A Dark Year for Music

A Dark Year for Music

By: Ghost Writer

“In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present.”

Francis Bacon

If you are just like me, and because you are reading this, you probably are, you love music just like me, because the monumental philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote: "Without music, life would be a mistake", and he wasn’t wrong, music is a big part of my life, I gave up my dream of becoming a composer because I needed more time for my family, it was a hobby, but honestly, I prefer writing, but as a music lover, you now this has been a terrible year for music, it all started with the unexpected death of David Bowie, and amazing pop musician whose death came just a couple of days after the releasing of Blackstar, one of his best recordings ever, and one of the defying records of 2016.

Bowie was a flamboyant music experimentalist who reshaped the course of pop music, some described him, as close in nature to Jimi Hendrix, and it’s weird that in a way, Bowie and Hendrix are big part of the nature of another great musician gone this year, Prince Roger Nelson, the artist formerly known as Prince, just like Bowie, another radical pop music innovator, a man to whom we have to thank some of the most forward thinking music in the pop genre, a fierce composer, a brave performer and a boundless musician not afraid of jumping thru genres in order to come up with some of the most original music of his generation, Prince was a big part of my childhood, in the 80s, his music and videos, ever present, even composing the music to one of my favorite Tim Burton movies, Batman.

And if we talk about boundless music, 2016 also took away two of the most daring music performers you could think of, the great Keith Emerson, and the outstanding Greg Lake, keyboardist and guitarist respectively of the formidable progressive band Emerson, Lake and Palmer, two thirds of the legendary band that took us thru amazing prog trips like Tarkus and Brain Salad Surgery, the playing wizardry of Emerson, perhaps only rivaled by Yes' Rick Wakeman, and Lakes's awesome vocals, that gave a "face" not only to ELP (once rumored to become HELP, with Jimi Hendrix), but also to pioneering prog giants King Crimson.

No one was as fiery on the sax as the late great Albert Ayler, a man known to play his soul in a fearless way thru his saxophone, a couple of successors tried to continue his legacy like the great Pharoah Sanders, Charles Gayle and Peter Brotzmann, even the legendary John Coltrane learned quite a lot of tricks from Ayler, but no one as close to the bone as Argentinean Gato Barbieri, whose incendiary recordings for ESP Disk brought back the magic of Ayler's brutal attack in the early 70s, for a couple of years there was no one as defyiantly dissonat on the sax as the great Barbieri, who died in April, not as the legend he used to be, but with great records behind, nearly unmatched.

In the last days of October, Canadian dark poet Leonard Cohen told us if we "Wanted Darker...", as a poet and a prophet, perhaps he knew what was coming with the arrival of Donald Trump and the post truth world, he left us a couple of days before Trump arrival in November, a great composer who like Bowie was showing that he was still capable of making great and relevant music, Cohen told us he was ready to die, not in the sense of one of the latter Stooges record, but on the truest sense of the words, as he always lived, Bob Dylan might have won the Literature Nobel Prize, showing his ability to jump from music to literature, better be ready, because Cohen was just that type of guy, the one who knows no limits for his art.

As the year comes to an end, another iconic character dies, George Michael, British pop icon and a great musical figure from the 80s, I might not be entirely familiar with Michael's latter musical doings, but his 80s career was always present for me, his music, his videos, his lyrics, Careless Whisper was a painful song for me, a song I, as a rhythm less dancer and a pretty outcast as a young guy, easily identify with.

As I write this, just after Christmas, there's still a week to go for this year, it’s impossible to know if life is keeping us another musical tragedy ahead, this wasn’t definitely a good year for music, but perhaps the dark days ahead might reflect in better music, as hard times always bring us great music, it has to be that way, otherwise, life would be unbearable.