Billboard Breakdown: 1960

All errors that appear in here are my own.

Sorry this took so long, but this took a while to write.

The new decade, and not much musical change quite yet. In fact, the general status of this year almost seems to be a step back in terms of musical genre diversity. 1960, in total, has fewer genres appearing than 1958 and 1959. The genres are overall less ‘out there’, and even the strangest genres are nothing like Tarentella or Exotica from years prior.

One thing 1960 does have, however, is a vast array of popular genres. There’s 8 genres with 5 or more songs to their name, which is quite a step up from years prior.

Overall, the trajectory continues in a Pop direction, with Pop and Pop-influenced genres comprising the majority of the popular music genres here.

In fact, Rock, Country, and Pop would prove to be the three most enduring genres as music entered the 60’s. So, let’s talk about it.

It’s worth noting that I am trying to improve my ‘production value’ for this series, and I want to attract new viewers, so I will be discussing genres I’ve discussed before, hopefully with a little more detail this time.

Overall Notes

Now, there were several super-genres this year, but it feels redundant to explain the same one each time it pops up, so I will only explain new ones, massive shifts, and will note super-genres that didn’t appear this year that did in the past. If you get confused about some terminology, feel free to consult my other posts.

Now, there was no Downtempo hit this year. Exocita was a one-off phenomenon that didn’t appear even remotely in this year’s music. Rock and Roll continues its merging with Pop, and Jazz and Blues struggle to remain at the top by attempting to introduce new ideas or reappropriating old ones. Utility also has a hit this year, which is interesting, making this the third year in a row Utility has had a hit, but it goes to show how annoying the genre is to kill.

Also, there’s a “new” super-genre this year.

Classical: Classical isn’t actually a new appearance of a super-genre, as Classical is older than even Gospel, however, what did happen was that the wide array of instrumental hits in 1960 lent themselves handily to Classical music. Classical is oftentimes a form of instrumental music (though vocal Classical does exist), and songs often consist of movements that exemplify feelings. For example, a Classical song may have Movement A, and that uses dark tones to produce anxiety, then there’s Movement B, which might be a little random to show uncertainty, and Movement C might be upbeat to show happiness. Classical is most often associated with piano music, but Classical may contain other instruments as well, with the most popular instruments being strings. While not popular, it did exist.

And in addition to Classical being a super-genre this year, it’s worth noting that there was a pretty big music trend in the 1960 charts, and that’s the Death Disc.

The Death Disc is a very particular type of trend. It’s not a genre of its own, as it describes lyrical content, but several of the songs shared something in common. Firstly, most Death Discs were either Country or Folk songs, though one was a cross between the two genres, and Folk Pop was also a popular genre among them. Secondly, the Death Discs would always tell a story, something would happen, and we’d follow our protagonist to the end. Finally, at the end of the Death Disc, without fail, someone would die; oftentimes the protagonist, and the song would usually end here.

The most famous Death Disc from this era is, I’d argue, El Paso, which we’ll talk about quite a bit later. Regardless of what the most popular Death Disc was, it’s worth noting that Death Discs were very popular in 1960, popular enough even to spark their own backlash song (which also hit the year-end charts).

Other than that, there was an interesting trend of adding strings to Rock and Roll songs, a trend that was so prevalent I created a new genre for it. That will be discussed.

Aside from that, I don’t know of any other trends worth noting in 1960, so let’s begin.

The Popular Genres

I’m tossing in influences this time, I felt it would make the post better. If the genre is seen in parentheses, then I haven’t discussed it before.

Hard Pop (14 songs)*
Pop, Rock and Roll
Influences: Adult Contemporary Pop, Rock and Roll, (Tin Pan Alley)

We’re back with our good friend Hard Pop. The genre just keeps getting bigger, and was pretty obviously the dominant force in Rock-influenced music for the time being. Notably, this is with Crooner separated out of the genre, it’s this much of a tour de force by itself.

For those unaware, Hard Pop (also known as Brill Building Pop) is a genre of Pop music that took the class of Adult Contemporary Pop and mixed it with the up and coming new genre, Rock and Roll. This resulted in a heavily produced ‘assembly line’ Pop. Tempos are upbeat, and topics are light.

What’s notable is that Hard Pop is also influenced by Tin Pan Alley, which is one of the earliest genres of Pop where it was just starting to separate from Jazz. Tin Pan Alley songs have the same upbeat tempo, but usually aren’t as overproduced. It’s pretty easy to trace Tin Pan Alley to Hard Pop, they’re not too different of genres.

Hard Pop was just a genuinely popular genre, and it doesn’t seem like it’s slowing down anytime soon. In fairness, Hard Pop’s being called an ‘assembly line’ Pop is a likely probability. But Hard Pop was making so many hits that why should they stop making it?

Doo-Wop (9 songs)
R&B
Influences: Early R&B, Vocal R&B, Modern Gospel

Doo-Wop was also exceptionally popular this year, thought less so than in 1959. A few of the white Doo-Wop artists sped it up to put it more firmly into the Hard Pop category, which also makes sense. Such a hitmaking genre (Doo-Wop) would naturally be assimilated into the definite hitmaking genre of Hard Pop, especially if the artists have the resources to join the established hitmaking group.

But why is Doo-Wop such a big hit? Doo-Wop is professional and clean-cut. Contrary to the Vocal R&B it came from, Doo-Wop had been picked up on and formed into a very Pop-friendly genre, rife with ballads, 6/8 meters, and sometimes even strings, with soft and lullaby-esque harmonies courtesy of Modern Gospel, another black music white people took a great interest in.

Doo-Wop was a shadow of Vocal R&B, with it no longer being poor black bands singing from their heart with as much accompaniment as they could afford. Instead, Doo-Wop is factory-made and procedure. As we’ve learned with Hard Pop, that usually results in a very long-lasting genre. Doo-Wop wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Nashville (8 songs)
Country
Honky-Tonk, Adult Contemporary Pop

A fairly recent form of Country started to pick up more traction this year. Much like the first two genres on the list, it was very professional and factory-made. Nashville, as a Country genre, was very much a slow and ballad-esque genre.

