Coach-hella crazy!

17th April 2012

This evening, I have decided to jump on the Coachella Festival bandwagon. For those who are in the dark, Coachella is a music and arts festival located in the Californian desert, and one which has been the subject of much attention amongst hipsters and young celebs. It has even become a topic of discussion on Christwire (you can read the completely accurate and not at all satirical (or satanical) article here.

Most are posting and watching the video of a Tupac hologram. This seems far removed from the festival scene I have become accustomed to, one which involved music, dj sets and  impressive shows performed by real, live people. Whilst the technological advances are nothing short of spectacular, it is difficult to get beyond the thought that this is transparent money-making (in more ways than one), allowing music moguls to feed off his name through some clever graphics and pre-recorded songs.

It's a weird tainting of the music business. Technology seeps into the way in which music is edited and shared with the masses. It's brought us auto-tuning, Justin Bieber (who's followers call themselves Beliebers. There's no salvation for some) and, when auto-tuning and Youtube are combined, something completely different yet brilliant...like this.

Obviously, it has it's benefits. With people able to share their music in just a couple of clicks, it's never been easier to access whatever music you want, whilst Twitter enables us all to follow our musical idols and find the latest tracks and songs by our favourite artists. But it also means that the deluded masses are able to share their talents too. (Rebecca Black's pre-weekend chant has forever stained that friday feeling for myself and I'm sure many more.)

So, as someone who does not get along with technology (I haven't had a properly working phone since my mobile phone career began way back in the early years of secondary school, and laptop history has hardly been simple either), I'm not looking for holograms to entertain me at festivals. If I wanted an image rather than the real thing, I'd watch a video on Youtube.