Of all the questionable notions emphatically exhorted by consumerist culture in America, there may be none more pervasive than the reputed significance of newness as it pertains to anything that can be leveraged to turn a profit.
From clothes to smartphones, if one doesn’t own the latest and greatest iteration of a given product, corporations will do all they can to foster insecurity in past or potential customers to convert them into brand loyalists. And as the music industry becomes more about the industry and less about the music, it has become clear that even the arts are no safe haven from the ubiquitous, commandeering hand of modern-day capitalism.
Consider your own listening rotation. Statistically speaking, the odds of much of this music being at least relatively new are fairly high. Perhaps you prefer the older stuff. Just as corporations have begun placing a heavy emphasis on newness equating to value, so too have they picked up on the marketability of nostalgia. As such, label and streaming executives have been able to separate the art – at least a small, hyper-profitable segment of it – from the artist, as it were.
Consider the classic rock band, Deep Purple, for instance. Most casual listeners, when asked, would call themselves fans of the band. Follow-up questions concerning their favorite material would generally evoke responses of “Smoke on the Water” – a hit remembered for its ubiquitous guitar riff – or “Highway Star” – which saw a resurgence in popularity upon its inclusion in the 2007 video game, Rock Band – and little else. At best, you may hear listeners cite 1972’s Machine Head – the band’s most well-known album and the parent album to the two aforementioned hits – as a response. This, despite the 16 albums which have been released by the band in the years since, one as recent as November, 2021.
Those who stand to profit from the music understand this, and are well aware that they are more likely to turn a higher profit from promotion of a fourth, fifth, and sixth re-release of a highly popular album from the past than from an album of material that the listening public is not familiar with. This speaks to the natural human predisposition for the familiar. Marketing departments have grown privy to consumers’ desire for the comfort of what they know, as well as their inherent desire to stay contemporary. As such, businesses have no problem making a minor tweak or two, then effectively selling you what you have already bought.
Functionally speaking, to the casual user, how different is the iPhone X from the iPhone 12 Pro Max? The iPhone 13 mini? The iPhone XR? Since the release of the very first iPhone in 2007, there have been 33 variations on the device which have been released to the public to commercial success. Could one truly argue the necessity of such an absurd figure? The fact is that consumers are willing to pay for what they already own, because what they are paying for isn’t functionality, but social currency.
This is all well and good to those who make it a point to purchase each iteration of the iPhone as it is released, despite what must be an obvious awareness of having spent enough on painfully similar gadgets to finance a Dodge Ram. The fact is that iPhones don’t have feelings. They don’t have hopes, dreams, families, or intuition. They were constructed as a means to an end, and that is a function which they effectively serve.
The issue arises when human beings themselves begin getting chewed up and spit out by this same marketing machine. The idea of a Greatest Hits record from 1977 carrying a higher market viability than a new album from a legacy act essentially turns the idea of newness equating to value in on itself. So what gives? In short, it isn’t the newness of the music in this case which holds the value, but the newness of the people making the music.
Aside from attention itself, youth is perhaps the most valuable commodity in American culture. Many companies sustain themselves through the idea that people need to look and feel younger in order to maintain their value. Because of this, when listeners are curating the soundtracks to their own lives, they are more likely to turn to people whom they wish to emulate. In many cases, this leads them to art marketed under the banner of the young, rich, and successful.
Even in terms of older music, people generally want the person singing to fit this mold, which generally falls between the age span of 18-35, roughly speaking. Despite the feigning of excitement from casual fans upon the release of new music, most would simply rather hear Def Leppard play “Pour Some Sugar on Me” for the umpteenth time than engage in new material that could very well have been inspired by the band members’ grandkids. Billy Joel stopped releasing new music altogether for this reason. When artists reach a certain age, it seems many listeners lose interest in the creative process and begin to equate them with their greatest commercial successes and little else.
Consider yourself for a moment. Would you say that you had the most to offer professionally, personally, spiritually at that time? Would you be comfortable with a 27 year-old you serving as the default representation of you for the rest of your life? In truth, artists who don’t grow disillusioned and remain dedicated to their craft generally have more to offer musically in middle age and beyond, if for no other reason than the much broader inventory of experiences and perspectives they now have at their disposal, creatively speaking.
This is where many artists experience hit-frustration late in their careers, finding themselves at odds with an expectant audience to whom the “big” songs mean a great deal, while the artists themselves feel devalued and creatively constrained. There are some acts who manage to avoid this fate. Rapper Eminem is one such artist, as he continues to be enormously successful commercially with younger artists nearly a quarter-century into his career. Louis Armstrong is another example, having arguably reached peak commercial popularity in the 1960s just prior to his passing in 1971, after redefining American music a number of times in the preceding decades.
But acts such as these are the exception, not the norm. Acclaimed songwriters like Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, and David Crosby – all roughly 80 years old – remain musically active, all having recently released what is debatably some of the greatest material of their respective careers. Despite this, it is unlikely they will ever escape their respective shadows of 60s protest songs, The Beatles, and Crosby, Stills & Nash, in this lifetime.
There is a certain value in the new. Change is essential for progress, and progress is essential for growth. However, there is little viability in foregoing the remaining value – often the bulk of it – in what we already have, in favor of getting our hands on the next thing. To paraphrase John Mayer, if you chase cool, you will never catch it. Because by the time you get to it, it will have already moved to someplace else. If there is any single message to be assimilated here, let it be that one must be aware of when, how, and why they are being influenced. Your intuition will almost invariably be a more reliable guide than any shareholder-driven entity.