Honky-Tonk is the influence of most Country, and that’s no different here. Honky-Tonk, while upbeat, had its fair share of ballads. It wasn’t as much of a party genre as Western Swing, or Bakersfield much later. Honky-Tonk was down to earth and conservative, there weren’t any messy lyrics put there, and overall it was just a good, old, American time.

Nashville takes the ballad side of Honky-Tonk and propels it forwards. Strings become commonplace, songs lose tempo, and the lyrics start to take on several Adult Contemporary Pop characteristics. Such a format was bound to not fail, especially given Adult Contemporary Pop’s continued popularity. Naturally, it didn’t. Nashville quickly became a growing market and more and more Country artists (as well as new ones) started migrating over to make some cash.

Nashville was meant to out-do Rock and Roll by giving the people something softer that wasn’t meant for you to dance to. It was meant for you to put on a vinyl while hanging with your friends and family. In many ways, this aspect of Country hasn’t changed since, thus cementing Nashville as one of the most influential genres in Country music.

Crooner
Pop
Influences: (Classic Blues), Adult Contemporary Pop, Doo-Wop

Crooner is, in many ways, a sister genre to Hard Pop. It’s a new Pop sound vaguely inspired by Rock and Roll and R&B to make classic Pop music flourish in the Rock and Roll era. However, Crooner isn’t really as Rock and Roll influenced as Hard Pop may be.

Instead, Crooner is more influenced by Adult Contemporary Pop’s slow and subtle style, often with harmonies that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Doo-Wop record, though harmonies in Crooner tend to be more static and the Doo-Wop influences tends to be less instrumental and more utilizing long tones to create a dulcet backing track.

Another interesting thing of note is the influence Classic Blues had on Crooner. Classic Blues isn’t too dissimilar from Adult Contemporary Pop. It might not be a stretch to say it even influenced the genre. Classic Blues was a mixture of Jazz (usually Dixie) with Blues. Classic Blues is intriguing in the way that instead of taking the acoustic guitar from Delta Blues, arguably a facet of the genre, it took the instrumental ideas instead. So, Classic Blues is generally comprised of Jazz instruments with the scant instrumentation of Delta Blues, creating something new and unique.

Classic Blues vocals consist of strong vocalists adopting the Blues shouter technique, which is what it sounds like, but adding a more precise idea of pitch beyond that. Such an approach would later be adopted by several forms of Pop, Adult Contemporary and Crooner among them.

Crooner is another Pop genre that would be picked up on, and while not exactly what Pop is about today, was certainly big for the time.

Rockabilly (7 songs)
Rock and Roll
Influences: Rock and Roll, (Western Swing)

Rockabilly got a second wind this year. Although I may have made a categorization mistake and mixed some Bakersfield in here (I’ll be discussing that genre later). They’re very similar genres, you be the judge.

Rockabilly is an intriguing genre to me. Rock and Roll owes its existence heavily towards Country, and yet, Rockabilly is Rock and Roll that sounds like Country music. Rockabilly’s entire existence is double-dipping in some of Rock and Roll’s biggest influences, even more obviously so with its influence of Western Swing, which is also an influence on Rock and Roll.

I’ve made my case for how a genre so obviously influenced by its influence’s influences can exist, but I’m prepared to argue it again, hopefully a little clearer this time.

First off, I believe Rockabilly partly became a thing because of how it was recorded. A lot of Rockabilly was recorded at Sun Records in Memphis, Tennessee (not Nashville, I made that mistake last time), and Sam Phillips didn’t really have a big grand backing band like the Brill Building. What he did have; however, was a lot of technical knowledge and an indie recording studio. With this, he would get small artists he thought had potential (often bringing in their own backing band), specifically the potential to sound ‘close enough’ to Rock and Roll and blurring the musical color lines.

Now, a lot of these artists were white, and a lot of them didn’t have the means to recreate Rock and Roll, and a lot of them were from the South and grew up on Country… and you might be seeing the pattern here.

Rockabilly didn’t intentionally influence itself with Rock and Roll’s influences, it just sort of happened. Rock and Roll was popular, and the artists grew up on Country. What else were they going to do?

Once Sam Phillips started having hits with the genre, it was soon picked up by bigger record labels who could more precisely hone in on the Country it was closest to. At the time, that was Western Swing, which was a Country genre meant for dancing, a mixture of Swing and Classic Country. It’s often in cut time and featuring instruments such as steel guitars and fiddles. Western Swing is an influence on Rock and Roll, so it makes sense that it’d be the closest to the Rock and Roll imitation Rockabilly was meant to be.

After these labels were able to hone in on this, the genre became what it did. Originally not intended to be influenced so circularly, but ended up that way at the end of the day. As for the characteristics, minimalist instrumentation is common, as are tempos pushing the song to the brink of out-of-control. The basslines often have an oom-pah quality to them, and the drum parts are often built around a series of swung rim clicks, often against every other instrument being straight.

Overall, Rockabilly is a fascinating genre, and deserves its place in Rock and Roll history, even though most people would rather listen to the original.

Memphis Soul (7 songs)
R&B
Influences: Modern Gospel, Early R&B, Early Soul

Genre booms are also always something to be aware of. Suddenly, usually due to better promotion or a massive hit, a genre skyrockets into being a very notable genre for the year. Folk Pop was that way in 1959, and Memphis Soul was like that in 1960.

So, what is Memphis Soul? Memphis Soul, sometimes known as Stax Soul (after the label that released most of these songs) or Southern Soul, is the intersection between Early R&B and Gospel music. Soul music is not created to be about God, but rather using the Gospel music these artists were familiar with to create a new type of secular music, as Gospel had its own unique sound.

Unlike Early Soul, Memphis Soul didn’t retain the speed of Early R&B, instead, due to its Gospel origins, the songs were often slow and introspective. Interestingly, Gospel harmonies aren’t as present as one may think. Rather, long tones are prevalent and most songs are based around a solo singer.

