The Endless Refrain: Memory, Nostalgia, and the Threat to New Music

by David Rowell

A veteran music critic and record reviewer illustrates how digital culture has throttled and debased popular music

In The Endless Refrain, former Washington Post writer and editor David Rowell goes deep into the psychology of the average listener – as well as the algorithms that function as today’s tastemakers – to explore the devastating effects that technology has on musicians and fans alike.

Making an incisive analysis of the economic and technological forces behind the rise of Napster, Pandora, Spotify, and iTunes, Rowell examines how contemporary currents of music consumption and production shut the doors on the organic creation of new music and trapped us in a whirlpool of repetition and stale nostalgia.

Combining personal memoir, interviews, industry research, and good old-fashioned critical passion, Rowell’s book is a pungent indictment of a music culture gone awry, crippled by nostalgia and subverted by the sinister hive minds of the internet.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Criticism

272 pages, Paperback

Published November 12, 2024

About the author

David Rowell is an editor at The Washington Post Magazine and has taught literary journalism at American University. He lives in Silver Spring, Maryland with his wife and their two sons. The Train of Small Mercies is his first novel.

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars.

This subject is something I've thought a lot about: the stranglehold nostalgia has had on popular culture and its ruinous effect on creators. We're in the age of anodyne, formulaic art because nobody is allowed to take chances or do anything the algorithm might forbid, ensnaring us in a loop of the same familiar, pre-approved songs and pointless remakes and and on and on. Everything is intellectual property now. Everything is mere content. It's very depressing.

It is taken almost as a truism that most art (music, specifically) was "better" or "more real" back in 19xx than it is now -- check the YouTube comment section of any popular song written more than 30 years ago for testimony* -- but that elides the fact that A) there is plenty of good, adventurous music being made today, but B) the ecosystem to get people to hear it is no longer there, and C) what counts as "popular" art has never been more ephemeral (The #1 song in America for most of the 2nd half of 2024 was a country-rap confection by someone named Shaboozey, and I guarantee this song will have no staying power or long-term relevance whatsoever. Cultural mist.) If people aren't exposed to new, interesting music through the old delivery systems, they are not going to do the work of seeking it out.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, most people of a certain age are content to pay top dollar to relive their youths by attending concerts of artists that peaked 40 years and several face lifts ago and are consigned to playing the same 15 songs in perpetuity (and beyond, now that hologram shows are in the works!), with not one note diverging from the record that's as familiar to us as our mother's voice. Don't give me the new material you've been working on, buster, just give me the hits that were playing when I lost my virginity to Ruthie Ann Hawkins in the back of my dad's Chrysler, pleaseandthankyou!

Rowell diagnoses the problem and finds enough people to confirm that their musical antennae came down two decades ago and they stopped accepting further input. Some of this is OK Boomer stuff. But I kept waiting for a second-level analysis, the real implications of what an artistic environment we will not allow to evolve portends for all of us, culturally, spiritually, even politically.

All of that is outside the purview of Rowell's breezy narrative, which admittedly feels like it should have been a magazine piece or essay but was stretched out into a full-length book. I would have liked to read the version of this book written by John Jeremiah Sullivan or David Foster Wallace.

*In between the usual "This is when singers had talent" or "No autotune here!", the comment sections for these songs often turn into a virtual cemetery, a gloomy roll call of children who died prematurely or boyfriends who were killed in Vietnam, etc. Really puts a damper on "Sugar Sugar".

[Martin Maenza · Rating 4 out of 5]

Melville House Publishing provided an early galley for review.

I am very much a music junkie. My personal digital library has tens of thousands of tracks in it. I very much enjoy variety.

Yet, as Rowell discusses in his book, I often tend to gravitate towards certain eras of music. I'll spend a good block of time on a specific music decade (both in my playlist listens and in the car via satellite radio). The familiar is comforting and connected to memories of the past.

On the other hand, I do my best to try to stay current with new music as well. As collection developer for my library branches' adult CDs, it is important that I am up on newer artists and releases to best serve my patron base. Occasionally I will discover new artists that I enjoy and will want to add to my music mix. But, as Rowell points out, those tend to not get as exhaustive of listens like I did with albums back in the day.

