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Nightly Ramble… New V. Old Music

As this is written I am headed for the Albany New York area to eventually run to the house for the weekend. I’m showing 6 degrees on my information center here in the truck. Personally I’m ready to fast forward to complaining about how hot it is outside.

It’s been a pretty good week, and my truck has been behaving itself.

I think it was Andrew Fletcher who famously said [1],…

“Let me make the songs of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws.”

I have often said that no law can encapsulate or if you will capture in amber, a culture. The thinking …the philosophy …the motivations of a people. What informs their daily lives.

What does a better job of reflecting those things is the music attached to people, a culture, a nation. Clearly, the Fletcher quote that I have provided affirms this. The music, thought Fletcher, was more important, closer to the heart of a people.

Now, couple that with the idea that for the first time in recorded history (and you should pardon the pun..) older music is outselling [2] what’s being produced today.

image [3]

Part of the answer in that happening of course, is sheer numbers. There is by far more music recorded now than there ever has been, and certainly when stacked up against the volume of what’s coming out today it overwhelms the more recent product.

Now, we can have discussions, and I’ve gotten involved in several, suggesting that the quality of music has gone downhill. The musicianship. The sheer artistry angle. And that’s certainly true…. What is produced today really stinks by comparison for the most part.

But I suspect that there is a deeper meaning here, a deeper implication. The contents of each, the newer music versus the older conveys a different attitude. A different way of thinking. A different philosophy. As the Fletcher quote suggests, when you listen to a song, there is a cultural philosophy being transmitted. Subtly of course, and less than direct.

Which leads us to this… is part of the reason that older music is outselling the more recently produced product, because of a rejection of the philosophy being transmitted by the newer material?
If so, what are the implications for us as a people?