Owing to its Modern Gospel influences, Memphis Soul, as it progressed, became more of a genre focused around Civil Rights, most notably with Sam Cooke’s ‘A Change is Gonna Come’. In its infancy, however, Memphis Soul was merely taking the influence of Gospel and R&B and blending it together to create a new genre, and a genre that would eventually influence its own genre category, Soul.

Rock and Roll (6 songs)
Rock and Roll
Influences: (Boogie-Woogie), Early R&B, (Western Swing)

If you notice the influences listed, you may notice they all have something in common, they’re all upbeat, dancing music. Western Swing, Country music taken to the maximum with several instruments, Early R&B, black music influenced by the Blues to push the pace beyond the scope of normal Blues, and Boogie-Woogie, Blues music with a solid backbeat (in fact, one of the earliest genres with a backbeat) based around uptempo piano licks.

Rock and Roll naturally takes all these uptempo influences and pushes the envelope a little more, creating remarkably speedy music that was the ultimate partying music. It was loud, dirty, and aggressive. Nobody had heard anything like Rock and Roll before, and thus, it influenced a lot of things quickly.

Rock and Roll is claimed to have been invented in 1951 by Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats by the song Rocket 88, but arguments have been made to claim it’s even older. However, such a genre shift, despite being old, wasn’t meant to die so quickly. Even after The Day the Music Died in 1959, killing 3 famous Rockabilly stars, Rock and Roll was still kicking, even in 1960. It; however, was starting to lose a lot of its allure as people moved onto the next big thing, Hard Pop and Soul.

Rock and Roll was having fewer and fewer songs hit the Billboard Hot 100 Year-End, but they were still trying. Rock and Roll wasn’t meant for deep and profound lyrics, and with Memphis Soul coming around and giving people that gap, Rock and Roll had once again been relinquished to its earlier purpose, not a societal shift, but rather dancing music, and I don’t think it necessarily had a problem with that. After all, Rock and Roll was built for this.

Hi-Lo (6 songs)*
Rock and Roll
Influences: Rock and Roll, Adult Contemporary Pop, Doo-Wop

Hi-Lo is a hyperspecific genre, which makes its popularity staggering. Hi-Lo is the phrasing I came up with for Hi(-Energy)-Lo(-Fidelity), though it’s shortened to Hi-Lo because both Hi-NRG and Lo-Fi are genres of their own. Hi-Lo, despite its name, doesn’t take its characteristics from either (even though Hi-Lo predates these genres). All Hi-Lo tends to be very specifically influenced by Rock and Roll, having Pop influences, and tends to have a Ska-like rhythm, though not intentionally and certainly not the point.

These Pop influences take the form of strings most obviously, oftentimes resulting from adding strings to Rock and Roll. This idea was likely taken from Doo-Wop’s success with adding strings as well, though Doo-Wop is perhaps less influenced by Rock and Roll as Hi-Lo is.

Despite this minor Doo-Wop influence, harmonies still aren’t a major facet of Hi-Lo as a genre. Rock and Roll isn’t one for major harmonies, so Hi-Lo isn’t either. In fact, Hi-Lo can, at the most basic level, be described as Rock and Roll with strings. There are a few minor differences beyond that, such as the aforementioned Ska-like rhythm, but in general that’s it. So, it begs the question; why is this a major genre at all?

Anyone who’s read my other two posts knows that I don’t like to file out minor genres. They’re minor, sure, but they’re still an important part of Billboard Hot 100 history, so I include them. Upon hearing Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka-Dot Bikini (yes that’s a song title), I realized that it almost sounded parallel to Ska, which hadn’t really crossed into the US yet. I filed it under Rock and Roll, and when I came across a second song that could be put in the same genre, I realized that it was something new. Even though it’s similar to Rock and Roll, I feel it’s different enough to be its own thing, and that is why this genre exists in the first place.

Adult Contemporary Pop (5 songs)
Pop
Influences: Ballroom Jazz, (Tin Pan Alley)

Adult Contemporary Pop continues its steady decline as the newer forms of Pop such as Hard Pop and Crooner start to become more popular.

As far as I can tell, Adult Contemporary Pop came from Tin Pan Alley, which I mentioned. Tin Pan Alley tends to be the point where Pop becomes its own thing. Tin Pan Alley came from Jazz, and usually sped things up a bit.

Tin Pan Alley is a massive influence on Hard Pop due to that speed. However, Adult Contemporary Pop is a very slow and melodic genre, so Tin Pan Alley can’t be the sole influence on Adult Contemporary Pop. That’s where Ballroom Jazz comes in.

Ballroom Jazz is a very early type of Jazz, you can hear it as far back as Love’s Sweet Old Song by Chester Gaylord (on wax cylinders). It’s generally influenced by Classical with a bit of Dixie. Ballroom Jazz is slow and emphasizes melody over all else. Most Ballroom Jazz is instrumental, but sometimes, artists such as Al Bowily would add lyrics into it, though rarely ever very many. Ballroom Jazz has a single goal: to be happiness in a tangible state.

Nowadays, listening to Ballroom Jazz is like listening to nostalgia incarnate, almost like calling the good old days to you. Similarly, Tin Pan Alley is meant to be easy and light going. When you combine the two, you get a doubly nostalgic piece of music. A lot of Adult Contemporary Pop taps into that nostalgia, with swelling strings and easygoing melodies.

The main new thing that Adult Contemporary Pop brings to the table is strings. A lot of Ballroom Jazz and Tin Pan Alley, while influenced by classical, tend to use jazzier instruments. Trumpets, piano, and a simple drum kit maybe, but strings are rarer, and certainly in songs they’re in, they aren’t the main harmony. Adult Contemporary Pop adds in more strings than either of the genres it’s influenced by, and they arguably are a hallmark of the genre.

