"Checking the schedule for this year's Lolla, I kept thinking of a comment my colleague Steven Hyden made on Twitter a few weeks back: "Nobody knows how popular anything is anymore."
...It seems pretty clear that, somewhere between the collapse of record sales and the advent of private listening on Spotify, it's gotten a lot trickier to gauge just how big an artist really is. A smorgasbord-style festival like Lolla's a bit deceptive, too; ads for the fest tout its low-low price per act, but when you buy your ticket, there's no telling who you're actually paying to see. Having instant access to most of the music ever made has fragmented people's taste in ways Lolla's still catching up with; there's nothing strange at all about a Vampire Weekend fan hauling ass over to Tity Boi, or a local rapper grabbing one of the festival's biggest crowds, or a bunch of DJs you mostly know from other festival posters outdrawing Nine Inch Nails. Still, it's a transition, and Lolla's only concession is excess: There's so much to see, so you'll probably like something."
PITCHFORK: Articles: Lollapalooza 2013
No comments:
Post a Comment