RIP EVH

One clip that I really liked of Eddie Van Halen was from 1988 at a Les Paul tribute when he expressed effusive praise for Les Paul, in his 70s at the time. What I liked was the generational deference and realizing the unbroken line from Django Reinhardt, Les Paul’s main influence. 

The power of generational influences in music began to become more diffuse in the 1990s with Remix, in which it wasn't the musicians themselves, but rather the Sample as a way to pay homage. It used to be that we appreciated individual contributions to the art form as a skill, not as a product and/or image--although blues in many ways was exploitative, and Van Halen was one of the first bands after the MTV paradigm shift from music for music’s sake to a focus on image and celebrity.

In 1988 Eddie Van Halen was in his 30s. Who in 2060 will praise any of today’s artists as musicians in the spirit of someone in the 1920s, as Les Paul did with Django? Will a thread be there? Perhaps, but it won’t be about skill but rather the mythology. Django will still have to be “cool” in some way. 

 ***

[10/7/2024: It remains to be seen how music history will have a history post-AI. Who would be a young musician’s hero when you don’t know who they are? (A form of Lostwave) They might even be made up. Over the centuries fictional characters may be known as having been real people. If an Eddie Van Halen–or Les Paul–sample is in your generated track, and you release it as your music, do they get credited, and who or what oversees it? AI itself or "We The People"?]