The book itself has three major sections, bookended by an introduction and conclusion. While I might have preferred that the meat of the discussion to have been broken up into smaller subchapters, I understand why the author went with the approach he did. Like albums of old, this is meant to be consumed fully as an entity rather than parts that could be jumped around or skipped. Since I tend to listen to my music as album plays, I respect that choice.

In the end, this is not a book for answers but instead to leave the reader with questions about how and why we consume the music that we do.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

My thanks to NetGalley and Melville House Publishing for an advance copy of this book that looks at how and why people listen to music, the songs that remind them of the best times, even when played not by the original singers, and in some cases not even by humans.

During COVID I found that a person who used to be my manager at the music store had opened up his own place a few states away. After things calmed down, I went for a trip to see him and see his store. Walking in was like walking in to the store I used to work at. The posters featured the same bands, the setup was close, smaller, but still organized the same. The music playing was exactly what would have been playing if he was working. I felt like I had fallen into a time tunnel, though the air was a lot less funky. In catching up I found that his music taste hadn't really changed much. A few new bands, but except for the receding hairlines, I felt that were continuing a conversation from 1993. I love music. I came to it late, starting in middle school, maybe high school. I still feel I am catching up on music, and yet I continue to look for new sounds. Maybe it was because I was a person who liked songs that made me happy when it rained. Many of the people I know are not like this. They seemed to find a musical endpoint, and stopped. This has always been something I wondered about, and it seems so did David Rowell. A long time music journalist for the Washington Post has written a book about music, The Endless Refrain: Memory, Nostalgia, and the Threat to New Music, about what the music industry has done wrong, what streaming continues to do, what the future holds, and why do people feel they aren't making songs like the used to.

The book is broken into three sections Why people don't seem to care about new music, the rise of the cover bands, and the future of touring with holograms, allowing the dead, Grateful or other, to continue singing there songs till the world ends. The first section deals with the fact that new music doesn't seem to have any lasting power. This includes bands from this century, and the previous. I remember years ago a comic strip about a band playing a song that people were weeping over, the next panel saying this is from our new record, and the last panel being an empty arena. This seems very common. Rowell even starts the chapter asking if people want new music anymore. Rowell shows that the viewers for both the Grammys and the MTV music awards are down. Big acts come out with new albums that disappear on the charts, while Greatest Hits collections continue to sell. Rowell looks at the industry, particularly streaming, but finds that many in the industry don't want to talk about this, though they are interested in the subject. Rowell looks at the rise of cover bands, and how people seem to want those songs that spoke to them, the songs that remind people of the better times, while drinking their vodka drink or whiskey drink, just to quote Chumbawamba. And the idea of hologram rock stars, ones who will never burn out or fade away, singing familiar songs in thousands of venues from Vegas to Dubai.

I really enjoyed this book as Rowell seemed to have the same questions I have always had. Why? I knew people who loved music, and yet they seem to hit a certain year, and that's it. Yes one has responsibilities, and life does get in the way, but their music seems to be their Glory Days, and the idea of trying something new seems like such an anathema to people. Many say people don't know how to write songs, or why even bother. Music to paraphrase one women seems to begin and end with Journey. Rowell is a very good writer, and is able to talk to people musicians in cover bands, fans, other critics, even a person at McDonald's about why all the songs we seem to hear in public are from the 20th century. Rowell does not inject himself, though you do get an idea what he is thinking. And one can tell he loves music, not only his favorite band Yes, but all kinds of music, and that is really apparant in the writing.

One of my favorite music books, one that made me wonder about people I knew, and come up with some answers. Working in books it has taken me a long time to just admit to myself that not every book is for me. Let others enjoy something. Music I guess is the same thing. Though I will never understand cover bands. A book that people who love music didn't know they needed, and one that really asks a lot of questions. Not only about music, but what people might need in their lives. This modern world might be a little too much, maybe the world needs a a power ballad to get us through.

[Jesse · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little disappointing, in my book. Main argument is about how "we" don't listen to new music anymore, which turns out to mean "people roughly in my age and demographic." Not teenagers.. No clue about twentysomethings. Are "we" racially diverse? Hard to tell--he mostly ends up talking to his friends, and to the people involved in the tribute-band circuit (shockingly, fans of Journey tribute bands don't evince much curiosity about or interest in what's going on today), and to those making holograms of Frank Zappa and Ronnie James Dio. So, yeah: people around my age mostly know what they like, and just listen to that. (I know a bunch of rock critics, and they're pretty uniformly around my age and endlessly ready to listen to new stuff. Heck, X-gau is in his 80s, and he's still listening to everything new that comes down the pike.)

