The Let it Burn Blog

vicemag:

As anybody with an internet connection can’t fail to have noticed, Dre and Snoop resurrected Tupac on stage at Coachella on Sunday night. Luckily they didn’t have to resort to a series of elaborate pulleys or some kind of Illuminati black magick, they took the Red Dwarf route rather than the Aleister Crowley route and used a hologram. Thank god they also had the kind of budget that meant it wasn’t just a poster from Camden Market of Pac and a weed leaf that moves when you walk past it, so it actually looked fucking great (and presumably really, really creepy to all the people at Coachella who were tripping balls).

So I think we can all agree that it was good, so good, in fact, that it was possibly the best thing that’s ever happened in the history of the world. But like all the best things in life, although the short term pay-off was a moment of perfect bliss, the long-term ramifications could, in time, come to tarnish it. So here’s a list of ten things the music industry SHOULDN’T do now that it has hologram technology at its fingertips.

#1. The Music Industry Shouldn’t Go into Retromania Overdrive

In his latest book, music theorist Simon Reynolds states that our culture is wedged fast in a state of “Retromania”, and is “in love with its own past.” Reynolds argues that this is detrimental to new music (though anyone who’s listened to Ed Sheeran, Reynolds’ favorite pop act of the last decade, would argue that new music ain’t up to all that much anyway). Basically, we’re stuck in purgatory between “Lionel Sings Country” and Chase & Status, and now that there is no section of pop’s past rendered inaccessible by death, there’s a chance there’ll be even less space for new music to exist in.

It’s not hard to see how that might affect live music. Think it sucks having every festival you go to swamped by fat dads who are only turning out to see whether or not J Mascis can still shred? Wait till grandad’s fingering grandma in the cheap seats at Brixton Academy as the holographic Don McLean Weezer hired to open up for them recreates the memory of their first kiss (and a dog jumps through a hoop on fire or whatever else it is that happens at a Weezer gig).

#2. The Music Industry Shouldn’t Get Rid of “Artists” Forever

There’d be so much fucking money in music if it wasn’t for those pesky “artists” with their “royalties” and “creative control” letting the side down. But now they have holograms, the big cheeses might decide they don’t need to deal with the pretensions and unreliability of real people any more. Instead, they could package off a recorded show from 1974 and tour it all over the world. Sure, people might pay less, but there’d be no overheads and no performance fees. The live music junket would be reduced to a handful of traveling salesmen traversing the globe with a projector and some CD-Rs in a box. No more rock and roll excess. No more sky-high carbon footprint! Oh no wait, that sounds fucking terrible, so please refrain, music industry.

#3. The Music Industry Shouldn’t Let Axl Rose Die

If you are one of those people who’s stupid enough to think that Axl will rouse himself from whatever Viper Room coke vortex he’s in to get on a plane and headline a metal festival in Rotterdam, you’ve probably been let down a few times. But if the music industry abuses this new technology, Axl might not even have to pretend that he’s thinking about showing up any more. But while you’re tucked up in bed with all your favorite songs from The Spaghetti Hologram? still ringing in your ears, spare a thought for poor Axl—the man uses the illusion that he remains a functioning performer to keep the most precarious of grips upon reality. If the music industry takes that away from him, he surely would not last long.

#4. The Music Industry Should Not Preserve All Artists at Their Peak

Pac? Yes, he deserves it. Ditto, say, The Clash in the Summer of ‘79. The Teardrop Explodes doing “Reward” on Top of the Pops. Tin Machine. With hologram technology, you can have all your favorite performers at the peak of their powers forever, but is that really what you want from life? Remember, death is a natural process. It’s important for artists to die, otherwise you’re putting pressure on every living band to be perfect for thirty years and everyone knows there will only ever be one Red Hot Chilli Peppers.

CONTINUE

I’m a big fan of do’s and dont’s and these are very good ones.

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Reblogged from vicemag