Earthstar Mountain, Zach

It's very nice that Hannah Cohen wants to make music. I mean, we all have dreams. She moved to the Catskills, maybe to become more creative, maybe to do something else. Maybe she just likes mountains. And it's true. She does make nice music. It's sweet, it's pleasant. She stands in front of a KCRW crowd and acts enough like a creative waif to be passable. Her backup singer makes a polyamory joke and everyone chuckles. It's all so pretty and easy.

But I don't think it's adding all that much to the world.

I guess that begs the question—does music have to add anything to the world? Is the world some kind of zero-sum game? Are there only a few slots available for the creatives, while everyone else has to earn their daily bread by the sweat of their brow? Or is the potential unlimited, and can people just keep edging in (actually I recently learned what "edging" meant in a very different context), over and over, with no ending.

I'm reading a book about writing by Haruki Murakami. In it, he says there's a relative lack of competition among novelists. He compares novelists to wrestlers in a ring. When a new one comes in, he's seen by the experienced wrestlers not with wary suspicion, but with a healthy eye, to assess whether they'll stick it out. Maybe they'll wrestle one really good bout and then fade away. Maybe they will step out before they even begin. Whatever it is, writing a novel is hard enough that there's enough room for everyone to at least try.

I've never really made music except for a weird cover of "Somebody That I Used to Know" once upon a time, but I've always sensed that music is different. Everyone wants to be a musician. Everyone wants to come out with that album, but not everyone wants to be a writer. In fact, lots of people run far away from writing, as I'm sure the editor of this blog can attest.

Hannah Cohen takes too much credit for herself. If she's working with Sufjan Stevens and Clairo, at least have a band name for yourself! Don't call yourself by your real name! Life under the shadow of moderate anonymity!

So what I'm saying is there isn't much reason for this album to exist. Even though it's good. It's too cute and self-important for its own good.