If this past year was a jump into a future I haven\u2019t had yet\u2014being 80 when I\u2019m only 50\u2014I thought I was trying to get out of the future and into the present.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When the cancer crisis pushed me out of the biggest event of my new job last year, I had to accept that I would have to wait to experience Coachella, the biggest music festival in America. I walked into the spectacle last weekend. In my mind I\u2019d be joining the life in the present that I\u2019d skipped the track on last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m not a fan, or a customer of the festival. Of course I\u2019m a fan, but in this case I\u2019m a worker ant, moving the pieces to put the art puzzle together. My ant eyes could only see so much. Still- I looked through a wormhole\u2014a tear in the fabric of my universe<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The sensation of time doesn\u2019t follow any laws. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The stages, the clothes, the images and the music exploded my mind. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Was I in a warped and fabulous future? was I so out of step with culture that the current moment was unrecognizable?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Maybe it wasn\u2019t the moment, maybe it was myself that I didn\u2019t recognize.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The reporting on this year\u2019s festival declared it was a celebration of 90s music. Time warp to 30 years past. When am I again?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As the worker in this temporary carnival, I had access to the back lot. All the workers came through the mess tent\u2014catering is what they call it in the entertainment biz. Care was taken to make it pleasant. Big speakers played songs for people as they ate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I expected a playlist of songs from the performers that were scheduled for the festival. What I got was the hits of the 80s 90s and \u2026nothing from today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Which edge is the cutting one?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While I was fretting that I was out of step, the trend is moving back in time. It\u2019s not that the latest music isn\u2019t appreciated by the newest generation. But music from 30-50 years back is also popular. When the festival organizers picked No Doubt and other 90s acts, they were tapping into a real impulse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cover songs and retro originals are popular right now. Comfort culture perhaps? The streaming stats show that GenZ is a big consumer of 2000s music. More and more cover tunes come up in my media<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The stagecraft at Coachella is new, but I am familiar with how music is being used and spread.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The way music is discovered and consumed has to do with the many ways it can be delivered. Background music used by content creators is moving toward nostalgic styles of royalty free music. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This has happened before. There was a ASCAP strike in 1942. Musicians had to play songs that were public domain (royalty free) while things were beign worked out. That was the big band jazz era. They ended up finding songs from decades past that kept them working. The jazz standard \u201cAs Time goes by\u201d was from that time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s new if it\u2019s new to me. It\u2019s also new if I am seeing it in a way I never have before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
New perspectives were pushed on me. Here I\u2019m seeing new angles on thingd I\u2019ve known for a long time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If this past year was a jump into a future I haven\u2019t had yet\u2014being 80 when I\u2019m only 50\u2014I thought I was trying to get out of the future and into the present. When the cancer crisis pushed me out … Continue reading