Yesterday's Tomorrows/Today's Yesterdays
Nostalgia is in certain respects a "stationary object" or one that moves very slowly, like an outer planet in a solar system. If one doesn't always have a reference point, or live in a time when the "planet" is in view, you have to conjure a false memory of it. History isn't a fixed object either. The bromide about history is that it always happens to us and nothing stays the same (or stays in the same place).
Yesterday Once More
It is easy to poke fun at The Carpenters, but there's good reason to be envious of The Carpenters' kind of nostalgia. There was still some juice left in the "yesterday's tomorrow" kind of future. Nostalgia is now all sour grapes--that innovation in music is dead, it's all been done and there's nothing left to do. In 1973 there was still another decade of the salad days of the music industry. Carpenter's ambition as an arranger, with lush orchestral arrangements was a testament to an industry that was still optimistic--that you could do something at that scale for perky pop songs.
"When I was young I'd listen to the radio, waiting for my favorite song..."
It is a funny notion now that one would wait for a song to play, but song rotation gave us something to look forward to. There is something to be said about 'push' technologies in the sense that they have anticipation built in. Music was composed to some degree to play into that anticipation. Now new songs are mere notifications on Spotify or on a social media feed, or spun on algorithms.
Today's Yesterdays
Every past decade is a "vessel" that can be filled with the present. For example you can say "China is experiencing their 1970s", "Millennials are experiencing their late 1940s", "Russia is living its 1989". It will still look like the future to some people, but will be completely derivative, the cold-cuts of the past.
Yesterday Once More
It is easy to poke fun at The Carpenters, but there's good reason to be envious of The Carpenters' kind of nostalgia. There was still some juice left in the "yesterday's tomorrow" kind of future. Nostalgia is now all sour grapes--that innovation in music is dead, it's all been done and there's nothing left to do. In 1973 there was still another decade of the salad days of the music industry. Carpenter's ambition as an arranger, with lush orchestral arrangements was a testament to an industry that was still optimistic--that you could do something at that scale for perky pop songs.
"When I was young I'd listen to the radio, waiting for my favorite song..."
It is a funny notion now that one would wait for a song to play, but song rotation gave us something to look forward to. There is something to be said about 'push' technologies in the sense that they have anticipation built in. Music was composed to some degree to play into that anticipation. Now new songs are mere notifications on Spotify or on a social media feed, or spun on algorithms.
Today's Yesterdays
Every past decade is a "vessel" that can be filled with the present. For example you can say "China is experiencing their 1970s", "Millennials are experiencing their late 1940s", "Russia is living its 1989". It will still look like the future to some people, but will be completely derivative, the cold-cuts of the past.
