GET TOGETHER REMINDED ME MODERN MUSIC CAN STILL HIT JUST AS HARD
On Saturday evening, up-and-coming bands took the stage at Get Together Festival in Sheffield. The air buzzed with excitement and that feeling of endless possibilities. For once, nostalgia wasn’t the theme of everything. This is where Get Together nails it every time.
Yet as I sat down to write this, I caught myself slipping into the usual pattern. First thought: “Amazing, fresh bands actually doing something new.” Then straight away the same old question, why do moments like this still feel like the exception when so many of us keep obsessing over long-dead or decades-old icons?
Anniversaries I get. Ian Curtis’s was only yesterday. But when it’s just filler content, come on, there are hundreds of active bands out there who deserve proper articles. The uncomfortable truth is most people still don’t give new music nearly the same attention as the legends. Social media proves it every time.
Scroll the feed and it’s obvious, everyone’s still losing their minds over musicians who died years ago or albums from their own youth. I’ve tested it. Post about Kurt Cobain, Ian Curtis or The Cure? Likes pour in. Post about a fresh band? Good luck getting even one share from your mum.
The legends’ status is untouchable, fair enough. But somewhere along the way the classics became the main course and contemporary stuff got relegated to a side dish. Do you have to die young to get mythologised these days? Why aren’t more people properly excited about bands making brilliant, relevant music right now? And honestly, are music journalists actually doing their job?
Contemporary music is flourishing. New bands are coming up underground and tearing it up at festivals like Get Together constantly. But most articles, podcasts, playlists and docs are still fixated on artists who stopped making new music decades ago or who are dead. It’s the safe play. Dead artists can’t drop a disappointing album or post something that ruins the myth. They’re perfect. Frozen. Marketable as hell.
Nostalgia sells, obviously, that’s why we get endless reissues, anniversary tours and Record Store Day crap. Dead legends can’t sue you, don’t age badly, and won’t mess up the story we built around them. Living ones with big back catalogues still print money easy. But this all comes at a cost: we judge every new band against some idealised golden version of the past.
Take Saturday night. Deadletter showed exactly why that’s bullshit. They’ve evolved from their debut EP into something sharper on Existence Is Bliss, rough edges polished but still vicious as fuck. That saxophone ripping through the crowd while Zac Lawrence spat self-deprecating black humour about digital disconnection, economic nonsense and finding beauty in the chaos. Empathetic and misanthropic at the same time. Nothing safe or predictable.
And they weren’t the only ones. Fat Dog brought pure chaotic electro-punk mayhem, Lime Garden delivered those sharp, addictive hooks that get stuck in your head, and Jessica Winter had the whole place moving with that glitchy energy. Far from alone.
Away from Saturday night The Murder Capital are turning pain into poetry, English Teacher are messing with language and education like it’s forbidden, Fontaines D.C. making urban loneliness feel physical. Globally Kendrick, Billie, Tyler, Rosalía and Burna Boy are still pushing it forward.
So how the hell are the current generation meant to break through when we’re all stuck in retrospective mode? Every glowing Bowie or Curtis anniversary piece takes up space that could go to bands still fighting to “break” in the TikTok million-likes era. The cycle is vicious and self-reinforcing.
We grew up with our rock gods, so it’s easier to pick apart their completed catalogues than follow messy, unfinished careers. Legacy tours pay the bills. New bands might flop. But if we keep this up we’re basically admitting the best music is already behind us. That’s lazy as hell. And pretty stupid.
Sure, we should still respect the past there’s loads to learn from those old bastards. But Get Together kicked me square in the teeth and reminded me modern music can still hit just as fucking hard. My own excitement had been slowly dying after watching way too many bands pathetically impersonating their heroes. Fucking exhausting, honestly. But Deadletter and the others slapped me awake and proved there are bands out there every bit as good, if not better.
Writing about new albums and live shows with the same passion as another reissue anniversary should be standard. Get Together made me face up to my own recent nostalgic bias and probably a lot of other people’s too. First step is admitting it. Because nothing captures the present moment like music does. Time we started paying proper attention.
