The Day the Music Died...

Fifty years ago yesterday, tragedy struck the music world as three of its biggest stars Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper all lost their lives, along with pilot Roger Peterson, as a plane crashed in Clear Lake, Iowa on February 3rd, 1959.

Now, I know that I normally blog about contemporary rock artists, but you have to understand how important this is in the grand scheme of things.

A big reason why they call it The Day the Music Died isn't simply just because of the 1971 Don McLean song "American Pie" (even though it is). It has more to do with the fact that when those three artists died, the movement that they helped build died with it. The music changed. The mood changed.

As sad as it is to say, it's almost as if these musicians died for another movement to come and take over. However, don't take that to mean that the music that those big three created was forgotten.

Without Buddy Holly, you may have never had the Beatles.

I feel that this has happened throughout music history.

For example, Selena's tragic death in 1995 eventually gave way to the Latin invasion of 1999 which included Ricky Martin, Marc Anthony, Jennifer Lopez, and for God sakes, Lou Bega.

The tragic deaths of Tupac Shakur and Christopher "Biggie Smalls" Wallace gave way to rap becoming more mainstream than ever before (Jay-Z and 50 Cent among its biggest benefactors).

The death of Kurt Cobain was considered the death of grunge and led to the creation of what is called post-grunge (the genre I cover the most on this website).

Anytime you think of the death of a musician that died way before his or her time, think about The Day the Music Died and pay your respects.