What is the mark of a great musician? Divya Gunasekaran explores if a true artist can adapt to a constantly evolving music scene and still create those classics that resonate beyond their era.
The times, they are a-changing. True words, Bob Dylan, true words. It comes as no surprise then that as times change, so too the music we consume. Throughout musical history, genres have been born, risen great heights to become the defining sound of a generation and then withdrawn from sight after being either completely rejected or gradually replaced. As for the artists working within these genres, they have lived on through their music, burned out, faded away or abandoned their forsaken style to take root in one more current.
There are artists whose music survives beyond the first generation of listeners, continually finding new fans in subsequent time periods. Though these artists may continue to develop their music and mature their sound (or did so while they were still making music), their progress as artists is unaffected by fleeting fads or transitory trends.
The Rolling Stones, for example, have been attracting new fans since the 1960s. Their audiences today are a generational sampling from the 60-year-olds whose Rolling Stone vinyls are wedged between The Who and Pink Floyd, to the 16-year-olds whose favorite singles can be found alongside Kanye West on their iPods. The band doesn't need to start producing pop or indie rock, and its members don't need to don skinny jeans (but could their pants get any tighter in the first place?) in order to get radio play or sell out shows on their millionth tour. Mick Jagger has that same characteristic pout and still struts to songs that came out 10, 20, 30 and 40 years ago, and those songs have as much potential to become the anthems for upcoming generations as for the one that saw the birth of the band that created them.
A time-transcending artist is impressive, sure, but there is also something to be said for the chameleon -- the artist whose music keeps pace with rapidly changing pop culture. In order for an artist to continually reinvent herself as genres fade in and out of the scene, she needs to be aware of the musical environment and attuned to the personality and predilections of each new wave of listeners. However, this adaptation often appears to have superficial motives. Such artists focus more on the fame (or dollah bills) than the music. These musicians (but honestly, how many in this group play their own instruments?) revamp their look and sound only in order to conform with the latest hot product and evoke ear-shattering screams of joy from hysterical preteens on MTV. This phenomenon is also known as "selling out."
Madonna is a prime example of an artist who successfully refused to slip into archaism, in both career and looks. But after so many years in the limelight with increasingly unoriginal songs, it seems she was just trying to stay there long enough to turn Kabbalah into a fad and earn the necessary funds to buy an African baby. That's not to say that Madonna is a meaningless artist and her work should be discounted. She's had memorable songs (I'm sure there are people who still consider doing " the Vogue" a legit dance move), and her videos were the original daring and controversial omens of the End of Western Civilization As We Know It. This was all before burning crosses and having sex with a black Jesus statue come-to-life became commonplace. Recent years have seen the once norm-defying Madonna following the trends rather than setting them herself.
Though there are artists who adjust their music to stay current for shallow reasons, there are also artists who use adaptation to mature their music. These artists look to the current state of music, see what their peers in the industry are doing, and cherry-pick influences and inspiration. More often than not, though, this kind of adaptation becomes mere imitation, a simple copy and paste formula that requires little to no creativity and often doesn't fit anyway. Personally, I find the ability to create tracks that can still affect the listener decades later a far more impressive feat than the ability to follow someone else's lead. Keeping up with change is certainly no easy accomplishment, but being the change in the first place is undeniably a more crucial achievement for music, an achievement that more often than not allows the artist into that pantheon of greats.
Divya is a staff writer for The Mirror. N*SYNC still speaks to her soul.
