Minutia: The Death and Coming Afterlife of Music Culture

Cameron Stewart


Courtesy of Our Breathing Planet.

“For thus you speak: ‰Real we are entirely, without belief or superstition.‰’ Thus you stick out your chests, but alas ‰ÛÒ they are hollow!‰” -Nietzsche

Musical culture has been long dead, but only recently has the stench of its rotting corpse caught our noses. Fans fetishize music‰’s ability to resist the constraints of economic relations, express utopian alternatives, and bravely spit in the face of power. But capitalism was never designed with borders in mind. Each space created by resistant art inevitably makes itself visible and is soon territorialized.

Paul Ryan loves Rage Against the Machine, my mom loves Aretha Franklin, American idiots love American Idiot. Now, we‰’re more than happy to call the music featured at multimillion dollar, corporate sponsored festivals “independent.‰” Every trust fund baby in Williamsburg stakes out their individuality with the same tattoo sleeve and neon dyed haircut as the person next to them. Every drunk college kid with an iPhone and a speaker is a DJ.

Values can now be purchased, products are synonymous with identity. Music‰’s real function today is not one of art, but of fashion. By conflating the two, we‰’ve killed our ability to appreciate it as art. Instead of enjoying it for its own sake, music is just another image by which we construct identities and manage social relationships. Every day, we‰’re supposedly screaming and crying forever over upcoming albums and collaborations and tours, the vast majority of which we‰’ve forgotten by the time they arrive. Every day, we‰’re expounding upon the virtues of diversity while footnoting everything “same.‰” What‰’s important is reminding the digital world that we are still loyal to the pack. What‰’s important is wearing the same images upon which our relationships are structured.

One can skip church and still be a Christian if they eat at Chick-Fil-A. One can be a passive activist online. One can skip the article and still be informed by reading the headline. The real crime in this culture is not to express a dominant or divergent opinion, but to remind one that excessive consumption does not bestow one with immaculate perception. Imagine that you‰’re hearing about FKA twigs or Pile for the umpteenth time. You‰’re free to join in the praise or disagree, but you‰’re never allowed to speak your mind: “I don‰’t fucking care what you think.‰Û

Most of us already lack the vocabulary or imagination or work ethic to actively explore and express the beauty that we find in the arts that we proclaim to love. Love here often ceases to refer to the art itself and instead to the parasitic connection we establish with the artist‰’s identity. Consider: do you spend more time listening Kanye‰’s work or tweeting about how he‰’s a deity? Given the withering of true appreciation, the instantaneous connection and disconnection to images, long form written explorations of art die. They are replaced with the dominant form of appreciation: shallow advertising. Tweets are stretched into think pieces, purchases are stretched into enculturation, and previously ingrained narratives are regurgitated. These efforts cease to function when removed from their native environments: two hundred people read my every tweet, but this article must be outstanding (or more likely click bait) to reach that many eyes.

In a few years, we‰’ll enter the afterlife of music culture. Internet traffic in general will disseminate to smaller sites which better provide psychological importance. We‰’ll see a move away from the cities of Pitchfork and Rolling Stone and into the neighborhoods of record labels and fan communities. This motion will be hailed as another usurpation of yesterday‰’s hierarchies, but even endlessly reproducible digital images and artifacts will assume a sort of exclusivity.

The in-group culture and jokes and knowledge will be hailed as crucially important to members. Scripts and roles will be so exceedingly niche that only the devoted would give a shit about learning them all. Each member will readily assume a greater responsibility in upholding the community, which is necessarily intertwined with their own hierarchical position. Relationships performed in physical reality will become less and less rare. Mere interaction with another person will necessitate that first contact be made digitally. Previously artificial personalities will find themselves strengthened and the narcissism produced in believing these personalities to be real will grow.

If this article struck any nerves, don‰’t fret because you won‰’t remember any of it a week from now anyways.