Growing the distinct II: Old stuff strikes back

However, in the previous post, when I’m Team Take-the-risk-commit-to-open-space, I am not advocating total rejection of the familiar. Indescribability is only good if you can immediately introduce new vocabulary to describe it. Particularly in this industry*.

When I was in a band, we struggled with describing ourselves in a press-kit. We wanted to transcend genre labels. A category felt like a way to be written off, shrunk. But I can tell you, when folks ask you “What does your music sound like?” there’s nothing more unhelpful and lame to be stuck muttering “Well, you know . . .”**

This is the power of growing your identity out of the compost of the really old stuff. The language is already spoken, and re-introduction is a heckuva lot easier than introduction. Not to mention the meaning-jet-fuel that is nostalgia. Expressed lineage, homage, these are doors to meaning and, dare-I-say, authenticity.

Plunder the libraries. Re-contextualize. An oversimplified lineage of influence I enjoy thinking about: William Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement with Japanese Woodblock prints influencing British Art Nouveau influencing Psychedelic posters in the ‘70s influencing Collins’ rebrand of Spotify that set off the duotone craze of the 2010s.

My boss has a quote I love that I’ll paraphrase, “What’s old is old, and what’s older is new.”

*In art, the sublime and ineffable, the need to experience, that’s different.

**Especially when you want to say “The Beatles” but that is 1. what everyone says and 2. feels like delusions of grandeur