HANS EBERT LAUNCHES SOMETHING THAT COULD BE SONGFLIX?
Somewhere along the way, we have been blindsided, and seeing the face of Dr Fauci in the news again is a reminder of when the world masked up, followed leaders without watching those parking meters, and giddily ran into brick walls and are still nursing those injuries no one can see.
What were we thinking? Maybe we weren’t? Panic mixed with more panic and anxiety and daily updates about new vaccines, and suddenly losing the ability to think, I don’t think many survived the crossfire hurricane of fogged up thinking and emotional turmoil.
As I have been saying for years, we never fully recovered from those years when we were stuck in Reverse and are still buried in a post pandemic malaise that has brought about The Age Of Confused Stupidity.
Does swallowing handfuls of algorithms and communicating through emojis on rickety online platforms, where everyone who has nothing to say go to the church of latter day spinners improve lives?
It’s particularly disheartening, though not really surprising seeing those with whom one once broke bread and thought of as friends trying to be who they’re not on that strange place known as “social media”.
Here might lie the truth and the time to give thanks to Joni Mitchell for that beautifully telling line about how we need to get back to the garden.
This is why for over two years, I have been trying to navigate my way through the landscape of Bollocks and constant anger, and realise that, apart from getting back to the garden, it’s about finding one’s self in the clarity of floating down that Moon River.
It’s how waiting round the bend is your Huckleberry friend, who, at least for me, is a metaphor for the handful who still matter and with whom we can have free flowing conversations.
These are conversations that can ignite thinking about things that will always matter, like love and happiness, understand why we’re still under the spell of music and how it can find its magic into lives and make us whole again.
There’s only so much “prompting” and producing sounds lacking a soul, and technical gimmickry that doesn’t fly one can pump out without there being a need for a new relevance and Renaissance period.
There was a time over two decades ago when some of us, especially in what was then the music industry talked about how “Music Matters” and attended conferences and often be who we weren’t.
But just like wearing jackets pulled over our elbows and no socks, it was a silly phase we were going through and, thankfully, we quickly left all that behind.
As for music, and how music matters, it really needs to make a comeback because, like the man said, “gravity fails and negativity won’t pull you through”.
This is why there’s a need to get back to the garden and sow seeds of positivity to grow new wings from those timeless songs, this time with meaning and sustainability.
It’s about reintroducing all those wonderful songs from Tin Pan Alley, Motown, Liverpool, New Orleans and elsewhere new meaning to very probably three generations who have never heard some of the most beautiful and memorable songs ever written.
It can’t be just another playlist on Spotify, but a platform like Spotify- or SpotiFLY- can certainly help to give songs new wings- and a loud voice.
What’s needed is something interactive and which can work in tandem with another online home that showcases all those visuals dancing in your head.
Video not only killed the radio star, but when songs with lyrics that could mean very inspiring and different things to different people lost its way, NOW is the time for these to become an audio visual gumbo in the hands of visual artists who intuitively know how to take things further.
More to follow.
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