I wonder what will happen in the next twenty or thirty years? Will we all be driving hover cars? Will the BNP be running the country? Will England have won a football World Cup?
Hopefully, I'll be alive, well, married with children, possibly, maybe probably, a grandad. I pray i will have seen Tottenham win a trophy (not the Carling Cup again, although beggars can't be choosers), maybe even the league and be in the Champions League regularly.
But, what music will we all be listening to? Currently we are back in the 80's. People that were barely born then, are making and dancing to songs that are either drenched in 80's synths and nostalgia or blatant rip offs of songs made in the 80's.
There are also actual bands from that era, making a come back for the big bucks! Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, Kajagoogoo, the list goes on. Of course, it isn't for the money. Oh no! The fact that people are dressing like its 1985 again (minus the mullet) is reason enough to come back and soundtrack their everyday lives. Leg-ins and big baggy t-shirts are back, and so are Big Star and Bucks Fizz.
Then there is La Roux and Little Boots, making "original" music, that sounds like it was made whilst Margaret Thatcher was PM.
I personally don't wear leg-ins or own a copy of some hastily chucked together compilation double CD with every No.1 of the decade. I prefer, if your talking particular musical eras, the 70's and 60's.
I was thinking though, what will we will be listening to in 2034? In the next twenty five years, how many bands of the 90's and 00's will have split up acrimoniously, released two or three best of albums and re-convened to maybe record a new album and a huge money-spinning world tour?
Will Oasis have even stopped making albums? Will the Rolling Stones, somehow, still be going? They'll have a ten year break, where Mick Jagger and Charlie Watts will be cryogenically frozen, Keith Richards will of course still be alive as he is the anti-christ and, therefore, immortal.
I'm sure in the intervening years, a huge rockstar will die at 27 (Section 22 sub-section (d) of the Rock'n'Roll Rule Book), we will have a new "Greatest Band" and "Biggest Band in the World"TM every couple of years, and Madonna will re-invent herself as the "Queen Mother of Pop".
Whilst there have always been one hit wonders, the 90's and 00's have had a plethora of bands pop up, make a bit of noise, and then disappear. The "Second album syndrome" was born, and those bands who made a great debut couldn't re-discover that magic formula to make an equal or a better version. Although some would say an equal to the debut is exactly what wasn't required, and maybe that is and was the problem, pressure to make a better record either resulted in an over blown, sub-standard attempt or led to the implosion of a band, The Stone Roses possibly began that, and still hold the precedent.
So, which bands will we be telling our children we used to own all their Cd's (the physical probably being extinct), go to their gigs, buy the tour t-shirt and read the book? Will any of these bands be making re-appearances to earn that pension?
Its hard to imagine someone like Bono or Noel Gallagher being like a Mick or Robert Plant. Old and wrinkly, still playing the hits to possibly a third generation of fans. Will we be sitting on our phones or on the Internet at 8.58am, trying to buy tickets for The Strokes or Kings of Leon come back tour?
Is this just a fad? Is the reunion tour and the come back of the old bands just of this era. Some would argue that music is stagnant, the re-hashing of old sounds and styles shows lack of imagination and ideas. The music charts have been saturated over recent years with re-mixes of a number of 80's songs that this generation didn't know and have been virtually claimed as the "artists" own, so will this just be how this musical era is defined? By the 80's.
It shouldn't be. There has been an influx of great bands in the past 9 years, that should let this decade stand alone as a great, original era for music. Bands will always be influenced and the current crop of new artists are young and take their influence from electronic music which is the stuff their parents played them.
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Its a constant debate about "real" music against "chart" music. Bands, who write their own songs and play their instruments, versus manufactured boy and girl bands, DJ's, dance groups and Uber producers. So how will our children and our children's children be influenced. What will our gran-kids be listening to in 25 years time?
And will we be able to get tickets to see the Shed Seven 30th anniversary tour?
