For someone who enjoys swapping great music discoveries and lyrical finds as much as I do, I can be surprisingly protective of “my” musicians at times. This is silly, of course. Shouldn’t I want success for the singers I love? Of course, truly, I do. Sometimes though, if an artist I've loved starts to become more and more recognizable I get..hmm..kinda nervous.One of Basia’s tunes was featured in a Subaru commercial a few months back. My friend texted me one night asking me if I'd seen the ad.
“Yes, I saw it,” I wrote back. “made me protective.”
“That’s funny,” my friend wrote. “I felt the exact opposite. Good for her! She made it!”
Maybe what I worry about is that once a musician gets discovered by the masses their style or attitude will change. They’ll get swept up in the corporate machine, their style will be analyzed by all the suits in the room and they’ll come out on the other side as a singer I no longer recognize or enjoy. Irrational? Absolutely. As much as I like independent music, I guarantee someone else has already heard and fell in love with the bands I'm hearing, seeing, and falling in love with right now. Why do I feel so compelled to keep them under wraps, letting only my nearest and dearest friends know of songs and bands I've recently discovered?
Perhaps it is just a guilty, selfish pleasure. Seeing live music in small venues is one of my favorite past times. I’d much prefer to be at a location where I might catch a singer strolling through the crowd before or after their show than I would like to walk into a football arena with thousands of other fans. To me, part of the loveliness of seeing live shows is the ability to catch the little quips or stories singers tell during their performance. I relish having the opportunity to see the band grabbing a beer at the bar post-show at the same time I'm grabbing a beer at the bar post-show. I like the chance of hearing an artist's songs reworked in a different manner each time I catch them versus hearing a churned out tune that sounds exactly the same along each stop of their 150+ city tour. I realize that a hugely popular singer might want to tell stories or sing some different songs, but those gestures just don't translate as well in a massive stadium. And of course, I have certainly shelled out a fair amount of cash to see artists in bigger venues because I love them - along with the rest of the crowd in sold-out concert halls or football stadiums. It's just that I miss the intimacy of small venues when I get away from them and they will always be where I fall most in love with singers, songwriters, and their music all over again.
The flip side, of course, is that if I didn't share my new musical discoveries with my friends and they kept theirs a secret from me we'd be stuck in a bit of a conundrum. So I won't ignore those lessons I learned in kindergarten. I’ll continue to share some of my favorites with you if you'll do the same for me. We make a good team that way.
Although, I am pretty excited that we got this photo with Basia on Friday.
That's certainly not something that would happen at Madison Square Garden.
2 comments:
I met a man at church recently who saw all the great 60s British bands in small London venues before the groups became famous including THE BEATLES. I was jealous. Maybe you should become an agent for all of these musicians you're discovering!
We feel the same about Ray. Part of us was overjoyed that he sang at the White House tree lighting, part of us was sad.
But I like when you share an artist and your friend has already heard of them. It's like a confirmation that the friendship works - yes, of course you know them.
On the flip side, when they fall in love with someone new that's a gift they will always thank you for.
In those ways, it's kind of a win-win.
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