Adult Contemporary Pop would soon overtake Tin Pan Alley in terms of Pop prevalence, but now it was having the same fate dealt to it. Hard Pop and Crooner are simply more popular, and Adult Contemporary Pop simply can’t keep up.

Early R&B (3 songs)
R&B
Influences: (Jump Blues), Vocal R&B

Despite its name, Early R&B is not the earliest form of R&B. Specifically, Vocal R&B was. While Vocal R&B has a bigger influence on Doo-Wop than Early R&B, the influence is still there, though rather minor. Specifically, the influence can be heard in the harmonies some Early R&B employs. Early R&B comes from a wide variety of influences, actually, to keep things simple, I’ve listed the most important two. Other influences on Early R&B also include Traditional Gospel, Swing, and even Dixie. However, the main thing Early R&B is influenced by is Jump Blues.

Early Blues is an eclectic combination of genres, and Jump Blues is no different. Jump Blues is primarily influenced by Swing and Boogie-Woogie, and with the exception of the latter, became the most danceable version of Blues. Interestingly, Jump Blues, much like most early Blues, doesn’t sound like it belongs in the same super genre of Delta Blues at all. Jump Blues demonstrates a bouncy, often saxophone-driven sound, that is a little more uptempo (though not majorly), and is meant for dancing.

In fact, Jump Blues sounds closer to Early R&B to anything that came before it, and there’s arguments that Jump Blues and Early R&B are in fact the same thing.

However, Jump Blues’ alien sound proved to pay off. Jump Blues became one of Blues’ first big genres. Delta Blues was influential, but didn’t sell, Classic Blues is similar, Jump Blues, however, became Blues’ first big juggernaut. The popularity of Boogie-Woogie would also flare up around this time.

When a genre as big as that surfaces, and one that sounds so different from what came before, it tends to branch out. Indeed, Jump Blues would eventually pretty much become Early R&B, and that genre would go on to influence Rock and Roll, Doo-Wop and the British Invasion, alongside dozens of other genres.

As for popularity, Early R&B was a smash. However, around the time of the Hot 100 becoming a thing, it was already on the downturn, supplanted by Rock and Roll and Doo-Wop, the spawn of this genre. The most notable thing about humans is that we’re creatures who are excited by the new and exciting, no matter how good the old is. Early R&B was a smash, indeed, but there comes a time when you must step down from the plate and let your legacy do the talking.

And let it be known that Early R&B has certainly let its legacy do the talking.

Swing (2 songs)
Jazz
Influences: (Dixie), (Chicago Jazz)

Swing is one of the most famous genres of Jazz music. From the Great Depression to roughly the start of WWII, Swing was incredibly popular in the US. This was despite the fact that such orchestras Swing often employed were incredibly expensive. Oftentimes, these orchestras would have at least 10 people, and would often put on concerts. These concerts were very straightforward and oftentimes very professional.

Swing has its roots in some of the earliest forms of Jazz music. Most obviously, Dixie. Dixie, shorthand for Dixieland Jazz, is a genre that has its roots in the Southern US. New Orleans is generally considered the birthplace of Dixie, hence Dixie’s moniker as “New Orleans Jazz”. Dixie is a genre based around upbeat improvisation, small bands, and can be performed on the streets as well as in other unorthodox places such as bars.

Chicago Jazz would later grow up based around Dixie in Chicago, where the bands became bigger, solos became a thing, the genre gradually sped up, and the sound became darker.

Swing, in turn, makes the bands even bigger, speeds up the genre even more, includes solos, all wrapped up in the upbeat bounce of Dixie. Swing became a smash, quickly becoming a massive escapist genre right around the time of the US’ worst economic crash in the 20th century. Because Swing was so popular, these orchestras could afford to stay big and provide entertainment to both black and white Americans looking for something to cling onto.

This continued into the 40’s, where some Swing singers went on to form Jump Blues bands, most notably, Louis Jordan. In addition, some Swing and Adult Contemporary Pop singers took their place as the voices of the US, recording several songs that could be described as pro-US propaganda.

But between all that, and a devastating strike against radio in the early 40’s, Swing lost a lot of their big stars, some moving onto the next big thing, Bebop, and some simply running out of money or moving on.

This left Swing in a bit of a stasis; however, the fame of the genre remained. So, when economic conditions improved in the 50’s, and people who grew up with Swing started remembering and performing Swing, it made a very minor comeback. Swing never quite reached the heights of the 30’s boom again, but Swing was here in 1960 proving that it still had some fight left in it.

Classic Folk (2 songs)
Folk
Influences: (American Folk music)

The thing with Classic Folk is that it goes so far back influences are pretty much impossible to trace. Indeed, this may be why Musicmap.info doesn’t consider Folk a super genre, because it’s so old that it’s hard to pin what influences it had. In fact, Classic Folk barely has an influence, it’s practically just American Folk music. It’s music designed to tell a story, often relayed to you through a single person playing an acoustic guitar. It can be sung, or it can be spoken, but it’s pretty much as simple as music can get while including an instrument, besides some Hymns.

The closest note to a beginning of Folk music I have comes from study.com, where it’s stated that American Folk music comes from European storytellers mixing with the traditions of Native American Folk music. However, that story really kicks off with the Folk Revival, which is something this series hasn’t covered yet.

Despite where it might’ve come from, and the origins are a little unclear, all Classic Folk music tends to have a few things in common. It’s always meant to tell stories, and it’s always designed to be simple. Classic Folk is one of the oldest American music traditions, and also, surprisingly, one of the most stagnant. It’s music of a bygone era, something for the common folk.

Classic Folk’s proclamation of being music for the common folk carries over into this year, too. Except this time, the topic isn’t stories, but rather, mortality.

The Death Disc was mentioned at the very beginning of this post as an intriguing 1960 Pop music trend, and while Death Disc itself isn’t a genre, a lot of Death Discs happen to be Folk music of some sort. I’ll be discussing other Death Discs throughout the rest of this post, but these all being Folk songs is a chilling reminder that Folk is meant for the people, and they don’t want to pull any punches.

