| imminent cultural revolution, impending radicalism, and striking experimentation
with songs like "The Times They are A-Changin'" and "Mr.
Tambourine Man." No one could synopsize the zeitgeist and increase
social consciousness with a single turn of phrase as poetically and precisely
as Dylan. As Stephen Erlewine writes, "Bob Dylan's influence on popular
music is incalculable. As a songwriter, he pioneered several different
schools of pop songwriting, from confessional singer/songwriter to winding,
hallucinatory, stream-of-conscious narratives. As a vocalist, he broke
down the notions that in order to perform, a singer had to have a conventionally
good voice, thereby redefining the role of vocalist in popular music.
As a musician, he sparked several genres of pop music, including electrified
folk-rock and country-rock. And that just touches on the tip of his achievements.
Dylan's force was evident during his height of popularity in the '60s
— the Beatles' shift toward introspective songwriting in the mid-'60s
never would have happened without him — but his influence echoed throughout
several subsequent generations."
Frank Sinatra, the voice from Hoboken, breaks through into public
awareness in 1941 by recording several top ten hits with Tommy Dorsey's
swing band.
Harlem's Minton Playhouse Jams, featuring Theolonious Monk, Charlie Parker,
and Dizzy Gillespie begin, arguably signaling the origin of bebop.
It was bebop which would eventually overtake Swing as the main current
of Jazz by 1947.
Irving Berlin's "White Christmas" is written and performed
publically for the first time by Bing Crosby. The single would sell over
thirty million copies worldwide and was the greatest-selling single for
over fifty years, eclipsed only by Elton John's recent tribute to Princess
Diana, "Candle in the Wind."
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