Commentary

Like many children of the ‘80s, when I hear a song from The Day, my mind tends to flash on the accompanying video. There is no “Sweet Dreams are Made of This’ without Annie Lennox in gender-bending breeches, and “Simply Irresistible” is simply unimaginable without death-masked women in matching lipstick.

If Gen X is bound by predetermined media images, what does that mean for those who follow? While our parents first learned to associate Elvis with black-and-white hip swivels and the Beatles with a great deal of screaming from the Ed Sullivan audience, their contact with music was largely radio-driven.

GenY can now summon favorite videos on command, and, ironically, they now share an older generation’s ties to album covers: When “Strawberry Swing” by Coldplay cues up, so does “Liberty Leading the People,” an iconic Eugène Delacroix painting depicting the French Revolution.

With individual songs accompanied by the colorful swirls of pumping basslines on iPod screens, the portability of music has also increased its visual quotient; an average group of high school students in a symphony concert hall with only the movement of the musicians would likely start crawling the walls in mere minutes. While the highly optic aspect of modern music will enhance the experience for those who learn visually, the expectation of observable accompaniment might stunt imagination and concentration on the complexities of the music itself.

Is this good or bad for the culture? Have market-ready image streams made us less able to appreciate music?

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