Writing On Music: 'The Future's Rosy!' - Wilko Johnson Award Entry 2018
‘Music nowadays all sounds the same’. Here’s a favourite phrase of a multitude of today’s music consumers. And whilst it’s not completely correct, it’s true that mainstream contemporary music isn’t up to the wonderfully inventive standards of the past. Gone are days of ‘Milk and Alcohol’ (health and safety?) and ‘Here Comes The Sun’ (apparently George Harrison predicted global warming...), of ‘Peaches’ (too risqué for our innocent youth!) and ‘There She Goes’ (did The La’s just assume that person’s gender?). But there’s been darker times before. When Stock, Aitken and Waterman ruled the airwaves, it probably seemed impossible that bands like Nirvana would soon take over from stars like Kylie and Jason. In the mid 1970s progressive rock was in situ. Fantastical lyrics, album-length songs, and musicians posing as wizards and foxes in dresses alienated some listeners- until punk came and stripped everything back, that is. Look back to the late 1950s when rock’n’roll was emerging- appealing to teenagers in desperate need of their ‘own’ music. So does this mean there will soon be another movement like grunge, or punk, or rock’n’roll? Perhaps. As in the ‘50s, ‘70s and late ‘80s respectively, much of today’s music sounds similar, many contemporary ‘artists’ seem unreachable and egotistical, and a lot of pop music is overproduced and underwhelming. Despite these similarities, however, recent technological developments have been such that one can’t deny their irreversible influence on the industry- in multiple ways. But although there’s things like social media, smartphones, and streaming platforms- all guilty parties in the murder of the music industry as it once was- why can’t new technologies be advantageous too? There’s thousands of propitious music-related possibilities that have yet to be fully explored. New interactive soundscapes pioneered by figures like Brian Eno are essentially new musical platforms; groups who no longer play live can now ‘tour’ as holograms; someone can relive gigs they’ve attended using a ‘Virtual Reality’ headset. And this is only the beginning of music’s undoubtedly rosy future. Technology isn’t the enemy- it can open more doors for us than we ever imagined. After all, the possibilities are endless...
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This piece was originally written as a competition submission for the Wilko Johnson Writing Award in November 2018. The title we were given was 'Writing On Music- The Future's Rosy!'. The piece won third place overall in the competition which is run in conjunction with Louder Than Words literary festival.
For more information please visit: https://louderthanwordsfest.com/wilko-award
