The Thinking Man’s Take On: Transient Modern Music
27 May
I’ve talked to a lot of my music loving friends recently about transformations that are going on in music – a topic that I find completely fascinating. There are so many changes happening at such a rapid pace that it’s nearly impossible to keep up with where music is let alone where it’s going. But we know for sure it is going – CDs are nearly dead, digital formats are taking over, and vinyl is experiencing an oddly timed resurgence. Everything is all a-flutter.
But the shifts go beyond the physical media of music. They lie in the very essence of music – the way we experience it, interact with it, approach it and understand it. We no longer buy an album a month at the record store down the street. Our mindset and understanding of music has become warped, thrown in fast forward, and swirled around. But will it blend? Regardless, the eventual product is a radical shift in our perception and connection with the songs that soundtrack our lives – the permanence of music is irrevocably altered.
There have been drastic arguments that music has been de-legitimized as an art form. There have been brilliant classifications of music as a commodity; pay a monthly bill and it’s always at your fingertips. There are schools of thought that believe music is becoming more of a shared dialog – artists create, fans remix, share, mash-up, and re-create. All of these things are true, to varying extents, and are indicative that we live in hectic, dangerous, and often exciting times as music fans.
And when really studied, many of the metamorphoses being undergone by music are revealed as important, necessary, and long overdue. As distribution has quickly approached instantaneous, record companies have lagged six months behind. As production costs have decreased, consumer-facing prices have often inexplicably risen. And as millions predicted the upcoming demise of the music ‘industry’, people in positions to effect preemptive change did nothing. Whoops.
But there are some changes that come less on the heels of necessity and more out of our actions. Changes that are less welcome in my world. And number one on that list is the changing permanence of music. I’ve lamented the short cycles of music and music buzz on this site before, and the speed of that cycle has a profound effect on whether or not we remember music. And that permanence effects what music will survive the test of time.
I guess I’m really talking about two types of permanence here – the permanence of a song during a given year, and the permanence of specific bands across the years. Essentially, we’ve all but eliminated the permanence of songs in the short term. Think about how up you were on “My Girls” at the beginning of this year, or the new TV On The Radio album last year. And now what has happened? They’ve been shuffled to the side for newer, shinier songs and bands. Sure, you’ll revisit them once in a while and enjoy listening to them, but they probably won’t soundtrack your entire year the way they might have 40 years ago.
And those are just the good songs we’re talking about here. What about the bad ones? We are inundated with so much music from so many artists that if a song doesn’t catch you on the first or second listen, it’s probably off the radar within a week or two. Thousands of tracks are posted on thousands of blogs on a single day, and only a select few get noticed. And tomorrow? Lather, rinse, repeat. There’s transience for you.
As for the other time frame, the “who’s going to be playing on the ‘Oldies from the ‘00s’ radio station?” permanence, I have dire predictions.
Think about it this way: when my grandparents and parents were growing up, there were – and this is completely a ballpark guess with no factual basis – maybe 70 popular music artists at any given time? 100? Max 150? It was a time when there were a few big names cranking out a ton of records, and few little names doing much else. And as a result, everyone from earlier generations has some musically shared experience – everyone listened to Frank Sinatra, Elvis, The Beatles or The Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, etc.
Who is our Bob Dylan? Is it Kanye? Coldplay? Green Day? Eminem? Britney? Kris Allen? Nickelback? Daughtry? The thought of any/all of those names representing our time’s popular music to future generations gives me the willies.
My Dad recently gave me an article from the Philadelphia Inquirer that commented on older bands still on tour (often with replacement players). The opening paragraphs from the article describe an odd scene: “The slate of bands stopping in Philadelphia, Camden, and Atlantic City this year looks mostly the same as it did 25 years ago. Jimmy Buffett. Jackson Browne. Chicago. The Allman Brothers. Def Leppard is touring with Poison and Cheap Trick. Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. Eric Clapton is out with Steve Winwood. The Doobie Brothers. Peter Frampton. REO Speedwagon. Fleetwood Mac. Aerosmith.”
Are our current stars not better than old bands’ backup/replacement players? Isn’t this entire situation just totally bizarre? What happens when Mick Jagger kicks the bucket and goes to the great Castle in the Sky (or the Altamont down below)? When Jimmy Buffett has his last margarita and The Boss can’t dance in the dark anymore? 25 years from now will Katy Perry and Lady GaGa be playing summer festivals? Will Jay-Z have a comeback tour at age 60? Will Coldplay be wooing middle-aged people in 2040? WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO SOULJA BOY???
