As I approach the day when my first child will enter this world, and I think about it more and more, something major concerns me. OK, maybe you wouldn't think it's a major thing, but I do.
I'm scared that my child (and other children of mine that may follow) will never experience mystery when it comes to music.
Growing up as I did in the pre-Internet days, the amount of information available to me about music artists (among other things) was limited. I could experience music firsthand by listening to the radio and the albums my family & friends possessed (or gave me). If I wanted to dig deeper into a certain band or artist, I could thumb through magazines or read the occasional newspaper article. Later on, when my parents broke down and got cable I could watch MTV and get more information through videos and interviews. Once I could drive, I could go see a band perform a show. At each show, I might find other bands I liked as well, depending on whom the band I liked was touring with. Otherwise I could find new bands to listen to by picking up an album with interesting artwork on it, or one I read an intriguing review of.
And then the Internet came along and ruined everything.
It didn't happen overnight, of course. But as the Internet grew I could talk to people all over the world about the bands I liked. I could search a variety of websites for news and interviews. Then as artists began fully embracing the web & using it to promote themselves and give fans more access to them, the mystery began to fade out. Now it's almost non-existent.
Don't get me wrong, I see the upside of it too. Now we can all listen to bands we previously would never have heard of, thanks to sites like Pandora and Amazon, through recommendations based on similar tastes. If you're stuck in a nowhere town with crappy radio stations and an absence of live music venues, and you're unable or unwilling to move to a major city, the Internet can provide you with all the music you'll ever need. It can approximate the experience of being at a concert (though it's never anywhere nearly as enjoyable). It can let you bond with others who share your tastes when you're surrounded by people who find your personal tastes to be weird compared to their own. And of course, we all have the option to turn off our access at any time. But many of us don't turn off our access; in fact, it seems we gravitate to the Internet when we have nothing else to do. That's one reason it's so popular to have WiFi connections for cellphones and laptops. Carry your escape route with you at all times.
So now you can find out what your favorite artist had for every meal of the day, whom they're sleeping with, their interests beyond the music they create, and so many other unnecessary details it's difficult to keep track of them. It's led most artists to a point where their fans see them as no different from themselves. The star quality is fading. The mystique that bands like The Doors, Alice Cooper, and Tool once used to lure fans in is rarely present among today's artists. The few bands who seem able to employ an otherworldly air today also remain obscure (Sleepytime Gorilla Museum comes to mind) instead of growing a following of music lovers simply because they're "different." Being inaccessible is now a liability instead of an asset.
And my children are about to enter this world where every musician is just another dude or grrl. They'll see what artists actually look like and know their life stories and idiosyncrasies before they've even had a chance to listen to the music beyond the track they downloaded for free or heard on Pandora. Even if I make a conscious effort to instill an attitude of exploring the music first and avoiding the truth behind it, that doesn't guarantee I'll be successful. We can only point others in the right direction; we cannot force them to walk that way. Hopefully though, if my children are passionate about music I can convince them they don't need to find out whatever they can about every artist. And there's a slight possibility they won't care anyway and I won't need to encourage them one way or the other.
Of course my children will be surrounded with the music I've acquired over my lifetime. When they reach certain ages, I know that I'll hand them the albums that I fell in love with around the same age. Certain albums simply define adolescence and transcend temporal boundaries, and hopefully they'll appreciate them (that too, of course, cannot be forced). And my kiddos will have the advantage of having parents with diverse musical tastes, which I think their peers will encounter more often as well. One of the things that's great about the Internet explosion is that we all have access to every genre, sub-genre, and category you can or can't think of. Hopefully if that goes on long enough all music will melt together into a genre-free existence. We'll simply agree that it's music, and either we like it or we don't. There'll be nothing more to discuss.
Especially after the Internet's been exhausted providing you every detail about the musicians.
