Travis Scott Astroworld Tragedy Is a Highlight of an Utterly Lost Music Culture
Eight people died at Travis Scott’s Astroworld festival in Houston Friday night. This transpired after a crowd of around 50,000 rushed the stage, causing a violent stampede. The negligence that caused the deaths and information surrounding the situation is vague at the moment. We won’t speculate as to what exactly happened just yet.
One thing is rather revealing however. This hasn’t really happened before, not to this magnitude. Previous concert tragedies with such deaths often involve fires. So this begs the question, is this indicative of American pop culture currently? Is this indicative of a young Travis Scott crowd unfamiliar with concert customs?
The fact of the matter is, there is no MTV to show young fans or concert organizers what proper, safe concert etiquette is. There is no one in mainstream media discussing how Michael Jackson provided on-sight medical care at his shows. There’s also not any coverage of how metal and hardcore shows take very seriously the safety of their attendees. There is 50+ years of incredible music content and history, not being displayed by any major media outlet. It’s not going to be surprising when the culture is irreparably disconnected and unaware.
Astroworld was clearly another negligent prioritization of money over all else, in a culture lacking proper intelligence of how to carry itself. This isn’t something exclusive to Astroworld in that sense. There’s a large list of festivals that have run through the Covid-19 pandemic obliviously. Point being, the culture and the coverage of all scenes and sounds must return to ensure safety, knowledge and the well-being of music culture in general. In order to do so, it’s going to need a little bit more care, and a little less greed.