The 00 Decade

Happy New Year!!!  We're into 2009 this week and the last year of the first decade of the new century.  We've been defining the decades for a long time.  It probably started with the Roaring 20s and picked up steam in the 60s and 70s.  The revolution of the 60s and the wild days of the 70s, the conservative and yuppieness of the 80s and the digital 90s decade all had 'themes' that defined the trends in our culture.    

These themes all have had a lot of influence on our music and entertainment choices as well as evolving new media.   The 60s brought on the maturity of network TV, pop music super stars with music as a revolution messenger, and the top 40 format,  the 70s saw the beginning of Cable TV, the evolution of FM radio and a continued growth of the music industry into the Super Groups.   The 80s conservatism re-established Pop music trends, saw cable TV evolve to a new norm, and FM radio grew to the dominate music platform.  The 90s brought in the digital revolution which evolved over the decade finishing with a wealth of new WWW based media on a platform that was a government project at the start of the decade.   

The 00's or Ought decade or maybe the twenty-ohs is nearing an end and Jonah Goldberg from the National Review Online (and CNN) makes some interesting observations in this article.  

Goldberg's observation's on the 00 decade being one of self centered-ness maybe best illustrated on the factoid from the 90s that bottled water consumption passed beer in the decade.  Goldberg notes - Beer gets the party started.  Water is the thirst quencher of choice for the solitary fitness addict,.   Beer the outgoing social drink - passed by bottled water and it's inner driven world. 

He also notes that the Ipod follows a similar trend - the personalization of music and entertainment generally.   An inner driven world where music is personalized - not shared or experienced in a community like a live performance or a radio station where we all hear it at the same time.   He goes on to point out the IPod culture, is a mix of self-promotion and atomization: broadcast yourself, indeed.   

Yet at the end of this decade perhaps we are seeing a big clue that the tide is turning away from this me driven, self absorbed, over personalized and customized world of the 00s.   

A key clearly stood out in the election - Change was the KEY mantra and turning out in big crowds and joining in a huge community voter turnout were the clear signs.   From a world revolving around the solitary keyboard and monitor to communities filled with real people and personalities.  A movement from individualistic concerns to UNITY.   A movement away from 'greed is good' to a far more social and sharing society?   The signs are starting to show up on a very regular basis.   

This could be a great movement for radio to re-invent itself upon.   Don't you think???? 

Hope you had a great holiday and are ready for the evolution that starts in 2009.