While some of these Death Discs can have outlandish scenarios, most of them are still building upon the very modus operandi of Folk music, telling stories. However, these stories have a very definite end, and that end is death, a reminder that regardless of what happens, people are still mortal.

Bakersfield (2 songs)
Country
Influences: (Western Swing), Rockabilly, Honky-Tonk

At its simplest definition, Bakersfield is Country that sounds like Rock and Roll. Rockabilly is Rock and Roll with elements of Country. The two genres are very similar, but there are a few minor differences.

But before discussing that, I’d like to discuss something else. This year, among the Bakersfield hits, is a song that exists as a backlash to the Death Disc. The song is called “Let’s Talk About Living”, and charted in the lower rungs of the charts.

You know the song isn’t pulling any punches when the first two lines are, “I swear in every song I’ve heard lately, some fella gets shot”. With the Death Disc being as morbid of a trend as it is, it’s intriguing that this is the only backlash to the trend, or at least the only one that got popular, and I think that has something to do with what Bakersfield is. To do that, let’s go to the beginning.

I’ve mentioned Western Swing at least once in this post, it’s a genre combining some of the the bestselling genres of the 30’s, Country (& Folk), and Swing. It’s Country that’s specifically designed to be some of the fastest and most danceable music there is. Much like Swing, Western Swing bands could get pretty large, but unlike Swing, Country learned to cut down the bands much, much faster.

By the time Honky-Tonk comes around, bands are much smaller, and the music is more mellow. Mind you, Honky-Tonk can still get pretty fast, but you aren’t going to hear anything as fast as Ida Red unless the artist decides they really like cut time (which isn’t actually that far out there, but less common).

This mentality bled into Rock and Roll (and Rockabilly) through Early R&B, not their Western Swing influence. However, with Bakersfield, that mentality is a direct result of Honky-Tonk saying that and Rockabilly proving that it was still possible to make super fast music with smaller bands.

Bakersfield took that to heart, often borrowing that speed and intensity of Rockabilly, but allowing itself to let loose with maybe an extra instrument or two. The most common extra instruments in Bakersfield tend to be fiddles and steel guitars, though most often, it’s one or the other. Rockabilly often doesn’t have these extra instruments, which is what differentiates Bakersfield and Rockabilly.

As for why Bakersfield as a genre can create a song such as Let’s Talk About Living, I feel like that’s a result of what Bakersfield is. While Folk was a genre meant to remind people of their humanity, and tap into that, Bakersfield, on the other hand, is party music, owing itself to Rock and Roll. Bakersfield doesn’t want to remind anybody of their mortality, it just wants to have the party cut a rug, live in the moment, and dance the night away.

When a song says, “You’re going to die,” Bakersfield says, “Maybe, but can we talk about life for a second?” You aren’t supposed to be worried about death, that’s forever away. That’s partly why I think Let’s Talk About Living belongs to Bakersfield and why the one anti-Death Disc hit belongs to that genre, because it really does just want to talk about living.

Now, Bakersfield would never prove itself as much as a cultural juggernaut as the Rockabilly it was so familiar with. In fact, it would soon be overtaken by Nashville, which was simply more Pop friendly as a backlash of Country becoming such a party genre, but for a brief time, Bakersfield was the Country genre of choice, a companion of Rock and Roll.

Folk Pop (2 songs)*
Pop, Folk
Influences: Classic Folk, Adult Contemporary Pop

Folk Pop was quite popular in 1959, which makes its decline in popularity interesting. Folk Pop, at its simplest, is a genre combining two very rich American traditions, Folk and Pop.

Folk is a music characterized by its simplicity, and Pop, in this era, is a music characterized by its slight overproduction. By all means, this should mean that Folk and Pop clash exceptionally with each other and wouldn’t create such a genre as Folk Pop. On the contrary, Folk Pop works very well. So, what gives?

Part of the reason Folk Pop works well is that Folk and Pop aren’t given equal billing. Folk Pop is far more influenced by Folk. In fact, a lot of Folk Pop still has very simple instrumentation. The main difference is that the lyrics are no longer telling stories, but rather about Pop topics. However, lyrics normally wouldn’t differentiate genres from each other… so that still doesn’t explain what Folk Pop is.

Folk Pop actually builds upon Classic Folk in very subtle ways. There’ll often be additional instrumentation, such as harmony or very slight strings. The guitar will be slightly different, usually sounding more nostalgic, and more akin to Vocal R&B (though Vocal R&B has no direct connections with Folk Pop). All of these slight differences add up to something that, for completion’s sake, could be seen as a slightly different genre than Classic Folk, but a different genre nonetheless.

Folk Pop was also a companion of the Death Disc. Much like Classic Folk, that seems to generally come from the idea of telling stories for the common folk. Everybody dies sometime, so why not write a song about it? Folk Pop is usually a little softer than Classic Folk when it comes to the death, but death is still death.

West Coast Blues (2 songs)
Blues
Influences: Cool Jazz, (Electric Blues)

A significantly jazzier type of Blues, West Coast Blues trims the edges of Blues quite a bit. Blues is a rough and loud genre, even Jump Blues is louder than most music before it, and even Boogie-Woogie pushed the pace.

This reached an apex in Chicago Blues, the roughest and loudest Blues genre thus far. There’s an ample use of stop time, loud Blues singing (bordering on shouting), electric guitars, and all manner of noisemaking.

West Coast Blues takes a step back, and tries to pull Blues back into a controllable state by cleaning up the guitars and adding Jazz influence. As part of the way West Coast Blues was quickly cobbled together, while looking for something to calm down the Blues, they grabbed the closest thing to Blues Jazz had, Cool Jazz.

Much like Cool Jazz, West Coast Blues is obsessed with staying “cool”, while Chicago Blues also wants to appear “cool”, it is cool in the way that it makes you want to think Chicago Blues is cool by strutting in and owning the place, West Coast Blues wants you to think it’s cool through being laid back, and calculated.

Chicago Blues wants you to listen to their tall tales, and West Coast Blues wants you to sit down and have a drink.

