A Loss for Music & Culture
It’s only April and already this year we have lost 2 musical giants who worked so hard to show us that being ourselves is all that we need. Both Bowie and Prince were household names to me growing up and I did have a few songs from both of them on my phone, but sadly it wasn’t until after their deaths that I realized the impact that they both had on art, culture, and society. I have a nostalgic heart so these deaths came as a shock to me, but didn’t hold much effect until I read the tributes and the articles in the days after and found that true geniuses had been lost, not just rock stars. I look around and see the musical “artists” of my generation and they just don’t have the same artistry and willingness to break boundaries for no more reason than to just do it. I understand that music played on the radio isn’t supposed to have art and substance because it’s “pop”ular music, but why can’t popular music have substance? I risk sounding like an old woman out of touch with the times, but I greatly fear that future generations will have lost the lessons that great artists like Prince and Bowie taught us, simply because they were born too late. Of course with the internet, they will have access to older artists at a time like no other in human history, but will they use it? I feel that if I try to hold on to these things for my children, they’ll disregard it because as a parent, how could anything I like be cool? I hope children in the future will be different. I hope the era of the internet will serve them well and give them access to great culture, that they can choose their own lessons to take with them through life and then pass to their children. Some cynics may say that children will never change, but I don’t think we’ve given them a chance. It’s never a happy occasion when someone dies, especially a beloved public figure, but one good thing that does come out of it: a whole new generation learns of their greatness.
[This post was originally published on my blog http://emmaelizabethblog.weebly.com ]
