Pandemic Aesthetics
We have now been in pandemic mode in the United States for over 7 months. During this time, many of our life patterns have shifted drastically. In particular, the pandemic has changed the ways we listen to and perform music.
Attending a packed-out concert venue seems like a distant fantasy at this point. In lieu of interacting with live performers, some have been turning more frequently to their record collections. On the record covers, we are often offered at least an image of the human faces behind the music. But in the pandemic, even seeing photographs or televised depictions of people without masks can cause us to involuntarily cringe. One instagrammer has solved this problem by providing “masks” for the people pictured in her record collection.
Some are quite humorous, but what sticks out to me about the collection of images on her instagram is how normal some of the masked images appear to be. You could almost imagine flipping through a record collection and not noticing that The Jimi Hendrix Experience had been provided masks. Indeed, our minds have adjusted to the familiarity of seeing others in face coverings; it is no longer visually remarkable in itself to see a masked face.
The mask has also been aestheticized formally on recent album art. Young Dolph actually re-released the cover for his 2017 album Gelato, adding a mask to Black Benjamin Franklin on the cover. The original blinged-out version of 100-dollar Benjamin Franklin revels in gangsta luxury; does the addition of the mask change what the image communicates? Perhaps the mask is meant as yet another luxury accessory (after all, early in the pandemic PPE was scarce in the U.S.), or maybe it just adds another layer of playful irony to the refigured image of Ben Franklin.
Other more recent 2020 releases came out natively masked. One is DaBaby’s album BLAME IT ON BABY. Despite featuring DaBaby in a mask on the cover, the album does not explicitly address pandemic themes in the tracks. In fact, the image of DaBaby in a surgical mask, his eyes downcast, is in tension with the celebration of hedonism the album offers.
Busta Rhymes is also back with a new album released October 29, his first since 2012. In Extinction Level Event 2: The Wrath of God Busta Rhymes directly confronts the apocalyptic mood surrounding the confluence of the pandemic and racial horrors of this year. The provocative album cover features a black and white image of a human skull in a face mask.
The image of the masked face appears to be here for the long haul. Where else have you noticed the mask appearing as a conscious aesthetic choice?