The good stuff here is impressionistic, and good at that--he works at a local McDonald's and goes through their daily playlist (all 80s all the time) and talks to the programmer in charge about why. He's quite sympathetic to the guys in the Journey tribute band he embeds with (turns out Journey is, according to one site that tracks interest/revenue/searches, the #2 tribute-band source, trailing only the Beatles) and notes how they came out of bands that mostly didn't make it, which gets back to the point about how labels don't want to promote stuff that won't sell, which kills a lot of new bands, which consigns talented musicians to doing their best to evoke Steve Perry or Tom Petty or John/Paul/George/Ringo endlessly (wonder how that Perrotta novel about the wedding singer holds up?). But it's never systematic enough for my taste: I wanted him to talk to people at labels, and streaming companies, and crunch some numbers (Chris Molanphy does this all the time on his podcast, talking about how every band has essentially one song that becomes THE song from their catalogue; so the info is out there). But instead it's just anecdotes, not even anecdata. He also doesn't offer much historical context; some people he talks to suggest that it has always been so, and he's like, huh, maybe. A more interesting book would have dug into that--how did people who gobbled up new music in 1967 respond to punk? how did they feel about New Wave? Going to bet that most of them did not, in fact, rejoice over the existence of Duran Duran or the Clash as excitedly as they did over the Moody Blues. Or New Waves with grunge? THAT would have been worth exploring. But no: "We" don't listen to new stuff, unlike, you know, somebody before us, possibly.

Most interesting to me is the larger metaphysical question: he points out that you don't read the same books over and and over, and you probably don't eat what you ate when you were 16 or 18. So why would you listen to the same music? Which raises the larger question of what music fundamentally is, right? I don't think you can really compare music and books; the time investment for the former is so much smaller, and even for me, a ludicrously dedicated reader, the emotional connections are much stronger, especially because music is a social institution. Reading is almost always atomized and individualistic, whereas our most memorable musical cathexes soundtrack a shared experience--I still remember how excitedly I hopped into the car that was taking me, my 11th-grade girlfriend, and the people we were double-dating with to the fancy ($8 entrees! big spending in 1983!) dinner at the Mr. Greenjeans at the White Plains Galleria that awaited us in lieu of the prom, because We Were Being Alternative. And "Hungry Like the Wolf" was playing, and I thought, "I will never forget this moment as long as I live."

And so I have not. Or all the rap I listened to when I moved to the East Bay in 1988 for grad school, and I wanted to feel myself to be a different person now, someone who was down and who connected with my undergrad students because I could immediately finish the PE lyrics they quoted at me. But I'm not 16 or 22 anymore, and I have other things in my life that fill those emotional spaces, define and shape and locate me. And it's not like all I listen to is the music I liked when I was 16--a lot, actually, is music I wish I had liked when I was 16 or 24, and I buy stuff from Bandcamp fairly often.

So, anyway, yeah: Good impressionistic stuff, funny one-liners, not enough real research for my taste.

[Kim McGee · Rating 4 out of 5]

After reading this book I feel like the author just caught me singing along to an 70's or 80's tune (and maybe dancing a bit) while grocery shopping and I wouldn't be alone. We hunger for those comfort songs of our youth and because of that we will pay money to see tribute bands over testing the waters listening to new music. David Rowell investigated the phenomenon of tribute band mania in Southwest Florida (which happens to be a tribute band mecca) and spoke with concertgoers and performers. It may be the only part of the music industry that is thriving thanks to our unlimited ability to stream anything we want and unlike the past we don't spend our hard earned money on new cds or vinyl.
The next layer in the music concerts gets help from technology in the form of holograms which enable artists long gone to perform with musicians of today. Wonder what AI will come up with for tomorrow's next big thing? Interesting subject and his laidback writing style makes for an easy and enjoyable read. My thanks to the publisher for the advance copy.

