Taylor Swift Photo Credit: Beth Garrabrant
As the world grew quiet and countries imposed localised or national quarantines and shut down large public gatherings, music has been in a state of flux with new releases postponed, concerts cancelled and many artists describing a sense of creative malaise. For music fans, that joy of liveness became a site of palpable longing. The sweat and thrum of bodies in a pub or concert hall turned into an impossible dream and the sunshine and freshly cut grass served as a reminder of cancelled festivals and the absence of friends. Missing live music is something Rob Sheffield wrote about in a piece called Life Without Live featured in Rolling Stone magazine and I won’t repeat those sentiments here. Instead, I want to reflect on just a small sample of the music that has been produced during lockdown and the way musicians and music fans have adapted to life in lockdown.