70 years of popular music


"I refuse to introduce this display as '70 Years of Popular Music'," said Algernon, being rather petulant, it must be said.

"Why not?" we asked. "It's the name of the series. Look, it's written at the top of all the books."

"I don't care," replied our usually-quite-professional gorilla. "The music on display starts from 1900-1920 and runs right through to The Nineties - which is ninety years. Ninety, not seventy. The series might be called '70 Years of Popular Music', but that's a positively silly name for a collection of sheet music spanning ninety years."

Given that Algernon is usually okay with a bit of silliness, we thought it was a bit odd for him to complain. After all, his last display was dedicated to learning a language in the 1980s.

"What are you really after, Algy?" we asked, knowing there must be something else on the gorilla's mind.

"Well, if you must know, I was hoping we could do this display on operatic scores. We have dozens of them, you know? Down in the Scores section. We've got Aida, The Magic Flute, Madama Butterfly... Why don't we do a display on those?"

"Maybe we will. Next time. Right now, we'd like to you introduce this display on Twentieth Century pop music."

"Fine, but I'm not going to call it '70 Years of Popular Music'. And that's final."

And we simply couldn't talk him around. So, if you come into the Mabo Library within the next couple of weeks, you'll find a stubborn gorilla sitting in front of a display concerning the series '70 Years of Popular Music', but not mentioning the name of the series even once.

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