People’s tastes have changed enormously over the years, thanks in part to the huge technological advances we’re enjoying these days. Movies, music, and television are subject to these, and while developments are incremental, when one looks back over them in terms of decades we can really see how far we’ve come.
Maybe the best thing about living today is that we not only get to experience technology that allows us to easily enjoy the online bingo Australia and the rest of the world has to offer, but all the parts of previous years too!
The Fabulous 50s
Blues, Jazz, and Rock ‘n’ Roll music were just emerging in the 50’s thanks to B.B. King, Miles Davis, and Elvis Presley. Television shows were increasing in popularity, with I Love Lucy, Leave it to Beaver, and The Twilight Zone dazzling families at home.
Films like Disney’s Cinderella actually saved the studio from going under, the world got introduced to Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire, and everyone fell in love with Marilyn Monroe in Some Like it Hot.
The Swinging 60s
The Beatles and The Rolling Stones were taking the world by storm in the 1970s, and the first-ever televised presidential debate in the world went live, featuring Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy.
Alfred Hitchcock terrified a generation in Psycho, Roman Polanski gave everyone the creeps in Rosemary’s Baby, and inter-generational passion was explored in The Graduate, with Paul Simon’s Mrs Robinson making a splash that never really subsided.
The Psychedelic 70s
Music got grittier in the 1970s thanks to bands like AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, and Pink Floyd, but David Bowie debuted glam rock and Michael Jackson shaped dance music, too. The Exorcist, The Godfather, and Jaws had people squirming in their cinema seats, and folks at home were mesmerised by shows like Columbo, M*A*S*H, and Three’s Company.
Generation X: The 1980s
A-ha, Madonna, and Prince soared up the music charts in the 1980s, and Die Hard, Ferris Buller’s Day Off, and Ghostbusters were smash hits at the box office. The A-Team, Cheers, and the Golden Girls kept folks at home tuning in night after night.
The Dot-Com Decade of the 1990s
The decade that the Internet was born had a musical medley evident in the charts, with the likes of Britney Spears, Lauryn Hill, and Nirvana rubbing shoulders. The Matrix, Pulp Fiction, and Schindler’s List provided an equally diverse mix at the cinema, and TV audiences were being entertained by Friends, Seinfeld, and the X-Files.
2000 – Today
And that brings us up to date, give or take a couple of decades. Entertainment has become even more varied, with musical acts like Billie Eilish, Miley Cyrus, and Pink taking over the airwaves, and CGI changing the film landscape in movies like Beauty and the Beast, The Jungle Book, and the Lion King.
Game of Thrones took the fantasy television genre to a new level, Netflix changed the game with their streaming hit Stranger Things, and it remains to be seen whether the bleak prophecy of The Handmaid’s Tale will come to be.
Where to next?