Weird but true: I have a bad habit of prematurely grieving the loss of my favorite “old” artists while they’re still alive.
I often find myself imagining the inevitable day when I check my phone and see the news about Stevie Nicks, insert other legendary musician here (sorry, silly old superstitious me won’t list any other names so as not to tempt fate).
I think part of the reason I do this is so I remember to wholly feel the impact of their contributions to music and pop culture and the very heart of who I am. While there’s still the chance to see them perform the songs that criss-cross the years and eras of my life, that I have formed canyons-deep emotional connections with, that have healed and shaped and guided me. While these cherished artists are still with us as a living reminder.
Another reason, more twisted and morose, is because I foolishly think that “practicing” for their deaths now will decrease the severity of the sorrow I’ll feel when they do pass away. Which never works but hey, maybe at least it won’t come as a huge shock like it has with some musicians in recent years. Like it did when Christine McVie, beloved singer, songwriter, keyboardist, and arguably the heart/soul/glue of Fleetwood Mac, died in November.
The classic Mac lineup is immortal in my mind, and I was not prepared for the chain to be broken so soon…it still doesn’t feel real to me. The band, the music scene, this weary world will not be the same without her. Stevie and Lindsey brought the melodrama, the darkness, the real toughness of adult life and love. But most of Christine’s songs, the perfect opposite, plucked my free spirit up out of my body and drifted me away to a soft, sweet place where everything shimmered. Simply put: Christine’s songs for Fleetwood Mac made me believe in magic. I haven’t been able to listen to any of them in the month since she died, and that’s okay. I know I’ll put them on again someday and it will hurt but I will also smile and sing along and relish in every second of her beautiful songbird voice, just like always.
Parasocial relationships can be strange and varying degrees of harmful, but in my opinion the simplest, most natural one is that between musician and listener. Why do I care so fanatically about the songs, albums, singers, and bands I love? Why do I sometimes experience grief akin to losing a relative when one of my favorite musicians dies? To me, the language of music is the sharing of souls. The musician communicates a slice of their honest lived experience, you receive it and transmute it so it fits into your own. It’s an honest, active exchange that is free from the bounds of traditional time and space. The emotion to be explored and the layers to be peeled back in the artist’s song, album, discography, etc. could go on forever, even after that artist is gone – especially after they’re gone, when the songs take on an added significance. Their art survives them, but it also keeps them living; what a beautiful gift! I am striving to give this framing more emphasis than the crushing loss.
Each of us has a deeply personal connection with the music we love, and mine is always amplified by the privilege of seeing and hearing it performed in concert. Nothing is “normal” anymore but this year marked the return of the live music scene to near normalcy, and I ran headfirst into its familiar offerings of freedom, love, and community. I went to concerts 9 out of 12 months of the year, a new personal record. I got to see many of my lifelong and years-long faves for the first time ever and had an absolute ball at every show!
One memory seared in my brain isn’t exactly a memory but a sensation – the potent intensity thrumming in the air at Florence + the Machine’s show at Madison Square Garden. That crowd was full of superfans like myself and unlike any other I’ve been in. I think the current of emotion came from the thousands of unique histories with the music and what it represents for each of us, gathered in one room. Florence Welch spoke on stage about feeling it, I felt it so strongly I was almost scared, we all felt it…and we surrendered and joyously rode the wave together and kept each other safe and held. It was one of those awe-inspiring things that makes you burst with gratitude to be alive.
I’ve also been reflecting a lot on the people part of the live music experience and how crowds have changed since the pandemic, not necessarily for the better.
Frequent concertgoers know sometimes you have to put up with moments of bad behavior. A horde of people pushing and shoving right when the main act comes on stage, inebriated friend groups shout-talking during the set and partially blocking your view, someone yelling at you to sit down because you dared to dance and have a good time (thinking of you, random lady at the Elton John farewell concert)! We endure these annoyances and try to be spatially aware and polite to the people around us so we can focus on the most important thing: enjoying the music we love and participating in the collective experience. But 2022 has shown that for some attendees, the music is not the central factor.