In addition to its smooth and calm demeanor, West Coast Blues takes its Jazz influence through being more piano-driven and having jazzier guitar playing as opposed to the guitar playing familiar to most Blues artists. However, West Coast Blues is still put into the Blues category because all the edge isn’t all gone, just mostly gone. The guitar playing isn’t all clean, and the lyrics aren’t all clean either. West Coast Blues is still Blues, just a little different from what you’re used to.

As for the Electric Blues influence, that is really just derived from the usage of electric guitar, more info on that genre will be coming later.

Overall, a cool atmosphere and a lack of edge makes West Coast Blues quite a popular genre today, specifically in the background of bars and its location in contemporary Blues music’s atmosphere.

Detroit Soul (Motown) (2 songs)
R&B
Influences: Doo-Wop, Early R&B, Modern Gospel

You may not recognize the genre name of Detroit Soul, but you might recognize the label who released most of it, Motown. In 1960, Motown was not the cultural juggernaut it became, but Barry Gordy was still writing the music that would eventually become so synonymous with him that the genre would share the name of his label.

A lot like Early Soul, Detroit Soul takes the speed of Early R&B and mixes it with the harmonies of Doo-Wop.

However, unlike Early Soul, Detroit Soul also is injected with a very hefty dose of Modern Gospel, resulting in even stronger harmonies. While Doo-Wop might have someone singing the bass, tenor, etc., Detroit Soul has everyone singing the same line, and singing their heart out over it.

Detroit Soul also pushes the pace to extreme degrees, resulting in an incredibly upbeat genre that’s danceable, can be sung along to, and is factory-made.

Much like with Hard Pop and Doo-Wop, factory made isn’t an insult, Detroit Soul was bound to become a big hit in the future thanks to that quality, but that future was a little bit away.

Motown as a label did in fact exist in 1960, that was its first year as an individual company. However, no Detroit Soul song on the year-end is distributed by Motown, I’m not entirely sure if they were distributing anything yet, though one song is through a pre-Motown distributor (also made by Barry Gordy), Anna.

While Detroit Soul is a very notable genre with a very notable sound, there is one song that blurs the lines. Money (That’s What I Want), later covered by The Beatles, is certainly Detroit Soul. It’s got strong harmonies, and speed, like Detroit Soul, however, the song is actually quite heavy.

Money (That’s What I Want) has a driving tom groove, and an awfully lo-fi production, contrary to a lot of Detroit Soul. You combine the heavy groove with the lo-fi production and you end up with something that’s almost Garage Rock. If it weren’t for the harmonies, it would certainly be a Garage Rock song. Now, I feel like Garage Rock has a bit to become a well-known genre, but I feel like Money is pretty much already there. Almost certainly laying the groundwork for what would eventually influence Punk Rock.

Surf Rock (2 songs)
Rock and Roll
Influences: Rock and Roll, Salsa

Another influencer of Garage Rock, we have Surf Rock. A little less popular than it was in 1959, but still quite popular regardless.

Surf Rock is a super-frantic version of Rock and Roll. Unlike Rock and Roll, with often faux swung meters, Surf Rock songs are often straight, being so fast a faux swing can’t reasonably be performed. Instead, blustering guitar riffs and heavy drums take over.

While Surf Rock doesn’t necessarily sound like it would be derivative of Rock and Roll, at its core, Surf Rock just takes those Rock and Roll songs and brings them to their natural conclusion of speed. Lyrics are basically nonexistent, and the guitars take over the melodies.

Surf Rock is mostly influenced by Rock and Roll, but there’s also a very minor influence of Salsa. According to Musicmap.info, because of its usage of counterpoint, or a technique where two instruments play separate melodies. In Surf Rock, that’d guitar and bass. However, counterpoint can also be heard in Classical music, which is primarily European.

Regardless of the influences, Surf Rock was music nobody had ever heard before, and would go onto to influence a vast array of Proto-Punk music in the future, such as Garage Rock.

Neo-Ballroom (2 songs)*
Rock and Roll, Pop
Influences: Surf Rock, Adult Contemporary Pop

The entire idea behind Ballroom Jazz is that it’s meant to be nostalgia above all else. It’s meant to sweep you away in glorious melodies and melt your worries away. I’ve mentioned that at least once in this post. By this point, Ballroom Jazz was long dead, it lived on in its evolution, Adult Contemporary Pop.

I highly doubt Neo-Ballroom was intended to be an evolution of Ballroom Jazz. As mentioned, Ballroom Jazz was dead, people didn’t pay attention to it, but what they did do was listen to Surf Rock and Adult Contemporary Pop, and decide to combine them. However, in the process of doing that, and taking cues from the primarily instrumental genre of Surf Rock, such as solos and guitar, what they ended up doing was creating something that sure sounded like a Ballroom Jazz revival.

Neo-Ballroom is more influenced by Pop than it is Jazz, despite sharing the name of a Jazz genre. Even then, it sits more strongly in the Rock and Roll category. What Pop influence Neo-Ballroom has is just as influenced by Rock and Roll.

However, one thing Neo-Ballroom certainly did was go to the heart of the Pop genres and show that guitar sounded just as good in Pop as strings did. Now, Hard Pop was also learning that, but Neo-Ballroom didn’t influence itself with Rock and Roll. It was strictly Adult Contemporary Pop, and it showed that guitars sounded good no matter the influence.

Electric Blues (1 song)
Blues
Influences: (Delta Blues)

You’ve probably heard of Delta Blues. However, I realize that that’s not a real universal thing, so I’m gonna explain it anyways.

Delta Blues is a type of Blues that started deep in the Mississippi Delta, hence its name of Delta Blues. Its origins are a little foggy, but Musicmap.info states that Delta Blues was a sort of subgenre of Folk Blues (though the most well-known subgenre, arguably moreso than the main genre), which was a sort of backlash against the Spiritual, which can be seen as American Black Folk music from a certain angle.

