Today I am participating in the Big Reveal Blog Hop, unveiling my April Blogging from A to Z Challenge theme!
My husband recently presented me with a unique gift: a mint condition copy of Circus Magazine dated January 31st, 1985. It was a very sweet and thoughtful gesture, as the magazine’s cover story featured the favorite band of my youth and brought back a ton of great memories.
Instantly, I was transported back to fifteen years old. Standing in the aisle of my local drugstore DEVOURING every typewritten word: the articles, the concert announcements, the song lyrics. Hell, the advertisements! I’m pretty sure I read that very issue, cover-to-cover, while standing in the store. And then shelled out the $1.95 to bring it home, read it again, obsess over it, cut out all the pictures and plaster them on my bedroom walls. $1.95 was a small price to pay for a month’s worth of music news. All new news, slowly revealed as I peeled back each page.
Now, 1985 isn’t all that long ago, but it is light-years away when you consider how information, and music, is delivered. Music, um…it lives in a cloud now. Think about that for a second. Thanks to the Internet, fans across the globe know a band’s news before the band itself even knows it! Not only do the fans know it, they expect and DEMAND to know it. Album cover art? We want to see it in hi-res before the album hits the streets. Tour dates? They should have been leaked yesterday. What Chris Cornell had for breakfast? Hashtag those hash browns!
Thanks to bands and artists using social media like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, we get instant gratification: a front row view at shows and a fly-on-the-wall peek into their daily lives. The minutia and the momentous is all being documented and disseminated in the blink of an eye. And the fans are retweeting, “liking”, and sharing at breakneck speed. It’s almost eclipsed the music. Think I’m wrong? At the next concert you go to, look around you. 80% of people will be on their cell phones: texting, tweeting, taking photos and video. Everyone’s trying to prove they are part of the experience but meanwhile, are they really enjoying the performance going on right under their noses?
It’s overwhelming, really. So much cool stuff at our fingertips…but so much can slip by unnoticed. I’ve decided my A to Z theme will focus on some of the more unique ways of bringing the music to the fans…and the fans to the music. Alternate Avenues, if you will.
Circus is long-gone. Even Rolling Stone has become the incredible shrinking magazine. The web has snared us all. We must use its power for good, not evil, to keep the music world alive. Throughout the month of April, I will handpick and highlight some of the cool things bands, charitable organizations, and even the fans themselves are doing to keep the music-fan connection strong.
Because the music living on a cloud thing is just a little too abstract for me to wrap my head around.
A big hopping thank you to Brits in the USA and Some Dark Romantic for hosting the Big Reveal!
Awesome topic. I’ll be visiting often! I was one of those girls in the aisle looking at Circus and Metal Edge. Ahhh a product of the times.
I think you’re right tho–about the social aspect taking away from some of the experience. I’m an avid photographer especially at shows. It helps to put me closer to the action, but the show flies by so fast I feel like I didn’t really retain it all.
And it pisses me off to pay a gazillion dollars for seats close up and I see people turned around on their phones and not enjoying the music. GOD, how that must feel for the musicians?!
Thanks for visiting, Taryn! I have to admit, I take a lot of pics at shows too, esp if I am not all that into the band but the person with me is. I took my niece to Green Day and let her go nuts singing and screaming, and I documented the band on stage for her. No way her shaking hands could have held a camera that day. 🙂 But I agree, bands must be getting tired of seeing little squares where people’s faces should be.
What an exciting theme! I really can’t wait to read your A-Z post!
Because I’m a HUGE lover of music, I’m your newest follower for the A to Z Blog challenge. All the best with it.!
This is going to be a fun theme.
Lah-lah-LOOOOOOVE THIS THEEEEEEME! Man, that’s a pretty sweet gift; I’d love to get my hands on some of those music mags from the 80s.
What gets me about this saturation is how, because the music and the bands are now everywhere (YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) . . . It just no longer seems special the way it used to when you had to hunt for bits and pieces in your favorite magazines, hoping against hope there might be a photo of So-And-So or a quirky quote from That Guy. I find I begin to care less when it’s all around me all the time.
I know what you mean – I’m hoping to at least highlight a few (well, 26) unique things that will make even the most jaded and over-saturated music fan stop in their tracks and say, “Wow, cool!” 🙂
You got this theme right, I am total fan…
Jeremy [Retro] #66
AtoZ Challenge Co-Host
Oh No, Let’s Go… Crazy
Thanks, Jeremy! Looking forward to hopping over to your blog and seeing what’s up!
Wow! Awesome theme! And, boy, it sure makes me feel old…1985 wasn’t that far gone…right?
Congrats on signing up! Good luck. This is my first year with the A to Z challenge, even though I’ve watched it grow over the last 3 years. I’m also taking part in the Reveal. I’m trying to share some positivity with my #WriteMotivation friends on Twitter (and to help keep me positive in the process)
Hope to see you around 🙂
Jamie Dement (LadyJai)
http://writebackwards.we3dements.com
Thanks LadyJai – between the #WriteMotivation folks and the AtoZ peeps, you are in good company!
It is amazing how much technology has changed just in the last 20 years, compared to the progress made in the earlier decades of the 20th Century. What are we in for next?
Best of luck with your blogging journey… off to check out the hop now!
LOL, so true. Our world is changing, but some of the old ways were great. It’s hard to cut out pictures from a cloud. 😉
I had Herb’s Candy Store. Once a week, usually Sunday morning after racing out of church, I’d peruse his news stand to see if there were any new music magazines or comic books. This is a great theme for you Jess- I look forwarding to reading along!
Thanks, Kelli – what a great memory, thanks for sharing it!
love music, discovering the process, so I’ll stop by! might come in hand when I’ll finish editing my book and start promoting it – stealing ideas from music industry…
Cool, Adriana – good luck with it! I think the music industry has already taught the book industry some invaluable lessons re. digital output… but yes, so many creative ways of marketing and promotion! Not sure how much I will delve into that but hoping people walk away with some memorable tidbits. 🙂
As a lover of music, I will certainly be stopping by to read your posts!
Thanks for hopping by, Carolyn! I hope I can amuse and inform all kinds of music fans with some interesting A to Z topics.