The Importance of Music in a Declining Economy
“Every generation thinks it’s the end of the world,” sneers Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy on this year’s ‘You Never Know.’ Popular music has reflected this fear, in all its incarnations, since its inception. From blues to classical, jazz to all types of rock and roll, The Beatles’ “Revolution” to Nirvana’s “All Apologies,” fears of all shapes and sizes have driven songwriters for decades. Can these socially pervasive fears of tyranny, lost love, depression and death, as expressed by artists, be alleviated through their music?
In today’s particularly uncertain times, music continues to serve an important role in easing society’s collective conscious. The form of this relief is not found in revolution, boycotts or dust bowls. Instead it is woven directly into the cathartic relief of fear through nostalgia, nurtured in all our hearts. For the past few years, nostalgia has been lulling listeners back to better times. Just last year, Kid Rock released a song, “All Summer Long,” that was both musically nostalgic (he sampled the entirety of the Lynyrd Skynyrd classic “Sweet Home Alabama”), as well as lyrically (“We didn’t have no internet;” “It was 1989, my thoughts were short my hair was long”). Good to see twenty years hasn’t changed him one bit.
Even the bands of the 1980s are experiencing resurgence, as Mötley Crüe prepares for yet another reissue of Dr. Feelgood and their Cruefest tour. Brett Michaels has had a successful three season run of his show, Rock of Love, on VH1. In fact, VH1 and MTV are overrun with nostalgic music programming to the point of fault. VH1 is bringing “Behind the Music” back, and MTV is currently filming its twenty-third season of Real World. This year alone there is one “Guitar Hero” video game being released featuring Nirvana and many other pre-21st Century bands (with Kurt Cobain as the singer – wouldn’t he be so proud?), and a new version of “Rock Band” featuring nearly fifty of The Beatle’s greatest hits. Even rock and roll itself, as popular as ever, is rooted deeply in the nostalgic traditions of jazz, blues, and folk music. This is all to say that, while music is still moving forward and evolving with every new release, it’s clear that artists and listeners alike are yearning for days gone by.
We live in a world rife with increasing poverty, disease and war. Given the economic recession and its continuing decline, even amidst the recent glimmers of hope, it’s no surprise that artists and their audience are nostalgic. The world before 2008, or rather before 2001, was a much more innocent place to live. And music can take us there, time and again. It may be an easy escape, but sometimes that’s just what we need. It’s what has always made music so powerful and important: the ability to transport the listener through the use of sound to a different place, a different time.
