| When a crowd surges, the force can be strong enough to bend steel. |
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"You will be missed": A memorial for Astroworld victims outside NRG Park, Houston, Nov. 7, 2021.
(Alex Bierens de Haan/Getty Images)
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“When a crowd surges, the force can be strong enough to bend steel.”
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Thinking About Houston
Three days later, there's little we can say for sure about the unimaginable tragedy Friday night in Houston—how it happened, why it happened, who's to blame, who's not to blame, how to make sure it never happens again, so many questions we can't help but ask even if we understand it's too soon for good answers. We know this: It was a devastating, horrifying, human tragedy. And we know it was not, in fact, unimaginable. Anyone who's ever been to a crowded concert can probably imagine the possibility in one way or another, maybe *has* imagined the possibility, and history has provided ample warning for anyone in the live music business to understand that in fact it does happen.
There's a human impulse to try to explain the unexplainable, to make sense of the senseless, which I think is the reason for all the videos that went viral this weekend of artists ordering unruly crowds to calm down, or threatening to stop playing, or otherwise intervening in a situation that looks like it's about to get out of hand. This is, without question, exemplary behavior, LINKIN PARK, worthy of applause and virality. But I'm not sure how we're meant to apply this undated minute-long clip of a rock band addressing its audience to a different performer in front of a different crowd in a different situation in a different era, and whether its retweeters and likers knew that TRAVIS SCOTT did stop performing a few times Friday night. Could he have done more? Maybe? "The one person who can really call for and get a tactical pause when something goes wrong is that performer," Houston's fire chief told the New York Times. "They have that bully pulpit and they have a responsibility." The performer, fire chief SAMUEL PEÑA said, could have stopped the show. But other Houston officials said they specifically didn't want to stop the show because they feared it could lead to a riot. The questions are easy; the answers are not.
We know something of Travis Scott's history of troublesome concerts; we also know how much Houston and Astroworld meant to him, how much he's done for the city, and that he'd successfully staged several Astroworlds before. We know plenty of people in the rapidly deteriorating moshpit did everything they could to help people around them, and that others didn't, or didn't notice. We know questions have been raised about the preparedness of security and medical personnel. We don't know the answers to those questions. We know one of the essential characteristics of huge crowds is that they are in fact crowds, capable of acting like a singular organism separate from any individual in them. Sometimes literally no one is in control. A surging crowd "can be strong enough to bend steel."
The best coverage I read this weekend was from several reporters and teams at the Washington Post. Here's the Post digging into security and production issues and putting Scott's own background into context. Here's an impressive attempt to apply forensics to the video clips the world has been sharing. And here's the best piece I read by anyone, music critic CHRIS RICHARDS' attempt to explain what can't be explained by adding the crucial context of how concerts and festivals and crowds normally work, or don't, and what it's like to actually be in a crowd at a show. Richards adds this devastating kicker: "I have attended scores of music festivals over the years—different styles of music, different cities, different crowds of different ages and different sizes. Here’s what a lot of them have in common: They don’t make attendees feel particularly cared for. Waiting areas can feel like holding pens. Bottles of water can cost more than $5. Restroom facilities can range from gross to filthy. And yet, people are expected to respect one another in a space that doesn’t respect them."
And yet, Richards notes, people do. What would happen if the concerts and festivals themselves treated people better? "All eyes," he writes, "should now shift to Live Nation, the multinational concert promotion behemoth behind Astroworld, as well as more than 40,000 shows and more than 100 other festivals worldwide each year. Live Nation clearly has the resources to improve its music festival infrastructure, and it must."
MusicSET: "Tragedy at Astroworld."
Rest in Peace
Brazilian pop icon MARÍLIA MENDONÇA, a sertanejo singer known as "the queen of suffering." She was killed in a plane crash on the way to a concert Friday night... Reggae toaster TERENCE "ASTRO" WILSON, a founding member of UB40 who in recent years had performed with the splinter group UB40 Featuring Ali Campbell and Astro... 808 State bassist/keyboardist/plus ANDREW BARKER... Up-and-coming San Diego rapper YUNG KECE, at least the 20th hip-hop artist murdered in the US this year... And the eight souls who lost their lives at Astroworld, seven of whom have been identified: Western Washington University computer science major AXEL ACOSTA, who had flown from Washington state to see his first Travis Scott concert; DANISH BAIG, who died while trying to protect his fiancé from the crowd crush; 14-year-old high school freshman and baseball player JOHN HILGERT; Southern Illinois University Carbondale journalism and adverstising student JACOB E. JURINEK; University of Dayton engineering student FRANCO PATINO; Laredo College criminology student RUDY PEÑA, and Houston high school student and drill dancer BRIANNA RODRIGUEZ.
