One notion that surrounds the current tradition of art, and one that I personally subscribed to for a while, is that people create art because they are afraid to die. However, upon further investigation of this idea, I’ve realized this thought is derived because a certain aesthetic trumps the rest in terms of popularity. To discuss these two aesthetics, I will restrict my discussion to music, as to keep things simple. However, this dichotomy does not exist exclusively in music, and can be found in almost every other art form.
When thinking about music two types of aesthetics emerge. The first and more prominent is the technical and fast-paced artist. Listen to this clip from “Mellow Dream,” by Ryo Fukui for an understanding of what I mean.
The piano is played in a whirlwind of keys flying at you, and is accompanied by a strong drummer in the background. To the untrained ear, this probably sounds somewhat chaotic, and has no hope of truly understanding what’s going on, or understanding what emotion the artist is trying to convey. However, it still sounds good, and is exciting. Perhaps people find solace in this because they relate it to their lives. There is a lot of life going on, and they don’t understand it, but it just feels right, so they go with it. Nevertheless, it allows one to escape themselves, and enter a new world outside the boring one they perceive with all its limitations - one being the ever-looming burden of death over our shoulders. It’s nice for just a moment to forget that one day everything we have will be gone, so I can see why this kind of music has become increasingly popular.
The second aesthetic is almost never discussed anymore, or never receives the praise it deserves. That is the slower, and more emotional counterpart to the technical aesthetic - something I call the introspective aesthetic. Listen to a clip from the song “Almost Blue,” by Chet Baker, to see what I mean.
Once again, we hear some layered instruments, however, every sound is distinct. Not one thing floats by your ears without you catching it. The percussion sounds as if it’s in tune with the long and sad breaths that the melancholic tone of the song forces you to take. There is no out of this world melody for your mind to run off with. Everywhere you turn, there is a mirror and you are forced to take a long look at yourself and think about things you’ve done, and perhaps even the things you are going to do. Finally, you must look at the finality of your actions, and the finality of death. Not every single moment is an open door. Sometimes, you make choices and you must live with their consequences. Not everything introspective has to be sad like this particular song, but the point is you are alone with yourself, and it can be a painful feeling if you are not used to it.
I have a theory for the decline of the second aesthetic and that is the capitalist ideal of productivity. Productivity has been engrained in our bones, and people always need to feel productive (Shout out to Syrus for making this idea fresh in my mind.) Perhaps to fill that desire an artist will make their music unnecessarily complicated to feel accomplished in their work. In addition to this, the consumer may feel like their minds need to do a work out, even during times of leisure, so they listen to fast paced music to also feel productive.
Back to my original statement about the falsehood of the idea that “art comes from our fear of death.” Certainly art with a more technical aesthetic does. A lot of it is about hiding from that fact and wanting to forget about it. However, because it has taken over our media and the way we perceive art, we forget about introspective art that looks at death as not something to run away from, but something to learn from. Regardless, it’s probably a good time to slow down your media and relax with yourself.
