Born from ongoing cultural dialogue between the poorest European immigrants, the descendants of slaves from West Africa, and America’s indigenous peoples, the concept of American popular music has always had a class character. In the recorded music era, the enormous popularity of genres aimed at racially designated markets synthesized into something new and took over the pop charts. Though the ruling class has repeatedly attempted to control and contain the vision in this music, new forms—hip hop and punk, and metal—continuously emerge to reassert the working-class character of the music. Despite a long history of corporate control, In the midst of the pandemic, the music has amplified the voice of our class, those hit hardest by the devastation.
Of course, most musicians work day jobs to finance their vocation and struggled as members of this class before the pandemic. Over the past year, the vast majority of musicians have not only lost their main means of livelihood, but the entire infrastructure of the industry that once supported them has fallen apart. Many performance venues are gone and aren’t coming back. At least for the time being, the tour support systems are gone, and a future when people gather together in crowded rooms to experience live music remains a distant idea.
During the pandemic, the high-profile nonprofit MusicCares “has distributed more than $22 million to help more than 25,000 music people across the industry, including songwriters, musicians, engineers, producers, bus drivers, crew, guitar techs, label employees, makeup artists, and more.” MusicCares has also expanded its support system for musicians suffering from mental health issues in the midst of this crisis.
But the music itself fights for the human spirit. In cities around the world, musicians have been playing on balconies for their neighborhoods. Many more, including DJs spinning records, have been live-streaming weekly shows and have created national and international communities for the kind of support music can bring. They are also providing online spaces where people have filled chat with discussions about conditions at each stage of the pandemic—from the early fight for PPE to the efforts to distribute the vaccine. Mutual aid organizations have sprung from and benefited from such efforts.
At the same time, thousands of songs have been written about the pandemic, some—like Luke Combs’s “Six Feet Apart” and Norah Jones’s “Tryin’ to Keep It Together”—dealing with the mental health issues that accompany a world with little social contact. Some made fun out of the strangeness, romantic songs like the Drive-By Truckers’ “Quarantine Together” and dance records like Todrick Hall’s “Mask, Gloves, Soap, Scrubs.”
Certainly, there is an impulse to take things back to the way they used to be. Songs like Van Morrison’s “No More Lockdowns” and Alan Jackson’s “Back” even propagandize division and nostalgia as a way to persuade people to turn to old solutions rather than face the new dangers of widespread illness while a workforce is automated out of existence. Many more songs, though, ranging from Dolly Parton’s “When Life Is Good Again” to Alicia Keys’ “Good Job,” focus on reflection and reassurance.
The 2020 uprisings against killings by police inspired a wide range of political commentary, from John Fogerty’s mournful “Weeping in the Promised Land” to H.E.R.’s claustrophobic “I Can’t Breathe” to Lil Baby’s simmering “Bigger Picture.” The vision in “Bigger Picture” exemplifies the revitalization of so much rap in the wake of the uprisings, Lil Baby declaring, “it’s bigger than black and white; it’s a problem with the whole way of life.” And though he knows revolution isn’t coming overnight, he’s ready to take it all on, declaring “may as well go ahead and start here.”
Perhaps not surprisingly, one of the great voices of the Civil Rights Movement, Mavis Staples, states clearly what we need to fight forward. Her song, “We’re All In It Together,” co-written with rock musician Jeff Tweedy, makes a pointed statement simply by saying “I need you” and “You need me.” Making that statement even bigger with his single “Stars,” funk legend Bootsy Collins teams up with musicians from all over the world, calling “Power to the people” to “Brothers and sisters, all colors, genders, regional identities sexual orientations,” with 16-year-old Emi Sunshine declaring, “We’ve got to forge a better way.”
How we get to the bigger answers to our problems is to see clearly the possibility in the reality we face. On the whole, our musicians are calling us forward. Abandoned by the ruling class, discarded by a collapsing system, we must unite and build a new system—one where we have the power to not only guarantee each of us has what we need to survive but also to make sure we can achieve that better way that lies just ahead.
Published: May 21, 2021
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