How soon is now

At a recent drinking session I got talking to a young woman and she excitedly told me of all the music she was streaming. I was enthralled as it was like a selection from my past. You tube and other media had enabled her, and presumably many of her generation to flick through our musical history. From the kinks, black sabbath, Slade, the Beatles, sex pistols, the jam, the specials, scientist, king tubby, Lee scratch Perry, big black, the pixies, the fall, half man half biscuit, the libertines onwards. She could have been flicking through my album collection before I lost it all in a hostile relationship termination. AI also has the power to collect all the falling leaves of our past and where once the leaves that collected in gutters became our recorded history while the rest blew away, now AI has it all and the power to arrange a multitude of histories. A plethora of contrasting truth trails made from algorithmic selection of connections that made logical sense. But what she had very little of was a now and much less a future. She had the odd contemporary band or artist yet seemed to value them less than the music my generation enjoyed. As a teenager we had a number of weekly papers that focused solely on new music and searched to be first to recognise the next new thing. Sounds, NME, record mirror, melody maker and others employed young journalists who spent their nights at the same gigs we punters did looking out for the next Beatles, the new Pistols often landing on bands that dissolved away once the focal light was on them. From the early 70s glam through pub rock to punk rock to oi, new wave, ska revival, New Romantics and heavy metal fans we youths would find our identities or change and found new tribes. In America they had heavier thick monthlies that covered established acts and lacked the street level fervour for the new we had. How lucky we were to be alive in this maelstrom of creativity. We were always looking for the future and to find the new, to be one step ahead and follow the fresh and obscure. Technology gave us the internet and the smart phone to use it. AI too has the entire past to utilise. But maybe it has caused a blockage in the road. A jack knifed lorry on our M1 causing a vast tailback. Culture is stuck and building into a boil. We are caught in the now looking back. But soon, as is natures way, the boil will burst and once again the young will be free to charge forward in excitement, looking for a new and better world.

Sent from my iPhone