We’ve taken our grandparents’ hundred artists and multiplied them by another hundred. In a given decade, thousands of artists launch, fail, find success, fade into oblivion, continue stardom, and briefly get some buzz in the blogosphere. We’ve created cozy niches for ourselves in music, a practice which I see as an instant gratification/delayed punishment situation. Because for now we can listen to exactly what we want to listen to, whenever we want. But in 30 years, when digital music is a joyless commodity and live shows are the only place to get good music from our generation, it will be The Lowest Common Denominator performing on stage.
Chris Barth writes a weekly Thinking Man feature here at Pretty Much Amazing. You can read his more succinct daily posts at his music blog, The Stu Reid Experiment. He will buy tickets to see the Soulja Boy Comeback Tour in 2035.
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Thanks for this column. I’ve thought of this stuff before and it really worries me. There are so many bands that I feel like music will, in a way, lose its history. Who’s to judge what stays and what goes?
Sadly i do think the 00′s will be remembered for Kanye, Jay-Z, Katy Perry, Lady GaGa, JT etc.
but hey just because our generation might be remembered for this^ does not mean that i will not be proud of the musical accomplishments of our generation (outside of the ‘popular’ music mentioned above that is). And when/if my children happen to say “wow dad music from your time sucked” i will be able to show them the GREAT music that sound tracked my life.
I’ve always thought the music of today, just can’t be as good or revolutionary as it was in the past. Who will be remembered as the greats of 00s? However, you are completely right, we don’t all have one artist to cling on to. There is simply too much music for us to rally around a couple of artists.
It’s also to do with the death of music, through pop. “Normal” kids, or the mainstream, embrace whatever is popular at the one moment. And it’s not an artist they embrace, it’s just one song. Then the next song comes out and they drift to that.
@Colby I can’t imagine pop music being seen as great. There has always been boring pop music, however it’s just pieces of nostalgia for past generations.
i don’t have a problem with the increasing transience of music. it means choice. just because great albums may be overlooked by the majority, or even skimmed past by those who do notice them, doesn’t mean they aren’t being made. and if they’re made, they can be enjoyed. why do we need a set number of well-recognized ‘classic’ or decade-defining artists? that’s missing the point.
look at literature. the number of classic authors increases exponentially as time progresses until the term ‘classic’ eventually loses its meaning. who would you count as the last classic author? kerouac? vonnegut? rushdie? a better question is: who gives a fuck? when the work produced is great, why do we need the elitists to rank them?
@brennan
I see what you’re saying, but I also think that there is a collective knowledge that goes along with something being a “classic” that is important. I wouldn’t say that “classics” are necessarily ranked – they’re more categorized by their place in the collective cultural IQ – canonified rather than ordered.
It’s a semantics thing that doesn’t really make a whole bunch of difference, but in the end people seek out things that other people like. Sure, great works are being made all the time, and people are enjoying them on their own. But if everyone has personalized favorites and the concept of “classic” loses meaning, what happens to the social aspect of music that has been so important throughout its history?
@chris
well i guess here is where it becomes a personal preference. i like being introduced to new music and i enjoy that social aspect more than listening to a mutual tried-and-tested favourite. that being said, i find my different social circles will have different ideas of what is a modern classic, and our tastes will overlap pretty often. i think a song that you and your friends found and love together is more social than one picked in a top 100 list by rolling stone, regardless of how good it is.
What you’re saying is not the death of music, it’s the death of a common-denominator; the ‘did you watch that on Top of the Pops last night’ – the death of pop apart from to a very small niche of 10-15 year olds and gay men. The stratification into niches what formerly was a more wider segment – I remember Marc Almond saying how his biggest fans were teenage girls and grannies…can’t imagine that now apart from the likes of Susan Boyle.
This has been going on for years – way before downloading, and will continue. It’s partly a fault of marketing demographics – partly a fault of the death of the single – and partly the fault of record companies who just want to target the groups who are still buying records, although you can’t totally blame them for that (other things, yes) cos computer games and mobile phones have eaten away that market…maybe they should put their monies into developing bands and artists and letting them develop creatively, rather than dropping them after the first album; which has happened even with quite successful bands.
So the problem isn’t downloading; you’re blaming the victim there – that’s the result of the last 20 years of short-termism and niche marketing…the industry has quite successfully devalued their own product by concentrating on the novelty and short-term win rather than developing bands – and if they do it’s hyper-successful dross like U2 and Coldplay – totally bland. For every Radiohead, SFA (they got dropped!), Manic Street Preachers – or Jarvis Cocker – there are 1,000s of blandie indie bands and Celine-alikes.
Also the trust has gone – people know that they have to produce a hit with the first album – and second and third – or they’re out. So they play it safe and call it career and manage their ‘brand’ – the celeb culture is no help also, with no underground or space to experiment everything is out there, however unformed, picked apart and destroyed. Literally Celebrity is eating itself – let alone pop music.
