As I write this I’m listening to a band called the 1975. The 1975 are an interesting reflection of how a streaming generation consumes music. They are a bit like a cover band for weddings who play copyright free ‘versions’ of songs. You want a perfect 80’s song? Looking For Somebody (To Love), you want a perfect britpop boyband from the Busted/Mcfly era? Me & You Together Song, want a perfect 90’s/00’s Radiohead feel rock song? I Always Want To Die (Sometimes). Name a genre, they’ve got one, and they’re so perfectly done nostalgia will run down your spine, they’re ideal for a generation who cherry picks from a back catalogue of eras yet still want to obsess over someone who is currently young and famous. Talented, brilliant, cool; unoriginal and derivative.
The same is true with television, both Disney and Amazon have made their flagship shows by flogging franchise cash cows dry, Disney with Star Wars and now Amazon with the Tolkien purloined ‘The Rings of Power’, a show so awfully constructed its cynicism almost radiates out of the screen. Yet it seems the investment works, the more streaming services compete the less they engage in attempts at producing creativity and instead rely on guaranteed audience grabs.
It’s an interesting question to ask why the apparent expanding of culture that comes with the scale of the internet has instead narrowed our culture down into a set…