Now why was it a backlash, you may ask. Well, these singers didn’t have much to turn to. They didn’t see the good news and could only focus on the bad news. Funnily, and maybe because of this quality, Delta Blues sold like a mound of dirt. Until Robert Johnson’s works were put onto record in the 60’s, Delta Blues sold practically nothing to no one. This begs the question of how Delta Blues influenced much of anything until the 60’s.

But the thing about these Blues singers is that a lot of them were dirt poor, unable to afford a house or any real meaningful place to stay. These singers were victims of misfortune (and more than likely, racism), including a selection of Delta Blues singers who were legitimately blind (Blind Lemon Jefferson is a stage name sure, but he also legitimately was). So, what many Delta bluesmen did was travel the country, spreading their music to anyone who’d listen. This is more than likely where the stereotype of the ‘wandering bluesmen’ comes from.

However, their ploy to spread the music to make enough money to go to the next place on their journey worked, at least among other black people. Delta Blues got transferred along, and when recording technology became commonplace, Delta Blues made it onto record, though after Classic Blues made it on.

However, the genre was fairly stagnant. There were several other acoustic guitar genres out there, Classic Country and Classic Folk, so Delta Blues got lost in the shuffle, and thus sold nothing to nobody. However, the tricks learned from the traveling bluesmen were still around.

Enter: the electric guitar.

While early electric guitars were… rather ridiculous (they were half acoustic), some other genres, such as Swing, had adopted them. Well, that wasn’t going to fly among these Blues artists. They wanted their music to get noticed.

So, a collection of artists started recording Delta Blues, but the only difference was that this time, the acoustic had been swapped out for an electric, thus creating Electric (Delta) Blues. Not a very influential genre, but one that would show the power of the electric guitar in Blues music, thus setting Blues up for a genre shift.

Oddly, the song I assigned to this, Mule Skinner Blues, is not a strict Electric Blues song. If anything, it’s a Country/Electric Blues fusion. It’s got the guitar oddities of Delta Blues, using an Electric Guitar, but also contains yodeling and is sometimes considered a ‘Western’ (and don’t worry about that, we’ll get to that). It’s also influential on Garage Rock. If anything it proves that having issues shoving things into a genre is far from a recent phenomenon. This has been happening for years prior.

Rural Folk (1 song)*
Country, Folk
Influences: Classic Folk, Honky-Tonk

Rural Folk is the combination between old Country and old Folk. Now, Classic Folk was indeed still alive and well, but Honky-Tonk wasn’t. Now, if you compare Rural Folk to where Country came from (American white Folk music), this makes sense. Old Country had proven its influence, but had gotten too fast, Nashville was too poppy, thus, there’s the happy medium: fusing with Folk to keep the genre exactly the same.

While most Country is seeped in tradition, Rural Folk is even more so. The only thing Rural Folk tends to add to old Country and Folk is the addition of a whole band. While that may just sound like Honky-Tonk, Rural Folk tends to give all instruments except voice and guitar a backseat (though they are present).

This is also where we come in contact with what I would call the most popular Death Disc, Marty Robbins’ El Paso. El Paso is also the longest song on the Billboard 1960 year-end, at just over 4 minutes. This song lays down the Death Disc template pretty handily, it tells a story. It’s a Classic Folk story, of a guy who accidentally kills a man in the desert town of El Paso for a maiden, then steals a horse and runs away, only to be shot and killed when he comes back. It reinforces the idea of the Death Disc, that being mortality. It reinforces that we’re all human, as this type of music is made for the common folk.

Rural Folk gets that across the same way most Folk does. A quiet combination of Folk and Country, it would prove that old Country still had a platform to stand on.

Post-Gospel (1 song)*
Gospel
Influences: Modern Gospel, Adult Contemporary Pop

Gospel music has a long and storied history dating back to the Spiritual, often songs sung by slaves, usually about God. However, when slaves got their freedom and the Spiritual became Traditional Gospel, Gospel started traversing over color lines. Black and white people soon enjoyed Gospel together because (at least in the US) they both believed in the good news of God. Gospel would go on to influence pretty much all of modern music in some way, shape, or form, according to Musicmap.info.

After WWII came Modern Gospel, though admittedly, evolution was fuzzy, as Vocal R&B can predate the war, and the trading influences the two genres have can be iffy at times. Modern Gospel put great emphasis on harmonies, and oftentimes, a collection of singers would gladly sit you down and tell you the good news. However, Gospel soon became easily replicatable, and Modern Gospel lost its focus on God, instead diverting into a genre that held this same group vocal ideal, but wasn’t necessarily about God as most Gospel is. This can be seen as a sort of ‘Secular Gospel’, and would eventually feed directly into Soul.

However, with Gospel losing its black performers more and more to Soul and R&B, eventually, all that was left was white performers who remembered Gospel, but still wanted to share this alleged ‘good news’. What resulted was a new genre very vaguely inspired by Modern Gospel, however, the harmonies were purged, piano became the central instrument instead of voice, and it took cues from the great white genre of Adult Contemporary Pop.

What resulted was a sort of Post-Gospel, a collection of performers replacing performers in a genre and creating something completely new. The music was still about God, and it was certainly still notably different, but a lot of the edges had been filed off, and Gospel became a genre more represented by lyrics instead of sound. CCM would try and update the sound, but because most Gospel after Post-Gospel is usually heavily lyric-centered, it stopped being its own unique thing and assimilated into the already vast sea of genres.

However, Gospel is far from dead. CCM still has its own unique sound, and I’ve heard recent projects trying to bring back big gang harmonies, like Gospel used to be, so the future of the genre remains undetermined.

March (1 song)
Utility
Influences: ???

Much like Folk, Utility music can’t be traced back to any real influences. After all, it’s right there in the name, it’s music borne of utility. It’s hard to have real influences when your influence is “I had to”. As far as I can tell, March would’ve started as a way to keep troops moving on the battlefield, and eventually became established as its own unique thing.

