Why I Don't Want to Review Art (Right Now)
I don’t want to review art. I’m not sure how long I’ll feel this way, but I know why I feel this way. Given that art cannot be removed from culture, even if taken outside of its context, it only makes sense that our art is currently as fractured and confusing as our culture.
The world seems a bit adrift right now. Depending upon your news sources and priorities, you may believe that there are a lot major events going on in the world at the moment or you may believe that absolutely nothing is happening. What I think we all know is that nobody knows what to make of what the world is. Maybe I only speak for myself here, but I’m finding that I’m increasingly skeptical of anybody or anything that claims to give the whole, irrefutable answer to all of the tangled mess we’re living in.
To be perfectly clear, I don’t think that this is necessarily a bad time for art or society. I just don’t know what to make of it. We’re clearly in a rut and I’m sure that this will be a transitional period, but it’s anybody’s guess as to where we’ll go from here.
In 2016, it seemed the world was on the brink of a major change. A few days after the year started, several countries announced that they would be severing all diplomatic relations with Iran. Later that June the United Kingdom of Great Britain voted in referendum to leave the European Union. Donald Trump was elected President of the United States in November. Radical Islamic terrorism was increasing. As conflict in Syria escalated, the refugee crisis became a major point of discussion, and immigration in general was a highly contentious topic. North Korea conducted nuclear tests throughout the year and made threats towards other nations. Both U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and radical Cuban political leader Fidel Castro died. The globe seemed to prep for a shift.
Artistically, 2016 seemed to tease a transitional time for music too. Many musicians arrived with new albums, often bold, bombastic ones. Musicians were pushing the field forward. Important music was abundant. Some 2016 albums include Anderson .Paak’s Malibu, Rihanna's Anti, Kanye’s The Life of Pablo, The 1975’s I Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful yet So Unaware of It, Beyonce’s Lemonade, Drake’s Views, Chance the Rapper’s Coloring Book, Frank Ocean’s Endless and Blonde, Young Thug’s Jeffery, Solange’s A Seat at the Table, Lady Gaga’s Joanne, and The Weeknd’s Starboy. These well-known albums were also often stark contrasts to the artists’ previous work as well. Artists took risks and they paid off. On June 10th, singer Christina Grimmie was shot and killed while signing autographs for fans after her concert. Two days later, an attack on the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Florida devastated the LGBT and Latino communities and constituted the deadliest shooting in the U.S. by a single shooter. With both of these events, people felt as though their safe spaces were now targets. David Bowie, Prince, Leonard Cohen, and George Michael, four revolutionary musicians and icons, died. To paraphrase Bob Dylan, who was the subject of much debate after in 2016 becoming the first person to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for his song lyrics, the year made us all aware that “The times they are a-changin’”
If in 2016 we all teed up for a new world, then 2017 can only be described as the first look at what that new world is like. Donald Trump was inaugurated, the U.K. began planning how to leave the European Union, and Catalonia declared itself a nation independent from Spain. The U.N. declared that the world is facing the largest humanitarian crisis since World War II because of living conditions in Somalia, Nigeria, Yemen, and South Sudan. In August 2017, the term “White Nationalist” was burned into the public consciousness after the marches in Charlottesville, Virginia. In May, a suicide bomber killed many at Ariana Grande’s concert in Manchester. Most of the victims were young children and their parents, and hundreds of survivors, including Ariana and her team, were left with significant psychological trauma from the event. The Las Vegas shooting in October surpassed the Pulse shooting as the deadliest single-shooter attack in U.S. history. Concerts weren’t safe anymore.
So in all of this fear as a new world began to take form, music retreated into safety. While there were a number of good albums that came out in 2017, there were fewer than in 2016. Barely any albums took risks or pushed the format. Many artists turned a blind eye to current events or didn’t even know what was going on. Other artists chose to tackle current events head-on. A prime example of bad 2017 music is “Chained to the Rhythm” by Katy Perry, a bland “protest song” that Perry seemed to earnestly believe was radical even though the song was a collection of blanket statements that managed to say absolutely nothing of significance. On the positive end of the spectrum, Lana Del Rey released “Coachella - Woodstock on my Mind”, which was both incredibly personal and explicitly grounded in specific, real-world events. It translated well and felt like an honest reflection of her feelings and product of the times.
In 2018, society and music are stagnant. It seems evident to most Americans that Trump hasn’t “drained the swamp” and won’t be building a wall anytime soon. Brexit hasn’t happened. Conflict in Syria, immigration debate (mostly in regard to the refugee crisis), North Korean threats, and radical Islamic terrorism have all declined but aren’t gone either. Nobody knows what to make of the quiet and we’ve all grown weary from the constant panic we’ve been fed in the last 2 years. We’re tired of running from disaster to disaster at a breakneck pace. If you’re not sure about what I mean, listen to The 1975’s “Love it if We Made It”, a collage of current events all stacked up on each other and recalled without much tone. The song has drawn comparisons to “We Didn’t Start the Fire” by Billy Joel because both songs feature the aforementioned lyrical style. Healy’s lyrics move so rapidly that the song feels like the slide deck children’s toys in that the images fly past you without the time to contextualize them. But his lack of tone reflects the general cultural trend that in this hysteric new climate, somewhere along the line we gave up and realized it’s not sustainable or productive to move so quickly without giving time to process.
Not much music has been put out in 2018, much of it isn’t of note, and again, it’s been safe choices that provide no challenges. So what looked like the start of a musical renaissance in 2016 has completely lost momentum, as has society.
Culture moves cyclically, so life and art will certainly become more active again, for better or for worse. Something new will come.