Music Book Review: Nothing Has Been Done Before: Seeking the New in 21st Century American Popular Music by Robert Loss

Nothing Has Been Done Before: Seeking the New in 21st Century AmericanPopular Music
by Robert Loss (781.66 Los)

Some of the trickiest criticisms to navigate in the arts relate to originality. I’m sure we’ve all heard variations of this theme before: “That song sounds just like the old song ___ ,” or “Most of this new music is just a bad imitation of ____,” or “This music doesn’t really add anything new to the conversation.” You get the idea. While not all artists and musicians are fixated on the issue, quite a few are, and certainly in the fast-paced, constantly shifting sands of 20th Century music, we saw the idea of originality reach the level of becoming its own kind of value system in some musical circles.

 

In the 21st century, there is an interesting ahistorical, hyperlinked musical movement rich with freely-associated influences from internet culture, which I often find unassumingly new and refreshing. And of course there are always retrospective trends in the arts, which are represented in music by things like long-lasting popular music idioms, remixes, and institutionalized forms like most classical and jazz music. But the notion that new music must always push boundaries remains an important impulse for many musicians, listeners, and critics.

There is a great recent book by Robert Loss that takes a unique look at the notion of novelty in music, particularly popular music idioms over the course of the last 20 years. It’s called “Nothing Has Been Done Before,” and appropriately enough, I’ve never read a book that uses an approach quite like this before. Using the concept of “newness” itself, Loss examines recent musical history to look for fresh perspectives as well as historical connections.

 

The author’s background is teaching writing and philosophy, and in the introduction, I must admit that I felt a little hesitant when he made references to postmodernism and Greek philosophy by page 3. An academic take on the subject would be fine, but I was hoping for a fun-loving adventure through recent history. Fortunately, the book proves to be a lot of fun, and the prose is handled with an engaging, very readable style. And you don’t need to be a practicing musician to fully dive into this book. If you’re a music fan or avid listener, I think you’ll love this. Ultimately, aspects of philosophy and contemporary cultural criticism are weaved into the book, but they are handled gently and explained in laypersons’ terms. Loss even has a sense of humor about the process: while introducing some concepts from philosopher Alain Badiou in the prologue, toward an understanding of the transformative magic that can happen on the concert stage, he acknowledges that he’s “bringing a howitzer to a tea party. And I admit: I’m not sure I know how to operate the howitzer.” Fortunately, I think he goes on to prove that he does know how to handle that kind of material without wielding it like a howitzer.

 

Loss starts the main body of the text right around the year 2000, which I think is a great move when it comes to defining “new” in contemporary culture. If you were around then, I’m sure you’ll remember how the lead-up to the new millennium felt very futuristic, and then the period immediately afterwards was maybe a little bit of a letdown: still no flying cars, for example! Loss points out some popular retro trends in music that took over around that time, a period that grew to encompass 9/11 and accusations of plagiarism against Bob Dylan himself. Seemingly nothing was feeling new.

 

But is the old the opposite of the new? After looking at a few examples of artists that seem on the surface to be “retro” acts, working with the tropes of Southern Rock or synthwave, garage rock or freak folk, Loss lays out the case that newness in work can be done using these older subgenres and their language as a starting point: critiques of the old can happen this way. Present-day contexts set with older dialects introduce new ideas. By the end of the first Part of the book, it’s clear that “the new” can be a subtle art. The cultural thinker whose ideas seem to best define this section of the book is Douglas Rushkoff and his “presentism,” the sort of cultural downshift we experienced from a more future-focused optimism pre-millennium.

 

Part 2 focuses on the increased level of multimedia spectacle in pop music as an iteration of newness in music. Here, the philosopher of choice becomes Guy Debord and his “Society of the Spectacle.” He looks at this from the more obvious perspective of glamorous, expensive show productions, but also from the perspective of how music is consumed, with recordings devalued and circulated in lower resolution through streaming, and how audiences are compelled to create their own consumer-spectacle products instead of living in the moment at live performances. I found this section of the book particularly powerful, in that “the new” isn’t always coming from inside the music, and it isn’t always a positive story. There’s also a fascinating chapter within this section where Loss switches to a 2nd person omniscient voice, taking you inside the head of Kanye West. The writing style throughout the book reminds me of the New Journalism movement and writers like Tom Wolfe and Hunter Thompson, taking chances and engaging with the reader in novel ways, pardon the pun.

 

Part 3 is the closest to a traditional take on what one might expect from a book about “the new” in contemporary music. Here, the analysis addresses new ways of music making and relating to old themes, such as those often found in folk music, or protest music. Bruce Springsteen’s renaissance period in the last decade and the rise of Kendrick Lamar represent such modern takes on archetypal themes throughout this section. And throughout the book, Prince and Bob Dylan make regular appearances as high-profile artists that always seem to reinvent themselves when the time is right.

 

In all, this is a book that will not only help you to see the newness in new music, but will also have you questioning the orthodoxies of newness itself. What if nothing is new? What if we’re forever riffing on a relatively small set of themes, musical styles acting like period costume in film, letting us know what era it is, even though the dynamics with our stories could mostly happen at any time? Perhaps it doesn’t matter as long as we can get through to each other. In that sense, every time we make a connection, we’ve done something new.

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Song and System: The Making of American Pop Music by Harvey Rachlin, or Switched on Pop: How Pop Music Works, and Why it Matters by Nate Sloan.)

 

( official Nothing Has Been Done Before page on the official robertloss.org web site )

 

Recommended by Scott S.
Polley Music Library

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

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