Consider last weekend a microcosm of the year to date in music. Last Friday, at the Forum in L.A., Kanye West released his video for “Famous,” the *Life of Pablo *song responsible for reigniting his bad blood with Taylor Swift and bringing out the worst in both. Did Kanye blatantly ignore claims that his work is misogynistic, or is Taylor denying her alleged approval to paint herself as a saint? Whatever the “truth” may be, Kanye is never one to shrink back when accused. What was once a cringe-inducing—and yes, wildly misogynistic—line to be ignored was blown up as the clip’s concept, complete with naked wax figures of the very famous in bed together (including Swift). Kanye called it a “comment on fame.” Really, the “Famous” video is the time capsule that our clickbait era deserves, one of those things going around that you feel the need to engage with because *how can you not, *only to ask yourself afterwards, that was it?
If this all sounds exhausting and a bit beside the point of fandom, another big music headline from last week might be more interesting to you, though I must warn you it is a little sad. (That also has been a trend this year.) Sheila E’s tribute to Prince at the BET Awards last Sunday was everywhere you looked, but it had the rare benefit of being even better than you probably expected when you clicked. Moments like this can feel like remedies, acts of artistic expression seemingly removed from the ego and fame-mongering permeating so much of music culture on the internet. This is even more of a feat given its venue, an awards show—essentially a monetized bastion of thirst.
With all due respect to her abilities, Sheila E has not been A Name in a couple decades. And yet I could not imagine any Prince fan favoring whatever it was that Madonna did in her Prince tribute at the Billboard Music Awards over Sheila E paying tribute to her friend and former collaborator with everything she had. BET had the good sense to get out of her way. Big marquee tributes to icons at televised events don’t have to be all pomp and circumstance; it’s just that stunts are easier to sell.
As we head into the second half of 2016, it’s worth remembering that the music world’s had no shortage of stunts so far this year. In fact, no big album can be released without one. We spent 2015 wondering when Adele, Kanye, Beyoncé, Rihanna, Drake, and Radiohead would surprise-drop their massive albums. But with the exception of Adele, none of them turned up until the first half of 2016. Was there something in the air that made our biggest stars really go for it this year? ANTI*, The Life of Pablo, Lemonade, VIEWS, A Moon Shaped Pool—*are they simply the products of colliding album cycles and coincidence?
Amid this flurry of high-profile releases, two of music’s most innovative and prolific figures—David Bowie and Prince—left this earth. Each death felt like one last provocation in careers punctuated by them. Music fans mourned Bowie’s January 10th passing, following a secret cancer battle, by clinging to his stunning and meta final album, released just two days earlier, and by spending weeks delving into every facet of his career and iconography. By April 21, we were doing the same for Prince, whose drug-related death still feels like a bad dream. He was supposed to outlive us all, with his perfect 90-year-old ass suspended in chaps. In the time between these two deaths, *ANTI, TLOP, *and *Lemonade *arrived, all with little-to-no advanced warning. In the weeks following Prince’s passing, *VIEWS *finally made its debut after years of (unwarranted) hype, while *A Moon Shaped Pool *pulled back Radiohead’s curtain of slow-simmering secrecy.
I’m not saying all these events are related in a literal, cause-and-effect kind of way, so much as they juxtaposed one another more cosmically. With two crucial musicians ripped from the world so suddenly, maybe time just felt a little more precious. These albums that pop’s perfectionists had been working on over the last couple years demanded their existence now. And in their own ways, the rollouts surrounding each attempted to catch us off-guard, whether that meant hiding in plain-sight via a HBO special, updating in real time so much it made you question the state of the album as a format, or single-handedly capturing the ineptitude of Tidal.
There’s something else at hand here, though—something bigger than Bowie and Prince, if you can imagine that. Historically, art has flourished in times of immense cultural shift. Think of all the great music that came out of the latter half of the 1960s and into the ’70s, as America reckoned with ugly truths about race, gender, sexuality, and war abroad, fighting over what society had been and what it should be. Now think of where we’re at currently with race-related police brutality, with LGBT rights and the growing disassembly of gender as a concept, with violently real threats of terror, and with an election that can feel at times like a close-minded reaction to it all. It’s not hard to imagine listeners clinging more closely to music in these times of fear and uncertainty, and for musicians to feel like it’s time to put art out into the world.
Mainstream music echoed the movements of four and five decades ago, but even art that wasn’t overtly political gets tied up in the general cultural feeling of the era, especially in hindsight. Drake’s work is wholly apolitical—his ego sucks up all the available air—and though *ANTI *is her best album by far, Rihanna isn’t exactly crafting calls to action. But both Drake and Rihanna make music that feels tapped into the sound of *right now, *pop that's oftentimes dark or at least hazy and downbeat.
On the flip side, Lemonade, particularly in its film form, portrays the history of struggle that continues to define black womanhood, at times showing glimpses of Black Lives Matter and feminism in action. Although Radiohead have made more overtly political albums in the past, their informed worldview comes through on A Moon Shaped Pool: “Burn the Witch” and its accompanying video play like commentary on nativist politicians, whether Trump or those behind Brexit. And Kanye? His entire career as a capital-p, capital-s Pop Star is commentary on race, even when he’s musing about something as insipid as a model’s bleached asshole. I consider *TLOP *more of a loose document of what it means to rank among the most famous and polarizing celebrities on the planet at this strange moment in time, bedfellows with Trump in both the “Famous” video and the headlines.
Of course, industry logistics likely played a part in this convergence. Perhaps, following the astronomical numbers put up by Adele’s 25 late last year, pop's elite felt confident that they wouldn't be upstaged commercially by a Brit who can belt them all under the table. Instead they ended up nipping at each other's heels with spectacle after spectacle. Whatever the reasons behind such a notable spike in big releases—whether they trace back to the changes taking shape in wider culture, the fragility of life via our gone-too-soon icons, or music biz scheduling—we’re lucky to be reaping the benefits as listeners. Now, what's left to hear the rest of the year?