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| Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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The Washington Post |
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| The Astroworld tragedy is impossible to understand, even if you’ve spent a lifetime in crowds |
| by Chris Richards |
| It's difficult to find any clear meaning in the lethal chaos that unfolded at the Astroworld music festival in Houston on Friday night. Eight young people died in a crush between euphoria and panic, and now we want to know how it happened, and where to place blame, and how to prevent it from happening again. |
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Complex |
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| ‘There Were People All Around Me Screaming’: Firsthand Accounts of the Astroworld Tragedy |
| by Andre Gee |
| Attendees share stories of overcrowding, panic, and injuries caused by crowd surging. |
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Los Angeles Times |
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| Marilyn Manson's accusers detail his alleged abuse. 'He's so much worse than his persona' |
| by August Brown and Suzy Exposito |
| Court records reviewed by The Times and nearly two dozen interviews portray Manson as a transgressive artist who mistreated and isolated women. |
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Music Trades |
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| Will The Guitar Boom Outlast COVID? |
| by Brian T. Majeski |
| Stay at home orders drove record guitar sales, but what happens when the pandemic subsides and life returns to normal? |
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SPIN |
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| Days of the Dead |
| by Jeff Weiss |
| What Dead & Company means in 2021. |
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kill yr idols |
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| The Format Wars |
| by George Grella |
| How do you like your music to be served when listening at home? |
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The New York Times |
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| Marília Mendonça, Brazilian Pop Singer, Dies in Plane Crash at 26 |
| by Vimal Patel and Flávia Milhorance |
| Ms. Mendonça, who was a social media sensation with millions of followers, was iconic in a type of Brazilian country music called sertanejo. |
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The Washington Post |
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| Astroworld Festival disaster is the latest fatal concert crowd surge. Experts say it won’t be the last. |
| by Timothy Bella |
| While authorities investigate how the festival turned fatal, experts told The Washington Post that despite a long history of stampedes at concerts, crowd surge incidents continue to occur as calls for tighter safety standards go largely ignored. |
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The Associated Press |
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| EXPLAINER: Here is why crowd surges can kill people |
| by Stan Choe |
| When a crowd surges, the force can be strong enough to bend steel. |
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The Undefeated |
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| 30 years after Magic’s diagnosis, a look at the intersection of hip-hop and the HIV/AIDS pandemic |
| by C. Brandon Ogbunu |
| Were hip-hop lyrics influenced by Johnson, Eazy-E’s death and the arrival of the lifesaving drug cocktail? |
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Slate |
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| How ABBA Went From Rock’s Enemy to One of Our Most Influential Acts |
| by Carl Wilson |
| The Swedish superstars were once considered a fad. 40 years later, they’re as popular as ever. |
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The Ringer |
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| How Céline Dion Conquered the World--but Not the Critics--With ‘My Heart Will Go On’ |
| by Rob Harvilla |
| Exploring the megahit from ‘Titanic,’ which was both too much and not enough. |
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The Tennessean |
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| 40 years of 'no B-sides' with John Prine's Oh Boy Records |
| by Matthew Leimkuehler |
| For one independent Nashville music institution, middle age never looked better. |
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The Guardian |
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| Who is Daniel Johns?: the hit podcast untangling Silverchair’s enigmatic frontman |
| by Andrew P. Street |
| With unprecedented access to a star who is notoriously averse to media, the Spotify series reveals the traumatic cost of early fame. |
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Billboard |
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| How Hits by Drake, Ye & More Get Released Before Songwriter Pay Splits Are Settled |
| by Kristin Robinson |
| Billboard explains the common practice of songwriters' exact ownership and royalty percentages getting figured out months after the work is publicly released. |
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NPR Music |
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| Smoke and Fire: How Freddie Gibbs and The Alchemist cooked up a no-compromise classic |
| by Rodney Carmichael |
| After years working separately, Freddie Gibbs and The Alchemist had all the ingredients they needed for a front-to-back classic when they finally linked up to make 2020's "Alfredo." |
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gal-dem |
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| You can’t really win’: the hyper-scrutiny of Black women’s bodies in music |
| by Kayleigh Watson |
| Laura Mvula, Raheaven, Aluna and Lion Babe’s Jillian weigh in on existing as Black women in music, tackling stereotypes, shaming and invisibility. |
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volt.fm |
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| The Definite Guide to Spotify Account Security |
| by Soheil Rashidi |
| Learn how hackers hack Spotify accounts and how to protect your account from ever getting hacked. |
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The Guardian |
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| When the music’s over: how the Annandale Hotel survived a backlash and reclaimed its rock history |
| by Kelly Burke |
| A gentrifier’s decision to throw out the memorabilia from the former Sydney live music venue led to outrage, redemption and a brand new future for the beloved pub. |
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| Music of the day |
| "Figure No. 2" |
| Darius Jones |
| From "Raw DeMoon Alchemy (A Lone Operation)," out now on Northern Spy. |
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YouTube |
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From "Raw DeMoon Alchemy (A Lone Operation)," out now on Northern Spy.
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TV documentary about the Who's tragic 1979 concert in Cincinnati.
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| Music | Media | Sports | Fashion | Tech |
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| CEO & Chief Curator |
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