The Last Portrait
An iconic image from across the decades, a question for musicians and a quick sprint in Norway.
Greetings! You are almost certain to have seen the image in the spotlight today; I looked for some of the elements behind it. And hang around also for a very odd perspective on creating music.
The Last Portrait: a snapshot of fame & intimacy.
Friday Find: Sprinting in Norway.
If Music be the Food of Machines: an AI founder’s take on music
With: A basic question on AI, bus driving in Roblox, PVMA, Tiktok takes.
1. The Last Portrait
“This Is It”.
Those were John Lennon's words when he saw the test shot. Hours later, he would be tragically shot dead.
This week, in 1981, Rolling Stone magazine published what would become one of the most poignant photographs in pop culture history- the intimate portrait of John Lennon and Yoko Ono.
The month before, Annie Leibovitz, arrived on the morning of December 8, 1980 to Lennon & Ono’s New York apartment. One the biggest names in photography, she was there for a Rolling Stone shoot. She began the session with what she came for- solo shots of Lennon. But something wasn't quite right. He appeared thin and tired, and they just weren’t feeling it. Lennon suggested including Yoko in the photograph.
Leibovitz drew inspiration from the couple's "Double Fantasy" album cover she had loved, where they were gently kissing. She thought of them undressed and curled up together. When Leibovitz suggested they be in the nude, Lennon stripped bare immediately. Yoko was less agreeable.
Innocents.
A little detour back in time to 1968. John Lennon and Yoko Ono appeared together for the first time on the cover of Rolling Stone to promote their avant-garde album Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins. We see them naked from behind, but there was full-frontal nudity within the magazine. This was not random. It was from the album, which was already viewed askance for its experimental content, and highly controversial for its provocative cover featuring the couple… you guessed it, nude. There was some outrage, and stories of distributors having to sell it in brown wrappers.
The album's title came from the couple believing they were "two innocents, lost in a world gone mad". Apparently it was after the all-night recording that led to this album, that the two consummated their relationship.
Those photos, though, used a time-delay camera, allowing John Lennon and Yoko Ono to maintain complete privacy during the shoot. Hidden away in Ringo Starr’s basement, it enabled them to capture their unfiltered selves without involving a photographer. They also shared how the results were untouched and intentionally unflattering, emphasising the real over aesthetics. "Two slightly overweight ex-junkies," Lennon had said.
Circumstance.
Back in the Dakota, their apartment, in December 1980.
“I was kinda disappointed”, Leibovitz said about Yoko Ono’s reluctance to disrobe, “just leave everything on.” Yoko lay down in jeans and a black long sleeved t-shirt, her hair sprawled on the floor. Lennon just curled up into her.
The result was immediate. And electric. “It was very, very strong. You couldn't help but feel that she was cold and he looked like he was clinging on to her”, said Leibovitz.* With the first Polaroid shot, all three knew they had something special. "You've captured our relationship exactly," Lennon told her, drawing a promise that it would be the cover shot.
And so we got a naked John Lennon curled around a fully-clothed Yoko Ono- one of music's most enduring portraits.
We like to wonder how creativity happens, how artists can make creativity happen. Sometimes, it is about the universe conspiring to bring elements together in just that certain way, elements we enable but whose end we can't quite foresee. The greatness of Annie Leibovitz, the vulnerability of Lennon, the iconic couple, it was all there. But together, and with what was to follow, it was to transcend celebrity portraiture.
Just five hours after the photo session, Lennon was shot and killed, making this portrait his last professional photograph. On January 22, Rolling Stone ran the haunting image (sans headline) as its cover.
Leibovitz has spoken of how context can bestow meaning and add layers. "It's actually an excellent example of how circumstances change a picture. Suddenly, that photograph has a story. You're looking at it and thinking it's their last kiss, or they're saying goodbye. You can make up all sorts of things about it. I think it's amazing when there's a lot of levels to a photograph." It is almost like the photograph inherits a story, while also creating one.
Yet, Leibovitz captured something profound; the portrait of John and Yoko became a snapshot of vulnerability, love, fame, intimacy and tragic timing, all frozen in one perfect frame.
Addendum
“You couldn't help but feel that she was cold and he looked like he was clinging on to her.” I was curious about this quote. I first read it as he was cold and clung on to her, and presumed a typo. But on searching, it appears Leibovitz indeed said she. Thats an interesting take, if she felt Yoko looks emotionally cold. Maybe pensive, even a little distant or in some other place, but ‘cold’ feels… harsh?
