"Together At Home": What Artists On The Internet Taught Me During Lockdown

The Global Citizen concert last night was one of the biggest music collaborations ever, I'd say. Anyone in music who's anyone in music was in it (and Jimmy Fallon, ergh). I am biased because, well, you could say I have a career in both pop culture and internet video so I'm going all "ERMERGOD" at anything both Sir Elton John and Billie Eilish are part of. And while I do love my internet video, I did not watch the whole thing. People, I don't have 400odd minutes on a weekend to watch celebs thank health care workers from their villas, even I am bitter about that kind of behaviour. The music, however, made me ponder something very crucial about the Coronavirus: where does artistry come through at such a scientifically, and potentially politically, challenging time?

I am a hypocrite because my own artistry has failed this year. Maybe I was creatively challenged by the shitshow that is this planet in the last few years, and I don't want to be criticizing all the time anymore. This pandemic has made me busier than ever, with no such thing as a work life balance in the absence of a "life". I do realize I have nothing to complain about without being the most privilege person as all I have lost is the freedom to travel to Hawaii and to go to the pub which most people in the world don't even have in the first place. However, the loss of freedom is a crazy experience for me; one that makes me have feeling I didn't know before. And I, unlike artists, have failed to confront them.

To see Elton John blast "I'm Still Standing" painfully reminds me of my emotional inferiority to this man. Maybe comparing oneself to the greatest musician in the world is not a fair comparison but this man, with his ability that is nothing short of a gift, sings a 40-year-old song which suddenly sounds like it was always meant for this moment. His fingers fly over a piano like he's a machine. But he is not a machine that was created to do this for people, HE created it. Now, a thousand years into his career, there he is, STREAMING on YouTube to have people worried, sad and, frankly, fucking screwed, watch for three minutes and focus on nothing but the beautiful feeling associated to hearing his song. It's art, and only shitshows show us just how essential art really is.

Starts 1 min in, ignore the Beckhams who thank, you guessed it, the health care workers... 

This whole concert showed me a new face of music, arguably one I already knew, but never on this scale: We often speak about how music is personal, even if you haven't written the song, how it's what it means to YOU what matters, but every single song in this eternal celebrity carnival was written WITHOUT a global pandemic in mind. "You can't always have what you want", eh? Decades of truth suddenly in a whole new light. Man, I remember being a teenager thinking "how dumb is the song "Wake me up when September ends"", and now I wake up to that exact thought every morning. How did this happen: I suddenly respect Billy Joe Armstrong for his contribution to my day!

But the artistic exploration of my feelings around lockdown do not end there: I went on to watch The Phantom of the Opera from the Royal Albert Hall which Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber decided to broadcast on YouTube for free for two days. I know what you're thinking: it has to be lived in person, it's just not the same on a screen. I've seen it in person twice and I know this fully well, but that's not really possible right now, is it? But because there is a light in every darkness, this show was available to every kid from Armenia to Zanzibar for free, while even I, privileged white kid with a tech job, never had access to that STUNNING performance. I know nothing about musical theater but I know that The Phantom of the Opera is one of the best things ever written. I know that - and now 11 Million more viewers. This weekend alone.

Despite knowing the Phantom inside out, making Lloyd Webber appear almost superhuman to me, this masterpiece gets me where I didn't know I had hairs to stand up on my body. This superhuman ability I celebrate him for is a skill I, as a wannabe artist that would be lucky to have just an ounce of the emotional spectrum of someone who makes something so beautiful, deeply admire. "Softly" he says "music shall caress you. Hear it, feel it secretly possess you." Is this what's happening to me right now? And as if it wasn't relevant enough yet, the Phantom goes on to literally express what I feel, deep inside, behind my gut in whatever part of my body that beats out these absolutely horrendous quarantine feelings: "Open up your mind, let your fantasies unwind, in this darkness which you know you cannot fight!" Whatever I do in life, I will most likely never write a sentence so universally true for people ranging from a phantom in a dungeon and every thirty-something spoiled kid caught in a global pandemic.

I have discovered feelings brought to me the moment an amazing human being succeeds in making their feelings something beautiful. I can't even decide yet what I feel about this whole spiel. Am I sad? I don't know. Am I frustrated? Wouldn't really say that. What is this anxiety they all talk about, do I have it, too? I am finding nothing but disgraceful prose for my own feelings because I lack the ability these amazing artists already nailed: the ABILITY to feel all that. I might find the words once I have decided how I feel. I dread tomorrow when my therapist asks me "how I'm doing", a question I never had an answer for and hence always disliked. But for once I actually feel like I can find the teachers I need: musicians, filmmakers, actors, painters. And then, ultimately, I will have to become them.

Quite literally one of the best moments of my life!

I dare you to listen to it with quarantine in mind. Incredible!