Music - Well, There It Is.

As part of my Photographic Essay course at the Arts Council of Princeton, I was tasked with creating a set of photographs with an underlying theme or narrative. I was looking for a topic somewhat esoteric, but my creative mind just wasn’t functioning well during this particular time frame. I narrowed my choices down to something related to the Delaware and Raritan Canal or a singing competition show supported by Reid Sound at Rider University. Even after starting with the latter, I kept an open mind and prepared to take the photographic essay in a different direction to protect against the possibility that I could not spam the entire event from start to finish with enough images to tell some sort of story.

The event moved forward, and I committed myself to the project. “The R Factor” mimicked the popular television show “The X Factor.” More than twenty student performers from the university auditioned for a chance to make the final performance. I started with these auditions, taking photographs to document the progress of some of the performers as well of the event itself.

The photography presented the usual challenges. Stages and auditoriums are dark locations, and a spotlight can easily throw off metering. I pumped up the ISO to compensate for the lighting. In the hallways where performers were waiting and warming up before the final performance, the fluorescent lighting played with the color balance.

There is a good amount of talent on the Rider University campus. The R Factor did a great job of showcasing some of the school’s best performers. Here are a few images from the events; more photographs are available on Flickr, many of which were not included in the essay. A slideshow of the essay follows these photos.

After the jump, I present a slideshow representing the photographic essay in its current form. The essay as a whole is relatively successful, telling the story of the event, although I did not use any text for narrative.

Sir Bob Geldof was Craig Ferguson’s guest on The Late Late Show last night. I watched the interview earlier today. Craig had seen Bob perform with the Boomtown Rats in 1977, at a time and in a location featuring social unrest. Young people, particularly young musicians, had an opportunity to react to popular culture and its musical interpretation (disco, pop) with punk music. Throughout the twentieth century, after the technology for performing and recording music became accessible, the younger generation used it to rebel against the status quo. Punk rock, and particularly the thoughtful punk rockers like Bob Geldof and John Lydon, shaped this counterculture.

In the interview, Bob and Craig agree that we are experiencing a formative period in history, one that will be viewed by historians centuries in the future. Thanks to social unrest throughout the world, money flowing into emerging markets, and dominant global power shifting away from the United States, society may be at a tipping point. I don’t think anyone can properly identify what history will choose to focus on until well after the fact, but assuming it’s true, where is today’s counterculture? Specifically, where is the music that can be identified as representative of today’s social change? Why does no one have anything to say about this?

Commercialism is quick to latch onto anything new these days, and that may be why none of today’s music seems revolutionary. A counterculture is commercialized so quickly — take hip-hop, for example — that it doesn’t have time to stand for something and no longer means anything. With artists concerned about making a living in this country, there isn’t a lot of opportunity to do something untested. Maybe we need to start looking elsewhere to find the next social movement to become representative of a generation, perhaps the Middle East, north Africa, or China.

Bob mentions how terrible the popular music was at that time, and there had to be a change. Today’s pop music should generate the same sort of reaction, but where are today’s music rebels? Watch the interview with Bob Geldof after the break.

The R Factor at Rider University

Where is Today’s Counterculture in Music?