HISTORY OF RETRO MUSIC.

After the Second World War, the frenetic search for a new musical language began.
The world of sound was entered, producing a violent break with the past that
made even the spelling of music falter:

Main features

After 1945, while composers of great stature linked to the tonal tradition continued
to develop their work, a new generation emerged, on an international scale, which
radically developed some of the atonal aesthetic positions born in the previous
decades.

These young avant-garde artists were inclined towards sound experimentation

and the development of new musical ideas and shared a series of characteristics:

 They considered tonality and its associated concepts, such as rhythm,

melody, form or harmony, to be anachronistic.

 They mostly used new timbres and sounds in their compositions, through the
use of new instruments or new ways of making traditional instruments sound.

Starting in the 70s, there was a reaction against the excessive complexity of the
avant-garde and a general desire to recover communication with the public lost
during previous years. The general trend was the search, by each composer, for his
own personal language, based on the findings of previous decades, without
excluding the recovery of tonality as another resource at the composer's disposal.

Pop Music Through The Ages.

Pop music in the world accompanied the political and social changes that were
taking place, and in Spain the movement followed the same path.
The year was 1968, and events were taking place in Paris, framed in terrible
student revolts that would have a decisive influence on the world of culture in
general and music in particular.
The changes are many and all simultaneously. The lyrics of young people's favorite
songs become combative, they criticize the consumer society, new musical trends
begin to delve into the search for nationalist roots, everything becomes more
politicized.

This change is accompanied by new technologies applied to music, which allows

artists to incorporate hitherto unimaginable rhythms, and make mixtures and
musical experiments truly unthinkable for the time.

It is the beginning of psychedelic music, which, as it could not be otherwise, had

already been experienced by “The Beatles” in historic albums such as “Sergeant
Pepper's Lonely Hearts Band.”

Musical comedies, with “Hair” at the forefront in the United States,

They were not left behind and ventured into new trends.

Urban Rock At The Late 60s.

This rock movement, which became very popular in Spain in the second half of the
1960s, is a direct heir to the North American rock and roll of the 1950s.

With a strong and metallic sound, basing their music mainly on the chords of the
electric guitar rather than the rhythm of the drums, and with lyrics that unfailingly
talk about the experiences and problems of urban life.

The representative groups of that era are Tequila, Topo, Asfalto and Coz, and
among the soloists the veteran but still current Miguel Ríos stands out.

The eighties in Spain

In the early eighties, “The New Wave” emerged, which was the germ of what
would later become “La Movida.”

They were young musicians eager to make themselves known and break the
parameters of the old rock that dominated the Spanish musical scene until then.
This movement had its most important focus in Madrid, and soon spread to other
large cities such as Barcelona, Valencia, Bilbao and Vigo.

Its flagship groups were Gabinete, Alaska, Radio Futura and Mecano.
At the beginning of the eighties, there was the impression that punk rock would
remain the predominant trend in the field of popular music. However, it was too
regional a movement. Other styles, mainly pop, ended up assimilating it, and
marking the path of an extraordinary decade.

At the beginning of the eighties, there was the impression that punk rock would
remain the predominant trend in the field of popular music. However, it was too
regional a movement to sustain a high level of record sales. Other proposals
awaited their opportunity, which without having the fierceness of punk, instead
surpassed it in variety. In the end those styles, mainly pop, ended up assimilating
him, and marking the path of an extraordinary decade musically speaking and also
in many other ways.

The Limits Of Punk.

The Sex Pistols were the main promoters of punk rock in those early eighties. The
intense publicity that accompanied its launch produced great interest, but it soon
faded. The main cause is that the musical culture of punk was too flat for the
United States. And although it was in this nation where the anarchist aspect of
rock and roll was first cultivated, certain limits were never broken. Elvis Presley
never swore publicly, and Bill Halley, with his Comets, never displayed anything
other than formal attire. In the United States they had the Ramones and other
similar groups as promoters of punk, but they never managed to have the strength
that was manifested in the United Kingdom.

The Return Of Pop .

Due to the powerful impact that English groups like The Beatles had achieved in
the sixties, the United States never left aside its vision of England as a magical and
mysterious place, where the exotic city of London stood out as its vertex. Although
the Sex Pistols, with their exacerbated anarchism, did not awaken in the American
Union anything more than a passing curiosity, on the other hand, the public was
more receptive to the magic of British pop, which exposed all those values that
presented England as a fascinating and cosmopolitan place. Bands like Culture
Club, Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet, with their “new romanticism” managed to
pave the way for pop as the musical trend that best expressed that hope for
improvement and well-being that characterized much of the 1980s. However, it is
interesting to note that it was not the only movement that took advantage of the
path left open by punk . The generation that had been born in post-war times was
clamoring for another, more mature type of music that reflected their life
perspectives. We have an example of this with the album Face Value (1981) by Phil
Collins.

The popular music

Along with so-called "classical" music, popular music, of an eminently urban
nature, in its multiple modalities, is gaining increasing popularity and influence in
this era. Urban popular music of the second half of the 20th century assimilated the
forms and conventions of African American music. This mix of African and
European traditions, developed on American soil, developed, starting in the 1950s,
new forms of jazz, Latin American popular music, and pop and rock in their
various variants.

Composers of the Tonal Tradition

Among the classical music composers linked to the tonal tradition, although with
an undoubtedly modern language, who continue to produce quality works in this
period, we will mention the American Aaron Copland (1900-1990) and the Russian
Dimitri Shostakovich (1906-1975), of which we have already discussed.
Shostakovich developed his work under the guidelines of a Soviet regime that
censored his initial works as "abstract" to shower him with honors after World War
II.
Special mention deserves the British Benjamin Britten (1913-1976), whose work
incorporates traditional and modern elements and who, like that of Shostakovich,
has reached a vast international audience in recent decades. Among his main
compositions are the operas Peter Grimes and Death in Venice, several quartets
and symphonic pieces such as Spring Symphony and War Requiem, considered his
masterpiece. Britten is also the author of an Orchestra Guide for Young People