Common March characteristics include rolling snares, a cut time, and often a collection of easily transportable instruments such as brass instruments (though school Marches do employ a ‘pit’ with the bulkier instruments such as electric basses and marimbas). It’s music that’s meant to be kept up with and marched to.

Although March is a very old genre, its influence can be seen in modern music. For instance, the common ‘traditional grip’ for drummers is in fact the way it is so that you can drum on a snare strapped to your side. In addition, March has its history as a popular genre, it has in fact appeared in 1959 and 1958 as well. More March songs would follow in the future, but the genre has legs to stand on.

I’d assume that March has a history because a lot of troops actually did like the music to keep them moving, and thus rerecorded and released it. In addition, March already had a stereotypical image, so novelty March songs like Johnny Horton’s “March on New Orleans in 1812” as well as “Sink the Bismarck” had an image to lean into to create a sense of patriotism.

March being a popular genre is still an anomaly, though. Regardless of that, it is very interesting that March actually has history in the first place.

Western (1 song)
Country
Influences: March, Honky-Tonk

Technically film music, but considering Mr. Custer is a parody of Westerns, it would follow that Westerns have a personality of their own.

Westerns are slow and plodding, oftentimes making use of drums to create a sense of forward momentum and tension. If anything, the genre’s origins would likely be from March, realizing how much tension a March can create.

Westerns also have their roots in the father of most Country music, Honky-Tonk. The Honky-Tonk influences in Westerns are actually rather minor, but mainly are found in the usage of guitars and basses over brass and percussion. While the plodding drum beat is still there, directly derived from March, the main characteristic of Westerns is how effortlessly it blends Utility and Country music. Oftentimes, the Country blending is intentional, as the Wild West is sometimes associated with Folk music, which Country is directly derived from.

As stated, the general idea behind the Western style is one that is easily parodied. Therefore, mock Westerns are not uncommon, Mr. Custer being the mock Western of 1960. As with most music in the early days of Billboard however, the general genre mix of the charts is rather eclectic, and Mr. Custer shows that.

Post-Romanticism (1 song)
Classical[size]
Influences: (Romanticism)

I’m going to give it to you straight, I know close to nothing about Classical music. I’ve never been wild about it, and so I haven’t gone out of my way to research it.

Forgetting the Classical canon, I know pretty much nothing about 20th Century Classical. I know a few genres, sure, Musiquè Concretè and Minimalism specifically, but not much else. However, while listening to the 1960 year-end, I noticed that a few songs took cues from Classical so I at least had to get a surface-level understanding of 20th Century Classical.

Technically speaking ‘Classical’ isn’t the ‘scholarly’ designation of the genre. It’s ‘Art Music’, but that sounds overly pretentious, so I will be referring to it as ‘Classical’.

Post-Romanticism is a form of 20th Century Classical music that takes cues from, you guessed it, the movement of Romanticism. Romanticism is a Classical genre characterized by its usage of soaring melodies and strings, not too dissimilar from Adult Contemporary Pop. However, Adult Contemporary Pop tends to utilize singular string lines while Romanticism uses entire string collections. Post-Romanticism is mainly just a continuation of Romanticism, but a little more carefree and ‘artsy’ so to speak.

It utilizes string collections, pianos, all things you’d expect in Classical music. It’s not a very complex genre, but I felt it worth mentioning. You never know what might surprise someone when they’re looking through the genres present on some year-end list.

Impressionist Pop (1 song)*
Classical, Pop
Influences: (Impressionism), Adult Contemporary Pop

Another odd Classical pop-up. While what I named “Impressionist Pop” is largely unrelated to actual Impressionism, the seeds are still there.

Much like Post-Romanticism, Impressionism is a 20th Century Classical genre. Impressionism is based more tightly around feeling. While most Classical is based around feeling, Impressionism’s sole reason for existing is to portray emotion by juxtaposing several instruments together to closely relay the emotion of a mix.

Impressionist Pop takes that idea and overlays it on top of Adult Contemporary Pop. Adult Contemporary Pop, is as mentioned, a genre based around nostalgia, adding Impressionism can make the genre more than just a nostalgic genre and infuse it with other emotions as well.

Impressionist Pop is a very, very minor subgenre, and would disappear (I presume) pretty much instantly. However, the thing with Impressionist Pop is that it showed signs of Classical and Pop getting along really well with each other. This wouldn’t pan out, and Pop would become more closely tied to Rock and Roll, but it’s worth something at least.

Opera (1 song)
Classical
Influences: (Medieval)

Now, Medieval is another type of Classical music, though it’s mostly just Hymns and the like. Hymns are a separate genre, and a very broad genre at that. However, Medieval Classical music shares some elements of Hymns, and part of those is that Medieval Classical is specifically driven by the voice.

Without many other instruments, the voice would become the main instrument, and that’s where I’d presume we’d get Opera. Opera takes the idea of voice as an instrument to its logical conclusion. Melodies are high and mighty, almost always sung by soloists, and background is pretty sparse.

In a way, Opera is like a proto-Spiritual, you create your own rhythm by your voice and your voice alone. However, Spirituals and Opera aren’t really related and Spirituals often consist of several singers instead of a soloist.

Mama by Connie Francis isn’t a pure example of an Opera, but has several elements of it. Massive vocals, light backing, and having a story to tell, it’s a perfect example of anything, even a genre hundreds of years old, having the capacity to become popular if enough people care.

Conclusion

1960 wasn’t as entertaining as years prior. It seems that the world of popular music had seemed to settle in, and Hard Pop, Doo-Wop, and Crooner were the main players. What is interesting is the evolution of Soul, which had a boom year in 1960, becoming almost as much as a Pop genre as Pop itself.

I don’t expect 1961 to be much more diverse, popular music tends to enter a period of stagnation before a boom, and the cycle repeats. Eventually, people get tired of listening to the same things.

Naturally, the 60’s boom was around the corner, but there still was a few years. 1960, however, is a perfect example of how comfortable Pop music can get with itself. While not as good, the year still had merit.

And until next time; be awesome!
-Dashie