Pop Moderne, Vol. 1

Questions or comments? Kudos or brickbats? Just want to say hi? Email me at popmoderne1@gmail.com Pop Moderne Volume 1 - An homage to the pop instrumental The first few years of the 1960s are generally considered something of a dead zone for popular music. The first wave of rock and roll seemed a spent force; Elvis was in Hollywood, Chuck Berry was in prison, Little Richard was in church and Buddy Holly was dead. Meanwhile, the next wave was still aborning; Bob Dylan was passing the hat in Greenwich Village, while the Beatles were bashing out 8 sets a night in German dive bars. The pop charts were inhabited by pre-fab teen idols like Frankie Avalon, Fabian and Paul Anka. While all that is certainly true, there was interesting pop music happening just under the surface. Surf music was everywhere - kids in landlocked states who never saw the ocean were buying cheap electric guitars and drum kits from the Sears catalog and twanging it out in suburban garages. Meanwhile in the living room mom and dad were hosting cocktail parties and listening to an explosion of LP records on their stylish and affordable new hi-fi consoles. A lot of these records existed to capitalize on new technological and cultural innovations, like hi-fi stereo and fads like mambo dancing and Tiki lounges. Taken as a whole they often created recognizable genres with names like Exotica and Space Age Pop. One by-product of all this was a plethora of instrumental records finding their way onto the pop charts. From 1960 to 1963 nearly 60 instrumental records hit the Top 20. Some, like The Ventures Walk Don’t Run or the Tornadoes Telstar are still regularly featured on oldies radio or in films to evoke the period. Others, like Wonderland by Night by Bert Kaempfert & His Orchestra (3 weeks at #1 in 1960) are known only to aficionados and pop historians. While instrumentals have occasionally charted since then (usually in connection with a film or television score) the early years of the 1960s remains the golden age of songs unsung.