointed out some survivors of earlier jazz eras were also still active - the major forces in big band swing and jump blues (a swing/blues hybrid that would evolve into rock & roll) were all still active, and even some of the original New Orleans/Chicago types from the were still around.
If we're talking about jazz, the '50s was one of the most innovative decades ever.
1950's not even close!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Family values
Pride and self sufficiency
Majority of Children with a mother and a father
Small government
The '50s were not a decade of small government. The GOP accepted the "New Deal Consensus" and small-government conservatism was seen as a relic from an earlier time. Unionization was at an all time high in the US which helped make it possible for more women to stay at home to take care of the kids. FDR's policies which created the middle class majority (RIP) were still followed.
Now if you said it was a decade of political centrism you would be correct, despite McCarthyism (and McCarthy did eventually fall down hard). Extremes in politics were generally distrusted.
Furthermore, the '50s weren't such a great decade if you were black or gay as I said earlier on the thread. And many of the developments in the '60s did have their roots in the '50s.
Here's something you can do for fun. If you could custom design your own ideal time period, what would it be? For me, I would like the peace and tranquility of the '50s. The cars, freedom and movies of the '60s and '70s, the music of the '80s, and the prosperity of the '80s and '90s. Not too much good so far about the 21st century, except perhaps the extreme boom and money flowing like water before the present crash. Imagine if you could live a decade with the positives of those decades that came before.
The only positive aspects of the 2000s are the acceptance of gays in American society and racism no longer being the dominating prejudice in American society (outside of C-D boards, and not that classism's much better). Also a brief improvement in music in 2002-03 which quickly dissipated.
The '60s outdid subsequent decades for prosperity although the '90s came close.
And while the 50s were mostly a peaceful decade, are you forgetting about the Korean War? And if Eisenhower didn't make the wise decisions for the US not to get involved in Suez and Algeria and not to send combat troops to Vietnam, they would have been far less peaceful.
...Then the real world hits you. Before you realive that the only thing worse than not getting everything that you thought you wanted is getting it and it still not being enough.
As far as the best time, I'd say now. It's the only time that we can do something about.
Amen to those thoughts!!
It strikes me that 99.44% percent of our troubles as a society come from our idealizing of yesterdays that never existed in their imagined perfection and a longing for a utopian future that will forever and forever be just whatever today isn't.
Today is all the time there is, best or worst or indifferent.
[quote=jcinsov;10706476]actually, unless it was myself that got blinded, one could say it was a good day, too bad the guy in the next town over got blinded. [/quote
It strikes me that 99.44% percent of our troubles as a society come from our idealizing of yesterdays that never existed in their imagined perfection and a longing for a utopian future that will forever and forever be just whatever today isn't.
Today is all the time there is, best or worst or indifferent.
Living in Europe it surprised me how little Europeans look back, coming back how much americans do.
A German professor once told me that americans make the mistake of thinking they are the first new country,when in fact they are the last old one.
Two hundred and thirty odd years of freedom, would give ANY nation many good decades to look back on!
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