CREATIVES FINDING WAYS TO PRACTICE THEIR CRAFT
In the year that was like no other, thanks to a pandemic
Music is more than just live shows or album releases or music videos. Music is community. It is a place for people of all stripes to find a home. It is a place for the divas and weirdos and freaks to commune. Music creates connections. It articulates our greatest ills and grandest joys. It is inherent and entirely human, perhaps our most natural art form. In music we find the mimicry of the beating of our hearts.
The showmust go on, even if there are no shows. That is the greatest lesson of Chicago music in 2020. In a year where culture aswe’ve known itwas seemingly shut down overnight, Chicago’s music scene continued to survive, albeit in a different manner than we’ve come to expect.
Despite the promise of our pre-pandemicworld, the state of Chicago musicwas already in a confusing place. Long simmering issues plagued the city’s music scene, frompotential closures of independent music venues to a mass exodus of young musicians seeking greater fame, fortune and opportunity on the coasts. However, much like howthe pandemic shined a light on society’s racial and economic troubles, it also revealed the fragility of the city and the country’s entertainment community as a whole.
One cannot underestimate the social, economic and cultural ramifications of theCOVID-19 pandemic on the city’s music scene. Unlike restaurants and retail stores which foundways to bounce back (however temporarily) as lockdown restrictions eased in the summer months, music venues remain closed for the foreseeable future.
While the year may be over, the pandemic is not, as its second and deadlierwave continues to ravage not only the city, but the country. As outlined in the state’s guidelines for tiered lockdowns, major concerts and music festivals can only take place in Phase 5, which requires a developed vaccine to prevent the additional spread of COVID-19, a treatment option that “ensures health care capacity is no longer a concern” or no new cases over a sustained period.
And while venues across the country (including those who are members of CIVL, the Chicago IndependentVenue League) have spent months advocating for federal funding to save their businesses, help has yet to come through on a wide scale. This has left most of the city’s longest running and most beloved spaces in danger of permanent closure. With little intervention on the state and federal level, the city may only be left with the sort of corporate venues best known for exorbitant prices and subpar sound systems.
But that has not prevented many venues fromcreating programming and initiatives to support their staffers and the members of their community. From livestream concerts to homebased variety programming to
compilation albums and drive-in shows, the pandemic has forced musicians, venue owners and event creators to think even more outside the box to connect to audiences. And while many of their effortswere supported in the earliest stages of the pandemic and throughout the summer months, the winter may
prove to be more challenging and dire thanwe can imagine.
Music is more than just live shows or album releases or music videos. Music is community. It is a place for people of all stripes to find a home. It is a place for the divas andweirdos and freaks to commune. Music creates connections. It articulates our greatest
ills and grandest joys. It is inherent and entirely human, perhaps our most natural art form. In musicwe find the mimicry of the beating of our hearts. What the city— and the country— has lost in only a few short months will take years to dismantle. Support in theway of fundraisers, album purchases, merch sales and political activism is needed nowmore than ever.
Yet despite all of the challenges, the music could never truly die, not so long as our artists continue to find thewords and sounds to express the thingswe can’t— orwon’t— say. It comes as no surprise then that, minus a fewweeks of delay, new music still happened this year. Some of Chicago’s most talented, charismatic and unique artists released the bestwork of their careers this year. Fromrapper Roy Kinsey’s introspective new LP toNnamdi’s cross-genre plethora of songs, from OHMME’s highly intelligent take on prog rock to Ganser’s abrasive, soul-driven post punk, there was something for every listener imaginable. Some artists, like the progressive pop musicianWyatt Waddell and the soul singer Brandon James, even found fuel in the face of our uprisings.
There is little surprise that all of itwas brilliant for in their songswe hear a resilient spirit that encapsulates what it means to be an artist in Chicago. What the city may lack in opportunity and exposure, it makes up in freedom and grit. It is those two attributes that will surely get the music community, fans and creators alike, through this year like no other.