A week into 2012, and I am already ready to skip it and move onto 2013. 2011 was a dreary year for pop music, it wasn't terrible by any stretch of the imagination but it wasn't a stretch of the imagination either. I waited to get excited by anything, everything last year. And I did. Music streaming. But if your top story is about music distribution, what is your number # 2 story?
Spotify was thrilling but as stories go, it is over. Now it is just a part of the landscape. Now we take it for granted that wherever we are, whatever we do, the entire history of rock and roll is at our fingertips. Cool. But it is like the way I was so excited by HBO in the 1980s. At some point in the proceeding, we take it for granted.
And so one of 2011's most important stories is dead now. Unless you work for Spotify, it is just part of the great musical tapestry.
More than this? How excited can you get about modern pop. We know what's what, it took from about 2005 to 2012, but we now understand the pop landscape. Dance beats plus chick singers with an occasional ringer. Rock is dead because mainstream rock is terrible. Pop is thriving because a producer's art form has the producers to provide it. I don't know what to expect from hip hop but even if 2012 as 2012 for Odd Future, which I doubt, it still won't be new.
Pitchfork Brooklyn hipsters had a lousy 2011 and won't be much better in 2012.
So whenever you get past a big story, say the new Vampire Weekend or Springsteen on tour post-Clemons, it hasn't just lost its center, its edges have lost their centers. If there are scenes, where are they now?
Do I think I'll be listening to great music in 2012. Sure I do. Do I think I will be very excited over bands I have never heard of right this minute? I bet the rent. But 2011 was a holding action and 2012 feels like more of the same.