The fastest song may be the song of our contemporary moment, where the speed of change defies any attempt to index, theorize, or even sing along to. What remains available is the act of leaning in, engaging with, and listening closely to our collective song—a song that demands presence and truth to adequately sing along to. In 2025, contemporary American music embodies this restless motion through a dynamic fusion of genres, cultures, and digital influences, terraforming a volatile landscape for artists, fans, and cultural workers alike. This volatility is driven by structural forces—from technological innovations like artificial intelligence and social media platforms to the pervasive reach of music corporations, including record labels, streaming services, and touring conglomerates. Together, these forces shape not only the sound of contemporary popular music but also how it is accessed, experienced, and valued.

At the same time, the myths and legends surrounding music often romanticize these forces, concealing the difficult financial realities that artists must navigate to sustain their creative expression and livelihoods—both onstage and off. All types of artists—musicians, visual artists, performers, designers, and even fans—engage within and outside of this apparatus. They map out terrains of high and low culture, mainstream and underground, organizing themselves around shared values, aesthetic tastes, and subcultures. In doing so, they transform music scenes into vibrant worlds and communities sustained by music. This intricate matrix of institutions, artists, and cultural ecosystems is undergoing tectonic shifts, challenging how it relates to its various parts and works together. These changes call for new ways of celebrating, circulating, creating, and living with music that are sustainable and equitable, and perhaps even resistant to being neatly packaged or subordinated to the market.  

From the underground to the mainstream, everything is in flux. The exhibition title Too Fast To Sing gestures toward the dizzying speed at which music’s systems and values are evolving—so quickly that any attempt at definitive theorizing risks immediate obsolescence. This exhibition brings together a constellation of artists deeply engaged with these transformations, documenting, archiving, riffing on, and building upon music’s contemporary metamorphosis. Together, they explore how music permeates our emotional lives and daily environments, how technological advances and aesthetics shape its sound, how we gather around it, and how visual artists use music and sound as raw material in their practices. Too Fast To Sing attempts to mirror music’s contemporary state, offering an opportunity to study and learn from these critical changes while also glimpsing how the song might continue—or end altogether.

Too Fast To Sing is curated by Hugo Cervantes, LAMAG Curator and with research support provided by Cyrus Blot, Getty Marrow Curatorial Intern. 

Design by Samantha Alexis Manuel. 

This exhibition is supported by The Jenni Crain Foundation, an initiative dedicated to preserving the legacy of the esteemed artist and curator.

Additional support is provided by The Barnsdall Art Park Foundation and Plum Foundation.