I’m continually musing on the reality of the ongoing devaluation of music. Lately I’ve been wondering if this could fundamentally change the core of what music is. Let me explain: for thousands of years, perhaps tens of thousands, music has existed in many forms, but it’s basically been an aural experience e.g. it’s experienced by using your ears. It has of course been combined with visual aspects to produce various forms of musical theater that are both heard and seen. For all I know, at some point someone combined music with various scents or tastes, but those would be niche forms. Music has primarily been about what you hear.

So, maybe this form of music — strictly about the ears — is close to passé. Maybe people are tired of only engaging music on one level. Maybe the next big thing will be multimodal music — music combined with other senses. Obviously, that’s been done — that’s basically what a music video is — but I’m saying this will become the standard, not the exception.

Perhaps we could combine music with certain drugs so that every time the song hits the prechorus, you are injected with adrenaline or something. That sounds like a lot of fun.