The Greatest of All Time is Soon to Be Forgotten
Most evenings, the kids and I watch music videos before bedtime. When the video is of a band, they ask, “What are their names?”
It is easy to name the members of groups like New Edition, who have a song (“Cool It Now”) in which lead singer Ralph Tresvant specifically names the other members—Ronnie, Bobby, Ricky, and Mike. Similarly, I know that Boyz II Men originally included Nate, Mike, Shawn, and Wanya, but only because they say it in “Motownphilly.”
For most bands, however, I respond to the kids’ question with something like, “The one singing is Michael Jackson. I don’t remember the other names, but you don’t need to know them.” I have also made that statement about groups led by Diana Ross, Smokey Robinson, Justin Timberlake, Beyoncé (controversial take), and Donnie Wahlberg.
The claim that only the most famous band member is worth remembering mirrors Chuck Klosterman’s point, made in the book But What If We’re Wrong?, that time collapses our memories. He writes: “Marching music is a maddeningly durable genre, recognizable to pretty much everyone who’s lived in the United States for any period of time. [...] And this entire musical idiom is defined by one person—John Philip Sousa. Even the most cursory two-sentence description of marching music inevitably cites him by name. I have no data on this, but I’d confidently assert that if we were to spontaneously ask the entire US population to name every composer of marching music they could think of, over 98 percent of the populace would name either one person (Sousa) or no one at all.”
I imagine Sousa’s contemporaries would have argued for their place in history, but time made the counterargument—and won.
After my father passed away, I reviewed his collection of cassette tapes. Most of them were ’70s and ’80s music artists, and I recognized only about half of the names (Exhibit A: Gino Vanelli). Apparently, the music was good enough for my father to have purchased but was not good enough to survive the 10 years of curation to the music worth playing while driving his kids around. Still, he convinced himself that the cassette tapes were a worthy inheritance.
At a lively dinner party recently, a friend argued that 1990–2005 was the best era of music. When another person pointed out that 1990-2005 perfectly overlapped with his teenage and college years, creating a bias, the friend persisted. He could not imagine that his favorite era would be forgotten. But while we—and maybe the music historians—will remember the Kendrick-Drake rap battle this summer and the fun we had talking with our friends about it, our grandkids will not even know who Drake is.
That most people will be forgotten could feel like a sad point, but I think it’s freeing. The urgent and high priority issues at work? Most are part of an unending string of challenges that will be lost to time. The big meeting we’re stressed about because it will help us make a name for ourselves? Probably not a big deal in the long term. If people won’t remember the greatness of Jordan Knight, what makes us think people at work will remember the sacrifices to our wellbeing made to deliver the TPS reports on time?
When faced with opportunities to stay late and build a legacy, it might be better just to go home and enjoy an evening with our favorite soon-to-be-forgotten music artists and the people who will actually remember us.