It's a huge relief that 2016 is finally over. It was a strange year, and it felt like I couldn't open my laptop or look at Facebook without reading about another bad thing happening. Here's hoping 2017 is a more positive, happier year, although sometimes thinking about the next few months scares and upsets me more than reflecting on the past 12.
2016 was a sad year for nearly every kind of music. David Bowie died just a few days into the new year, and I am still bummed out when I think about it. I was a bit of a latecomer to Bowie. Although I was a casual listener of his biggest hits in college, it wasn't until a few years ago that I dived much deeper into his broad body of work and really fell in love. At the end of 2014, I went to the incredible David Bowie Is retrospective exhibit at Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art and was blown away. I remembered walking through all the rooms, listening to a different song in each, and thinking how lucky we all were to live on the same planet as David Bowie.
I was devastated when he passed away almost a year ago, and that was a strange feeling for me because I've never been the kind of person to get too bent out of shape. Mostly, it's because I didn't know them personally. Musical artists or actors may have an impact on your life and I completely understand why people form attachments to them. However, in the case of celebrity deaths, it's never really phased me. Ultimately, while these people clearly have an influence on your life, it's just not the same as losing a friend or family member. Perhaps I thought that way because I had never really lost a musician that meant a great deal to me.
I feel far more attachment to musicians than actors because it's easier to make a connection with music. I still have to remind myself that whatever my interpretation of a song or album is or what it means to me, the artist may have had completely different intentions.
Our notions of celebrity have changed drastically since the birth of the Internet. You can have so much more insight into these people who interest you. Many celebrities maintain an active social media presence. Besides that, the Internet makes celebrities. Musicians can even get their starts on YouTube these days.
Despite sympathizing with losses (Prince was another really hard one for me this year), I have been getting kind of sick of people conflating celebrity deaths and 2016 being a crappy year. Yes, it's sad that we didn't make it through the year with some musicians and actors that we enjoyed, but that's not why 2016 was a bad year. Personally, I was far more rocked by this dumpster fire of an election, and even then, I have been trying to step back and tell myself that it isn't a reflection on my personal accomplishments in the past year. But when you have a year when so many people die and it's virtually impossible to escape the hot political mess, it's really easy to add all those things up and write it off as a bad year.
Because we essentially have more celebrities these days, this kind of thing is probably going to become more common. My hope for 2017 is that we keep this in perspective. While ideally, I'd appreciate it if no more of my favorite musical legends die, I think it's important to grieve and move forward rather than let these deaths be what defines your entire year. Even though David Bowie is no longer with us, I like to think of the title of the MCA exhibit. The things he meant to me are still there.
