Music And Fashion

This six part series is written and presented by Andrew Ford from Radio National's The Music Show.

Mohair suit made as stage wear for John Lennon by Douglas Millings (1963). Photo courtesy of Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, UK

Music and Fashion asks why certain types of music have been fashionable at certain moments in history, and what this might tell us about the way in which human beings hear, appreciate and use music.

Beginning with the most visible of musical fashions - dance crazes - the series moves on to the role of religion in both inspiring and denying novelty in music, to musical entrepreneurs, to the transitory (and often non-musical) nature of fame, to the rise and decline of the recording industry, and finally to nostalgia, the fashion that keeps on renewing itself.

Audio on demand for each program is available here in Real and Windows Media. A transcript of each program is also available.

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The most visible musical fashions are those we dance to, and dance steps come and go as fashion dictates. Queen Elizabeth 1 created a scandal when she danced the volta; the waltz, though it now seems unlikely, was also once considered outrageous. So are the biggest fashions in dance also always the 'dirtiest'?

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Throughout history the church has inspired and probably paid for more music than any other establishment. But what sort of music is appropriate for God? Even if we believe God to be unchanging, religious music has been as subject to fashion as any other sort of music. Heaven On Earth considers these changes, from mediaeval times to the present.

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The idea that music might be art is pretty recent. Composers have always needed to earn money and if you weren't employed by the Church or in some royal household, you had to market yourself. Handel's operas were 18th century London's equivalent of Cats and Phantom of the Opera. But how did Handel become a Great Classical Composer? The status of music alters when it moves from being popular to 'worthwhile'. Andrew Ford asks how this affects the way we listen.

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Bach was the most famous organist of his day, Liszt was the most famous pianist of his, and Mahler's fame rested on his prodigious gifts as a conductor. Now we think of all three of them as composers: great ones, too. But we're lucky to know their music at all. The reputations of composers in their lifetimes are subject to the whims of public taste, and that isn't always focused on music. In pop, from Jimi Hendrix to Eva Cassidy, death can enhance a career. But sometimes famous musicians take their music with them to the grave. Nearly a century after Bach's death, it needed Mendelssohn to revive interest in his music.

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Sound recordings, radio and television have completely changed the way we hear music. They've also affected our responses. For one thing, fashions move in and out of our lives faster than ever before. An instant hit in January is seldom a hit in June. In the 1940s, classical music was part of mainstream radio. The expression 'popular classics' wasn't an oxymoron. But as commercial music became multinational, not only classical music but also jazz lost its popularity. Could we possibly be witnessing the death throes of certain types of music, simply because powerful corporations have convinced us they are unfashionable?

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There's nothing new about nostalgia. Looking back is reassuring in times of uncertainty and, although nostalgia might seem to be the very opposite of fashion, in fact it can create new fashions. Nostalgia for a time when the world still had style leads to cocktail drinking and Diana Krall. Nostalgia for a time when we were all in touch with our spirituality leads to an enthusiasm for Gregorian chant. Nostalgia for simpler times when people just sat around in huts and made up songs leads to World Music. Of course, it's possible that such times never actually existed.

Writer and presenter: Andrew Ford
Research: Anni Heino
Technical production: Jennifer Parsonage
Series producer: Penny Lomax