What would you like to see in a 20th century cultural ATL?

The Admiral Hook

Music, film, literature, art, pop culture, underground culture, etc.

Stay within the realm of plausibility, please. The tentative POD is in the mid-late 1940's but earlier PODs are welcome.

Any requests?
 

The Marauder

African-American immigrant population existing within the Soviet Union, popularizing jazz and experimental music. Perhaps in Moscow.
 

The Admiral Hook

By the way, I'm going to bump this thread into near sticky territory until I get a plethora of requests for an alternate cultural TL. This board needs more of them, especially ones that actually become completed, and I'm the man to do it.
 
LordVetinari

LordVetinari

Hmmm...The Shadow having the sort of popularity Batman did OTL enought that he gets a television show either like "The Lone Ranger" or a camp version in the 60's ala Batman, plus a similar movie deal in the later 80's, early 90's.
 

The Admiral Hook

LordVetinari said:
Hmmm...The Shadow having the sort of popularity Batman did OTL enought that he gets a television show either like "The Lone Ranger" or a camp version in the 60's ala Batman, plus a similar movie deal in the later 80's, early 90's.
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You got it. Is it too far out to suggest that Detective Comics gets the rights to the Shadow and Kahn and Finger reinvent the character slightly? That way, the Shadow is as popular as you want and Batman never happens, or happens as The Shadow.

I think that it's possible. Does it work for you? The characters were originally mighty similar. I think that has the potential to be cooler than either of the separate franchises respectively.
 

GBurch

I'd be interested in alternatives to the standard Lost Generation -> Beats -> Hippies paralleled by something that at least slows down the Rockabilly -> Rock movement. I may write more about that idea here when I get some time.
 

The Admiral Hook

GBurch said:
I'd be interested in alternatives to the standard Lost Generation -> Beats -> Hippies paralleled by something that at least slows down the Rockabilly -> Rock movement. I may write more about that idea here when I get some time.
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As in extending the relevance/quality of the first wave of rock 'n' roll by averting or lessening the tragic wave of misfortune rock 'n' roll suffered in the late fifties?

I like it. I started my musical career in rockabilly/rock 'n' roll and blues bands so this idea is close to my heart. Any more suggestions on that?
 

GBurch

TheInfiniteApe said:
As in extending the relevance/quality of the first wave of rock 'n' roll by averting or lessening the tragic wave of misfortune rock 'n' roll suffered in the late fifties?

I like it. I started my musical career in rockabilly/rock 'n' roll and blues bands so this idea is close to my heart. Any more suggestions on that?
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I don't know ... I'm a huge jazz fan and there was a time in the late 40s and early 50s when "serious" jazz hadn't become such a small cultural stream separate from the mainstream dominated by the rise of rock 'n' roll. I wonder what might have happened if the latter had been delayed a little. The pop music machinery that created it, though, was probably an inevitability with the increase of prosperity in the West and the rise of all sorts of new media like television and cheap radios and record players.

Beneath that, though, is the major development of the bohemian counterculture "going mainstream" in the late 50s and into the 60s. That is always portrayed as an inevitability ... like we were all just sitting around drumming our fingers waiting for Bob Dylan to release us from the boring world of mainstream culture. But maybe it wasn't ...
 

The Admiral Hook

GBurch said:
I don't know ... I'm a huge jazz fan and there was a time in the late 40s and early 50s when "serious" jazz hadn't become such a small cultural stream separate from the mainstream dominated by the rise of rock 'n' roll. I wonder what might have happened if the latter had been delayed a little. The pop music machinery that created it, though, was probably an inevitability with the increase of prosperity in the West and the rise of all sorts of new media like television and cheap radios and record players.

Beneath that, though, is the major development of the bohemian counterculture "going mainstream" in the late 50s and into the 60s. That is always portrayed as an inevitability ... like we were all just sitting around drumming our fingers waiting for Bob Dylan to release us from the boring world of mainstream culture. But maybe it wasn't ...
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I think "serious jazz" was going to take a hit in the mid-late fifties anyway, really. Early rock legitimized through swing and/or popular "cool jazz" artists like Dave Brubeck incorporating something different in their compositions or delivery may keep jazz more popular during the golden birth of Rock 'n' roll.

As far as the beats are concerned... Maybe an earlier link between "bohemian" intellectualism and rock 'n' roll music, then? Beats with a beat?

I don't see any of these as being mutually exclusive or too difficult to acheive at any rate.
 
A.M. Turtle

A.M. Turtle

*George Orwell dies in 1960 after publishing many works on the world.

*Orson Welles career does not get killed in the legal battle that was getting Citizen Kane into theaters.
 

The Admiral Hook

A.M. Turtle said:
*George Orwell dies in 1960 after publishing many works on the world.

*Orson Welles career does not get killed in the legal battle that was getting Citizen Kane into theaters.
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I can see the Orwell appeal, definitely. Do we know what he had next in the works?

What's next, IYO, for a successful Welles?
 

Polish Eagle

TheInfiniteApe said:
Music, film, literature, art, pop culture, underground culture, etc.

Stay within the realm of plausibility, please. The tentative POD is in the mid-late 1940's but earlier PODs are welcome.

Any requests?
Click to expand...

Perhaps Socialist Realism finding a place outside the Eastern Bloc?

And can we have Big Band last longer? Instead of Rock and Roll, can we have the Big Bands live on? Saving Glenn Miller might help in that.
 

The Admiral Hook

Polish Eagle said:
Perhaps Socialist Realism finding a place outside the Eastern Bloc?

And can we have Big Band last longer? Instead of Rock and Roll, can we have the Big Bands live on? Saving Glenn Miller might help in that.
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I was thinking of having Big Bands adapt better with rock 'n' roll. Something like a mid-late fifties and early 1960's BSO. Surviving Glenn Miller would definitely help.

Whaddya think?
 
A.M. Turtle

A.M. Turtle

TheInfiniteApe said:
I can see the Orwell appeal, definitely. Do we know what he had next in the works?

What's next, IYO, for a successful Welles?
Click to expand...

Orwell: Well I think he would write a couple works on the arms race, McCarthyism, the Cold War and perhaps right a sequel to Animal Farm where one of the pigeons they sent out as messengers goes horribly off-course and comes across an panda named Mo who leads a massive revolution in the jungle (if you didn't get this I don't know how to simplify it further).

Welles: I have no idea Citizen Kane was his first movie and he was the hot commodity in Hollywood at the time. I think he would work on some large iconic projects making his movies seen more and him being a household name.
 

HeavyWeaponsGuy

Banned
Robert Ervin Howard does not kill himself and keeps writing Conan stories.

Sword and Sorcery becomes a popular subgenre of fantasy, resulting in more movies, TV shows, and the like than OTL.
 
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