(note: I'm not sure if 90s music has a distinctive sound, in the way the 80s absolutely do. But 90s music videos have a distinctive look. Poor Paul Westerberg.)
Chuck Klosterman has a piece up on Grantland, about music and nostalgia. It's a little frustrating because I think the general point about nostalgia is correct, but the general point about music is wrong.
The argument about nostalgia has three parts. Nostalgia is "an uncritical form of artistic appreciation," it facilitates "self-serving insecurity," and it's "lazy, lifeless, and detrimental to creativity." Nostalgia--as opposed to the contemporary enjoyment of something experienced earlier in life--really is an uncritical form of artistic appreciation. I still like R.E.M., but I like them in a different way (and for different reasons) than I did when I was young, and my judgment of the comparative quality of their work (judged against other of their work and that of other bands) has evolved. I can remember and appreciate my original moment of exposure without, thereby, reducing them to that moment.
The point about self-serving insecurity depends a lot on the cultural item and person in question. It's undoubtedly true in some cases that cultural artifacts are meant to stand in for personal qualities, and the nostalgic appreciation of those things is a psychological stand-in for once having been the sort of person who might like that thing. It's a valid point but hardly unique to nostalgia--culture is often used as a stand-in for desired qualities. A few weeks ago, when it was cold for the first time, I had a fire in my fireplace and invited some friends over to listen to jazz records. The idea hit some cultural buttons, but as my friends discovered, if you're listening to jazz to feel sophisticated, you're going to get bored rather quickly. The only reason to listen to it is if you like it (and, really: no judgment if you don't). And the point about nostalgia being 'detrimental to creativity' is similarly person- and artifact- relative. But Klosterman acknowledges all this.
He then goes on to suggest that some music nostalgia is actually about what happened when you were young and had time to listen to songs and albums over and over again. What you're nostalgic for, in other words, is something that you know impossibly well. Again, perhaps. It's in the next section he goes off the rails:
In the year 2011, I don't know why anyone would listen to any song every day for a year. Even if it was your favorite song, it would be difficult to justify. It would be like going to the New York Public Library every morning and only reading Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Music is now essentially free, so no one who loves music is limited by an inability to afford cassettes. Radio is less important than it used to be (which means songs can't be regularly inflicted on audiences), MTV only shows videos when no one is watching, and Spotify is a game-changer.
The idea being that the complete availability of all the old stuff you liked and a constant stream of new stuff obviates the limitation which, in part, drove the need to listen to the same album over and over again. The argument starts out as being one about how people listen, becomes one about technology, and then loops back into an argument about how people listen.
Well, I doubt it. People listen to songs over and over again for the reason he specifies: because at a particular point in time, some combination of lyrics and music will take on a larger meaning for one's life. And, importantly, all songs are not equally substitutable. In some instances, there is no equivalent to the song being liked. There are break-up songs and there's "Detroit Has a Skyline;" there are cautiously optimistic songs and there's "Dyslexic Heart." The presence of those other songs means little if each happens to be the right one for the particular moment.
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