It seems that every high street shop and café is now bathed in this droning, effluent miasma of noise, seeping out of the ceiling and into your ears so relentlessly that most don’t even seem to notice it.
When it comes to essay writing, the gold is to be found by really zooming in and paying close attention the everyday things going on around us. We all experience these phenomena but are so often oblivious to them as we go about our business with our thoughts being pulled to either the past or the future. But if you can pay attention to the now and capture it truthfully and accurately you can give the reader a rare and special experience. And this is what
does here as he dives deep into the piped music that seems to surround us at all times. As the subtitle indicates this isn’t the cheeriest of reads but I’m much more interested in truth than mere false positivity for the sake of playing nice and not rocking the boat.Music (and art and culture in general) matters, so I’m pleased that we have writers like Calum on board here to defend it without compromise.
Enjoy.
TJB.
When was the last time you listened to a piece of popular music? I mean really listened. I think I remember mine: I was (guiltily) in a chain fast food restaurant. Sitting down to eat my ersatz meal I experienced an unusual moment of lucidity, and instead of pulling out my phone to perform the same juggling act of those around me, whereby you attempt to shovel as much food into your mouth as you can while getting as little grease on the screen as possible, I decided to try and actually experience what I was doing. But as I brought my attention to bear on what I was eating, it was soon all but obliterated by the music blaring from over a dozen small speakers, poking through the polystyrene ceiling at regular intervals. And what I heard was truly awful.
It is no secret that popular music is embroiled in a crisis, and my own experience would suggest that it is worse than it has ever been. Whenever I hear a “popular” song it is nearly always lacking in any form of musical complexity, creativity, and even a decent rhythm. But what disturbs me most about this phenomenon isn’t just the sheer lack of quality and the incompetence of our “creative elite” who created it, but just how many people must be listening to it. It seems that every high street shop and café is now bathed in this droning, effluent miasma of noise, seeping out of the ceiling and into your ears so relentlessly that most don’t even seem to notice it. Hell, some of them even seem to like it…
I believe that the ramifications of the crisis in modern music extend far beyond a lack of taste being inculcated in the general public, and point towards a far deeper crisis within our culture and, perhaps, even our own souls.
Are we listening?
As I say, music is everywhere: it is increasingly difficult to imagine a quiet public space. And now that most people essentially carry a near-complete library of Western music in their pockets, it shouldn’t surprise us to learn that people are reportedly listening to more music than ever before. On paper, the industry should be reaching its zenith: with revenues for live music events apparently reaching “record levels” in 2022, and listeners having such an incredibly powerful set of tools at hand to discover new music and artists, surely we should be entering some kind of golden age?
But the reality of our situation feels much different. If popular music is bigger than ever, then why are 10% of small music venues expected to close in the next year? With the “democratisation” of access to the music market – with artists now able to record, distribute and promote themselves without the need for record labels – why is it that the industry seems to be more dominated by mega-artists than ever? And why is popular music becoming so much more monotonous?
In the West in the 20th Century we saw an explosion of creativity. From swing jazz to funk, punk, metal and hip hop, in just a few decades we experienced a staggering variety of music in our popular culture, much of which was deeply linked to the many socio-political shifts of their time. Like it or not, artists such as The Sex Pistols, Rage Against The Machine, N.W.A and John Lennon have all had a profound influence in their respective cultural moments. But that seems to have come to an end. This sense of challenging or experimental music being a popular form – a communal experience that all levels of society engage in, at least to some extent – is mostly over. There is a sense that what we hear through mainstream channels is not really for “music fans”… in fact, it is quite common to hear people say that they don’t really care about music at all.
For the people who do care about it, their interest has now been pushed to the periphery of public consciousness as they fracture into internet fandoms. Those who are driven to seek out innovative material can dive down any number of digital rabbit holes, while the stultified masses are left with a popular “scene” that is increasingly shallow and repetitive. For the uneducated and unsuspecting listener then, it seems that the possibility of genuine discovery is slim: we each have the world’s music at our fingertips, but few of us even know where to begin. When you have nearly unlimited choice at your fingertips, most choose not to choose at all.
But not only are most people listening to worse music than ever before, but I believe that how they are listening has also changed. We are now much more likely to “plug in and tune out”. Sitting down and listening to a whole album is becoming a thing of the past: our engagement with music is becoming more passive, not active. We consign it to the background as something to break up the monotony of a commute, household chores, or simply being alone with our own thoughts. Perhaps the reason we pump it into every public space is because we are trying to fill a void we would rather not see. If we examine the form of so much of popular music today it is hard to reach any other conclusion: its degeneration towards repetition and volume indicates a desire to block something out. While it was once an avenue through which we could confront our cultural and existential malaises, it has become a sedative.
Thumos
At the heart of this phenomenon is a pervading sense of cultural nihilism. In a time when atomization and alienation are rampant and we are subjected to an escalating sequence of crises, it should not surprise us that our artistic output reflects the collapse of our public and civic life. After all, music is one of the purest expressions of the values and aesthetic sensibilities of the culture from which it came.
Ascendant cultures that are confident and optimistic create music that exhibits thumos (an ancient Greek word that could roughly be translated to “spiritedness”). Plato conceived of this spirit as one that animates man towards higher ideals, and believed it existed in opposition to man’s base impulses. Indeed, the lyrical subject matter of modern music increasingly revolve around pleasures in the forms of sex, wealth, status and power (and in the case of rap and its derivative forms often revenge and sadistic violence). Of course, good music has always dealt with the darker aspects of human nature, but there was an interplay with higher ideals such as love, friendship, awe at the natural world, the desire for meaning etc. that now seem to be all but gone. It is as if we are no longer able – or at least willing – to deal with the deeper aspects of the human condition at all.
Good music challenges us. It asks us to engage with it directly, and to grapple with difficult lyrical themes and complex arrangements that can only be understood on multiple listens. It does not pacify us but urges us to demand more of ourselves – to become active participants in our own lives. The path of mindless consumption and passive acceptance is a slow spiritual rot, and we are mired in it.
Music Matters
Above all other art forms, music is the one that is most innate to us. We don’t explain to our children what music is; long before they attempt to draw or tell stories they will try to sing. It is, quite simply, a part of what makes us human.
But it is also a way in which we make sense of the world and our place in it (and, with the benefit of hindsight, our place in history). A culture’s music is a part of a story it is telling itself about itself. And while the story we are currently telling ourselves is that we are a people with a great desire for oblivion, there is still hope. There is some evidence that tastes are starting to change, and that younger generations are turning towards older music with renewed interest. The “vinyl revival” and the resiliency of music subcultures online also show that there is a demand for music that takes time and attention (and perhaps even ritual) to appreciate. Nostalgia comes with its own problems, but these trends are to be welcomed as a step on the path to regaining our creative vitality.
And the ramifications of such a creative rebirth are not trivial. A people that are genuinely creative are much more able to solve problems, create community and survive adversity. Politics and laws may constrain and guide a culture, but great art can breathe life into it. Conversely, cultures stagnate when they cannot tell themselves compelling stories about who they are and why they are here. If Harry Styles and Cardi-B are telling us who we are, what we desperately need is music that tells us who we can be.
In love this essay, thank you. I agree with you, but thank you for stating it so well.