I’m hanging out with some friends:  They are all musicians and we’re philosophizing about the future of music.  This may have something to do with the various substances that are being passed around.  They’re all talking about the artists who influenced them and the rock stars they would like to be like when it hits me.  That’s impossible.  We have come to the end of the rock star era.  There will never be one again.

This past summer, when all the celebrities were dying, everyone was writing about the end of the “monoculture.”  The monoculture is the pop culture that everyone has a shared consciousness of, whether or not they are fans of it.  I don’t agree that is necessarily true.  In twenty years, I think everyone is going to remember being obsessed with LOST and their iPhone apps.  I do believe that it’s true about music though.  I think in 20 years, when people are talking about the music they liked now, they are more likely to get blank stares in return.  And you can already see this happening, now.  I have to admit, until this past summer, I had no idea who Lady Gaga was, which was way later than anyone else.  How did this happen, though?

The beginning of the end for rock stars came with the advent of The Real World.  The MTV show was among the type of programming that eventually led to MTV not showing anymore music videos.  While the M in MTV is meaningless now, it used to be where people who enjoyed all types of popular music turned to see what was playing.  For college students in the 90’s, it was constantly on in the background.  And whether you liked Rap or Metal, there was a show for you to watch on MTV, so everyone was constantly aware of what was popular among everyone else.  But that is not there anymore.

Another reason for the death of the rock star is the Internet.  The Internet opened up the world of music in ways that no one could have ever imagined, and the recording industry is still recovering from this.  From Napster to Myspace Music, fans of music have been able to sample more artists than ever before.  So, more diverse types of music are getting a fanbase in more places.  This also means that more people are finding things that they enjoy, but no one else around them does.  This stops being shared with a large group of people.

And the final reason is the rise of the iPod.  Specifically, its the effect the iPod has had on radio.  Everyone knows radio is dying.  It used to be that whether you liked the music or not, at some point during the day you would probably listen to the radio.  Even if you had some CDs in your car, at some point you would get tired of the music in your collection and put on the radio for a little while.  This would give you a taste of what everyone else who was listening to the radio was listening to at the time.  These days, with the library of music that people carry in their iPods, its far less likely that they will get tired of all the music they have available to them.  If someone feels like listening to something they don’t usually listen to, they just queue it up on their iPods.

Because there’s no more channels for everyone to experience what everyone else is listening to, and because there are a lot more different types of music, there is a smaller chance of a nation-wide shared musical culture.  Since there won’t be any more acts that are universally popular, there won’t be anymore rock stars.  So what do musicians have to look forward to?  My drunk friends and I talked about that, too, but I’ll save that for next week’s article.

Here’s the source for the wonderful sunrise above! Don’t agree with Neto? Let him know in the comments!