I did venture to listen to the experimental album Two Virgins as I finished writing this. It is, erm… very experimental.
2. Friday Find: Run!
Feel the stress of an impending train departure colliding with something forgotten at home meets having to race back for it. It all comes together in this great spot from Norway.
Mentioning the brand would be… doing the spot a disservice. So, watch it first?
Now, these do have a striking similarity to the ‘RuPay’ ads in India last year (1, 2), which is a similar service too. But there are some key difference in the approach, and the overall aesthetic and impact is quite different too.
3. If music be the food of love…
…I can’t be arsed to cook?
Over in the school of 'let's dismiss creative endeavour' school, we have Mikey Shulman, the CEO and founder of the AI music generator company Suno AI. Suno has been an early player in the gen AI music space, with powerful demos causing excitement since 2023. They have since been sued for copyright infringement, predominantly for using copyrighted works to train their AI model without proper authorization or compensation to the original creators.
Shulman argues musicians don't actually like making music. "We didn't just want to build a company that makes the current crop of creators 10 percent faster or makes it 10 percent easier to make music. If you want to impact the way a billion people experience music you have to build something for a billion people," he said recently on a podcast. "And so that is first and foremost giving everybody the joys of creating music and this is a huge departure from how it is now."
It’s not really enjoyable to make music now […] It takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of practice, you need to get really good at an instrument or really good at a piece of production software. I think the majority of people don’t enjoy the majority of the time they spend making music.
This is a remarkable take from the leader of a self-claimed company that has a “deep love and respect for music”.
But pause for a moment or three, and you know his stance is hardly surprising- he's a tech entrepreneur whose business model depends on convincing people that AI can (and should) replace creative human effort. In his world, I should feel that using Suno makes me a musician, not a prompt engineer. It also seems to utterly discount the hundreds of thousands of musicians who do put in those hard yards, those countless hours. And without romanticising it too much, their reasons are generally rooted in a love for their craft. Not to mention that their hours of learning and creating have enabled the likes of Suno to (without permission) train their models. This virtually acknowledged copyright infringement is something they are, of course, defending in court right now.
Also interesting is his vision for what music should become. In his ideal future, music should be viewed through the lens of the video games industry. “Nobody half plays video games the same way people kind of put on music in the background. I want to make music more like a video game”.
Game on? I don’t know. He wants to make music interactive entertainment? Music interacts with me, sure- it speaks to my soul. Not everything needs to level up.
Good summary of the podcast here.
4. Quickie: What are we solving for, anyway?
Do read a short, considered, sincere and non-antagonistic post, in which Taylor Cox argues that AI is not simply a transaction.
In a world that has emphasized and achieved convenience and speed to a level already beyond anything we could have imagined a generation ago... what is the result? Are we happier? Less anxious? More capable? More connected? Better compensated? Or are we depressed and angry and divided and overworked and struggling to make ends meet?
Will more speed and convenience fix it? "
This part did resonate, while he also touches upon environment, cognition and misinformation in his take. Have a quick read.
Masala Peanuts
(where I share stories or tidbits I find interesting).
Read: A millennial learns to drive a bus on Roblox. Bus enthusiasts in Singapore have designed experiences in Roblox to simulate real-life bus driver training.
A Viral Typo: PUMA pulled off something clever in India recently when they "accidentally" changed their logo to PVMA, getting some chatter about the apparent mistake. Of course, it was all planned. The brand used this subtle change to announce badminton star PV Sindhu as their ambassador.
Read: There Was Nothing Ever Unique About TikTok And I Can Prove It says Adam at Garbage Day, with an interesting analysis that Tiktok is more an amplifier than originator. “Almost everything popular meme on the app either starts elsewhere or gets popular after it moves off the platform”, and “its culture its total dominion creates a culture of discouragement — even fear — of posting anything not on-trend.
Absolutely loved this take on the Tiktok situation last week, from Evgenia Papageorgiou, including “170M Americans spending 2 hours daily watching themselves watch themselves worry about not being able to watch themselves. This isn't just inception - it's the ultimate expression of our attention economy's ouroboros. A platform potentially being banned for addictiveness has turned its potential ban into... more addictive content.”
Off for a cuppa and finding out who makes it to the Aus Open men’s semis!