Madelyn Baum

13 December 2018

Dr. Taylor

Honors Reading Seminar

Retromania

The first text that we read this semester was Retromania by Simon Reynolds. The book

tackled a lot of key themes in regards to music. The theme or idea that I found the most

interesting was that there is no such thing as new music. Basically the idea that all music is

stemming from a genre, album, song, artist that already exists. There is no new music. I don’t

know that I believe this idea to this extremity, but I do recognize his idea thoroughly. In my

opinion, music that is multiple things that are unoriginal brought together is in itself original.

This is because no one has put these things in that order before, therefore it is original.

I would contradict his idea with an example like Hamilton- A New American Musical.

Lin Manuel Miranda took a genre- musical theatre- and flipped it on it’s head with hip hop, R

and B, rap, etc. He mixed all of these things together to tell the story of Alexander Hamilton. The

result? Huge hype over the show and people who are not normally theatre goers, are brought in

by the inclusion of other genres.

In conclusion, I agree with Reynolds to an extent. Our “new” music does stem from old

creations. However, it is all about the presentation of such that effects its originality. There is

something new to be created, just not necessarily from scratch.