I recently read an article that touches on the problem brilliantly, written by Refinery 29’s Maggie Zhou, titled “Is TikTok To Blame For The Demise Of Concert Etiquette?”
Many young adults are attending concerts for the first time, but without the learned skills that come from in-person social interactions, and instead with a digital understanding of life and community.
Because of this, Zhou says, “Concerts become content farms and audiences become walking tripods. It’s no longer about FOMO, it’s about the fear of missing the shot. Going to see The 1975 isn’t only about appreciating the musicality of the band, it’s inevitably tied to capturing the theatrics of Matty Healy and his propensity to perform inebriated and make out with fans on stage.”
She’s exactly right. Fortunately or unfortunately, I saw The 1975 early on in their fall tour and Matty was mostly on his best behavior. All he did was bite into a T-bone steak completely raw during the toxic masculinity part of his performance art piece, boooring! But I saw and heard examples of this attitude on social media in the weeks that followed. It turned into a running gag to guess what absurd thing Matty would say into the autotune mic that night or how many people he’d kiss. My For You Page was an endless stream of vapid discourse around whether Matty gave people “the ick” or was hot or disgusting for kissing young girls without their consent, which wasn’t true to begin with (he kissed guys too).
The man is Troll Extraordinaire and master of being cancelled on social media so of course he played into it, which is fine by me. I guess my issue is that the Internet fervor and virality quickly became the main event, instead of the phenomenal experience The 1975 and their team thoughtfully created to highlight the band performing at their very best. The whole thing gives me a very gross now dance, monkey! kind of feeling.
I’m not saying you have to be the biggest fan in the world to go to a concert; you can simply want to be entertained, all the power to you! I don’t really care if you wanna take a bunch of photos and videos of your favorite songs to look back on; I do the same thing, be my guest! I also understand TikTok is having a major moment in the music industry in general right now. While we’ll have to wait and see how the full implications of this play out, some impacts are clearly capitalistic (see Florence Welch joking-but-not-joking about the label requiring her to get on the app to promote her new album), but the app can also be a vehicle for genuine discovery and help newer artists land their big break. I probably wouldn’t have found one of my favorite indie folk musicians, Noah Kahan, if his song “Stick Season” hadn’t gone viral on TikTok earlier this year, so big win there!
My point is, the idea of anyone buying an expensive ticket to see a band they might only know a few songs from or recognize from twenty-second video clips, with the main intent of being there to capture a moment that will do numbers on social media, does not sit right with me at all. I find it deeply alarming and confusing and mostly sad. While technically, yes, you’re paying to be there, live music is meant to be communal, not transactionally facilitated by our smartphones and fed by (and feeding) sensationalism. The inherently meaningful nature of the concert experience is watered down to little more than a joke and replaced with a shallow focus on appearance and clout – it’s reductive and it needs to change before it gets worse. We need to bring back concert etiquette. And maybe also listening to a band’s music for a while and making sure you know it and like it a lot before you spend money to go to their gig.
As Internet meme culture permeates more and more into real life and seemingly gives people license to behave oddly and/or badly, my expectations are not extremely high, but I will have hope anyways. In 2023 I would love to see a return to co-creating a magical live music atmosphere and treating artists with the respect they deserve. In a world with few places left for authentic human connection, we’ve gotta make sure concerts remain one. I am so ready to keep singing, dancing, feeling, and living it up at all the shows to come in the new year!
My Favorite Albums of 2022 (release date order):
- The Weeknd – Dawn FM
- Big Thief – Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You
- Beach House – Once Twice Melody
- Father John Misty – Chloë and the Next 20th Century
- Orville Peck – Bronco
- Ethel Cain – Preacher’s Daughter
- Florence + the Machine – Dance Fever
- Beyoncé – RENAISSANCE
- Demi Lovato – HOLY FVCK
- Marcus Mumford – (self-titled)
- Noah Cyrus – The Hardest Part
- 5 Seconds of Summer – 5SOS5
- Babe Rainbow – The Organic Band
- The 1975 – Being Funny in a Foreign Language
- Noah Kahan – Stick Season
- Carly Rae Jepsen – The Loneliest Time
- Taylor Swift – Midnights
- First Aid Kit – Palomino