[Lee Barry · Rating 3 out of 5]

If everything we’ve ever created in the last century is now accessible in some way as one big data set, couldn’t this be a new way for artists to “play along with records” and find their own voice in the process? Yes and no. Yes in the sense of discovery of new things to listen to, and no, because making music with just a guitar or piano is a different animal, and I’m not sure that once you have the jukebox there’s a desire to make one of the records in it from scratch by recording tracks in a studio with instruments and microphones. The internet is now the instrument, so it stands to reason that nostalgia is in everything. What Rowell misses is that there is always innovation, but it is typically through experimentation, as it was in the 60s and 70s. That’s where the new work would come from, but I don’t see that anyone would want to do that at this point with AI as the replacement for the cassette Portastudio from the 80s. What someone would do now is create its effect with an app.

[anthony · Rating 3 out of 5]

as much a book about aging as it is the music industry. in that sense, despite the inherent intrigue of how technology is actively infantilizing our relationship with music, this reads largely as a sort of anthropologic study into music and nostalgia rather than an overarching look at the death of new music.

this is punctuated by the fact that, despite its recency, the book makes surprisingly zero mention of AI. the idea of AI-generated music arose as early as 2020 (my very anecdotal evidence for this was a memory of the discourse surrounding the release of a song at the time by “travis bott”—a supposedly-AI version of travis scott), so this book already feels dated with how trends in the music industry have shifted, especially with spotify’s recent embrace of AI artists and streaming’s business model of endless derivation.

[Nikolas Mavreas]

Refreshingly, in The Endless Refrain, David Rowell holds not that “today’s music” is dead or bad or derivative, but only that it is ephemeral. Pop music has always generally been that, of course, though there is a significant portion from the previous century that remains popular today. Rowell believes that older pop and rock songs have assumed a place in popular culture and imagination that their more recent counterparts have largely failed to achieve, through no fault of their own.

You can read my review on Open Letters:

https://openlettersreview.com/posts/t...

[Janet · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author doesn't really make his case, however, as an aging music loving boomer who often rails against "classic rock" (I definitely want to hear new music), I found this book extremely interesting. His thesis, that the popularity of old music (and he really seems to be referring to mostly 80's music that he feels is over played, contrary to my peers who seem to focus on 60's and 70's) is negatively affecting new music. He doesn't really give much evidence, but the anecdotes are interesting, even if he spends a bit too much time on the phenomenon of tribute bands. If you love music (old and new) there is enough here to hold your interest, and it certainly make for good discussions.

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty great. The concept overall was interesting and I think is probably true. The writing was really solid, a good investigation of the topic. The first section (of 3) was what I expected the entire book to be about. So when it dives into the life of a Journey cover band for 100 pages then the future of holographic musicians for another 100, I was thrown for a bit of a loop. But after finishing both sections, I understood why they were included.

Mostly, a likeable author, solid writing, and an interesting premise to explore.

[Ted]

A small note - the author, in describing a crowd being wowed by a hologram of Ronnie James Dio, details the enthusiastic fans as pumping their fists with the "Dio horn". I think what he is describing is more along the lines of a "hang loose" hand gesture - a decidedly different message to send.

Though picturing a crowd of Dio fans pumping their "hang loose" fists to the metal riffs offers an unintended, but quite hysterical image.

[Clint Hannah-Lopez · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know if this book ever fully deals with or supports the argument that new music is truly under threat (any more than every industry ever due to the general artistic issues ongoing within our broader capitalist society), but I enjoyed a lot of the anecdotal stories. In particular the focus on the cover band industry and hologram industry was a really interesting look into two areas I'm pretty hesitant on already. Enjoyable read.

[Callum Bennett · Rating 3 out of 5]

Didn't really go where it said it would go. Good point to it all though. WHy am I 20 and I know the lyrics to Fleetwood mac songs??? I bought it annoyed at the fact that I know fleetwood mac songs but last night what do i know i put them on in the shower

[Bradley Morgan]

My interview with the author for the New Books Network: https://newbooksnetwork.com/the-endle...

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun read, although I'm not sure there was much of a resolution to the subject.

[Vernon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fun, well researched, and well argued presentation on how nostalgia for music is so much stronger than any other medium.

[D.J. Desmond · Rating 2 out of 5]

brother was kinda yappin

learned about muzak

meh