There are spaces that have undergrounds away from the gaze but they are derided as being old hat or generic…occasionally then they break out like bassline house or electro house – create a buzz for a while and fall back down into obscurity with every part of it wringed out for fashion, lifestyle tips.
The irony used to be the indie sector was completely ignored, and moaned about it…then it got it’s wish, Britpop came along, and the majors – and now you can’t move for kids with guitars and the NME next biggest thing – but although I don’t want to argue that artists should starve in garrets, it’s certain under the gaze of corporates, 3am and the blogs and London lite et al something cannot grow – look at what happened to nu-rave. The very gaze of the media is what kills it – used to be Guardian didn’t mention or take serious punk for what, 5-10 years? Now it’s 5-10 days….so that part you have right…the speed of the media churn is part of the problem, but has been so pre-digital. Faster pussycat faster….but you need time to create something good.
haven’t yet read the article but by the comments it seems like something not to miss. idk how old everyone is here but i’m in high school now and i’m so sick of blogs and them referring to young teens music as all that crap that comes on the radio. i always say its the same 20 songs over and over. maybe thats why i read all these blogs. to see what’s out there…to see what everyone else isn’t seeing. but i really want to comment on that mona lisa picture up top. it’s wierd how true it is…it’s very true.
Here is my opinion on some bands that I wouldn’t mind representing our generation. It is only time until “indie” actually becomes mainstream. People will eventually realize the gimmicks that artists like Soulja Boy, FLO RIDA, Lady BLAHBLAH and the rest of them are.
Anyway here are bands that I think should/would be remembered in some way, shape, or form:
Radiohead, Arctic Monkeys, The Strokes, Grizzly Bear, Muse, The White Stripes, Franz Ferdinand, Interpol, Queens Of The Stone Age, The Flaming Lips, Outkast
many people will argue with this, but these bands will be the face of this decade if you like it or not imo:
Green Day, Coldplay, The Killers, RHCP
Nice article, Chris. Definitely some great points, and I share your fears about the transience of today’s music. However, it’s dangerous to generalize the classic rock n’ roll era as a time dominated solely by great acts like the Beatles, Rolling Stones, etc. Granted, those bands were more ubiquitous and popular than any bands today for a number of reasons. But let’s not forget that the number 1 hits of the 60s weren’t just released by a cabal of super-talented acts. In 1965, the Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction” was removed from no. 1 by Herman’s Hermits, with a song called “I’m Henry VIII, I Am.” And the no. 1 hits of 1967, the year of the famous “Summer of Love,” which saw the release of a little-known album about some guy named Sgt. Pepper, was dominated by a certain made-for-TV band called The Monkees. I’m not saying that the Hermits or the Monkees are terrible bands, and they’re certainly still well-known names, but it would be rare to find them on any list of the great bands of all-time.
Time separates the wheat from the chaff, and while today’s trends may make that appear unlikely, I’m not yet giving up hope. We can already see it happening with the early 90s. Take 1991, for example. I feel like most music aficionados think of that as the year of Nirvana, and the rise of the grunge movement. Yet Nirvana is nowhere to be found on the no. 1 hits of 1991. Rather, you find Mariah Carey, Bryan Adams, and Paula Abdul. Basically, what I’m trying to say is that there’s still hope that this decade not remembered for Katy Perry or Kanye or Coldplay. My fingers are crossed, at least.
All I have to say is that I hate that picture. The “whole picture”? It’s about the music, not about a jewel case and some album art the band (usually) didn’t even make. The only thing better is seeing them live.
PSA: Don’t hate on the downloading
Uhhh, the lowest common denominator performing?? What does that mean?
could it be argued that the popular bands from 40 yrs ago were frowned upon on by the music elitists of their time as well? For example, my dad thinks Chicago is lame. During their time, and even now. But you can’t deny their longevity and their representation of an era. Popular music is popular for a reason. Everyone knows “hit me baby…” and in 40 years, hearing it will take us all back to the 90s and conjure up some sort of emotion (whether it is “oh god i hated Britney, or whatever). Some random “amazing” indie song is not going to do that.
I’m sure you’ve got a quota of writing to fill.
This is the most depressing article i have read. How can an abundance of music be frowned upon. If you don’t want to hoard music then don’t. If you find something you really like, then listen to it over and over again.
Surely a system, where artists have the ability to connect to millions and millions of people with their music is only positive. In the iPod generation, nearly everyone i know is into music, most people are difficult to stereotype and get to discover exactly what they like.
Wake up and smell the sunshine. Live a little.
I think we should all revert back to horse drawn carriages and slavery. Weren’t things so much better back then?
On a less extreme note, I lived most of my life without a cell phone. Doesn’t that clearly mean I don’t need one?
The logic of this article is so completely flawed I have to comment twice.
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