Comments on: The Beatles and the Cambrian Explosion

By: Graham

Graham — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 16:10:08 +0000

Good point. There are so many stories to be written!

By: Jo

Jo — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 02:04:55 +0000

Don’t forget the Moody Blues! They went from “Go Now” (’65?) heart throb pop to “Days Of Future Passed” to “In Search Of The Lost Chord” in, what, three years?

By: Graham

Graham — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 20:49:19 +0000

Great suggestions! Thank you. Maybe this idea requires further exploration …

By: Mike

Mike — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 14:04:33 +0000

I think this works for all of popular music. The environmental change needed was the baby boom, which provided many resources. The Beatles make a good marker for the change from a few, simple bands to a great diversity of complex bands. Some families of styles bloom and fade, while others thrive in very specific niches.

By: BrianSJ

BrianSJ — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 08:31:47 +0000

Interesting light on a mystery. The Rolling Stones lived in a rich ecology of Blues, but the ecology of the Cavern was largely self-generated it seems (with Cilla Black listening to new US records and covering them the same night). The main change in their ecology was chemical perhaps?

By: Daniel Hoe

Daniel Hoe — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 11:12:37 +0000

oh yes, and now we have the Mike Taxa, an artificial taxa though, there become more of them (fans trying to immitate)after an extinction event, like the case of the dicynodons from the end Permian to the Triassic.

By: Graham

Graham — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 12:14:00 +0000

Ah, they would be a Lazarus Taxon, that apparently disappears from the fossil record, then later re-appears. Incidentally, in addition to Lazarus Taxa, there are also Elvis Taxa, that are appear to be still around, but but are in fact extinct.

By: Daniel Hoe

Daniel Hoe — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 10:13:29 +0000

And how do you compare your cambrian explotion with Duran Duran who were popular in the mid 80s and suddenly silent, until they reemerged in the mid 90s

By: Sean Robson

Sean Robson — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 23:34:57 +0000

Yeah, there’s no doubt that Paul did all the heavy lifting in that partnership, but as good a song-writer as Paul is, his singing isn’t nearly as good without the harmony that Art provided. This leads me down another avenue of thought. Some bands could be infested with parasites, and the one talented member will never grow with the others sucking his lifeblood.
P.S. Steal away! When it comes to music and pop-culture, I’m not erudite enough to do more than toss out a few ideas. You could expound upon them far better than I.

By: Graham

Graham — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 20:55:29 +0000

Sean, I love that symbiont idea. But you shouldn’t have written it here because I might steal it! It deserves a full exposition.

The downside of that Simon and Garfunkel analogy is that Simon without Garfunkel might be the coral without zooxanthellae, but Garfunkel without Simon is then zooxanthellae without the coral. Which might help to explain the relative success of his solo career.