Earlier this month, I attended an interesting panel discussion at the wonderful Beaches Brew free festival on the Hani-Bi beach at Ravenna, Italy.
The talk was in answer to the provocative question ‘Does music journalism still matter?’
Needless to say, the answer to the question of the day was ‘Yes, it does still matter’ but explaining why and how proved tricky. Speakers addressed the huge challenges of making their voices heard within an increasingly deafening market place.
Making music and writing about it in 2021 obviously bears no comparison to life before the internet. In ‘1966 – The Year the Decade Exploded’, Jon Savage writes: “Music was no longer commenting on life but had become indivisible from life. It had become the focus not just of youth consumerism but a way of seeing, the prism through which the world was interpreted.” It’s difficult to imagine music having the same impact and influence now since it is just one of an overwhelming number of consumer choices.
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“I wanna hear Caravan with a drum solo”
The late, lamented Frank Zappa preached about the need for constant vigilance against the repressive, self-righteous, bigoted forces who censor what we can see, hear and read.
Saddened to learn of the death of Davy Jones aged 66. Peter Tork was my favourite Monkee but I always appreciated Davy as the sole Brit in the other Fab Four. They were quite a phenomenon at the time and while the TV shows look very dated now the goofy clean-cut commercial music still sounds pretty good.
