
25.06.2012 / Arts & Culture
Retromania (pt. 1)
Old is the new new – at least that’s what you might conclude from taking a quick look at YouTube: decade-old songs, ancient TV shows, complete silent movies. The return of the past has become a veritable trend – it’s the Retro, as Simon Reynolds would put it.
In his latest book, Retromania, Reynolds, a music critic and the “inventor” of the term “post rock”, ascribes this fact – which he considers crucial to the new millennium – to the advent of new technologies and the Internet.
As a matter of fact, technology has placed the whole world of music at our disposal, allowing us to reach every kind of song in a few second and thus forcing the music industry to unceasingly revive the past through strategies such as reprints, mash-ups, digital archives and eBay sales…
According to Reynolds, who seems to be pretty worried about the insufficiently innovative character of contemporary music, this phenomenon is both absurd and dangerous. “This is the way that pop ends”, he says, “not with a BANG but with a box set whose fourth disc you never get around to playing” (from Retromania).
Even from a less pessimistic standpoint, the reviving power of this trend appears amazing, particularly when it comes to keeping obsolete phonographic supports like vinyl, audio cassettes and even NES cartridges perfectly alive.
(to be continued…)
Links
http://www.amazon.com/Retromania-Pop-Cultures-Addiction-Past/dp/0865479941




