How 9/11 Changed Music

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The world’s undivided attention on New York united its musical artists, elevating indie acts and big names alike to new levels of fame

By Mark Richardson

Sept. 8, 2021 5:27 pm ET

Bruce Springsteen opens the live broadcast of ‘America: A Tribute to Heroes’ with ‘My City in Ruins’

Photo: WireImage

 

Sept. 11, 2001, fell on a Tuesday, so, as with every Tuesday between 1989 and 2015, it was the day new albums hit stores in the U.S. Big records often drop in early fall and 9/11 saw the release of “The Blueprint,” by Brooklyn-raised rapper Jay-Z, who had recently come into his own as one of the biggest hitmakers in hip-hop, and the vinyl edition of “Is This It,” an album by up-and-coming New York indie-rock band the Strokes, which was already making waves in the U.K. 

These artists from different generations who sound nothing alike hit a new peak in artistic achievement and relevance as the nation mourned 9/11. And in the decade that followed, they would not only further their own careers but would also make New York City, for a time, the center of the musical universe. It wasn’t just that a great deal of interesting music was being made in a particular time and place: Sometimes directly and sometimes subliminally, both made their New York-ness a central part of their identity at the very moment when the city—and the U.S. as a whole—craved such a gesture. New York’s famed resilience, toughness, swagger, and the empathy engendered by the tragedy, permeated their music and would become central to other artists as well.

“9/11 focused the world’s attention on New York and in a weird way,” electronic producer Moby said in Lizzie Goodman’s book “Meet Me in the Bathroom,” the definitive account of New York’s underground rock movement during this period. “It really boosted tourism. Suddenly more and more people were coming to New York and being surprised at how much they liked it.”

Julian Casablancas of the Strokes performing in New York

Photo: WireImage

Speaking as someone who didn’t live in the city during the 2000s, I can tell you that the mystique surrounding this scene was palpable. The Strokes were an instant sensation, and they immediately changed the rules for what alternative rock should do. And other bands in Manhattan and Brooklyn, including the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, TV on the Radio, Interpol and LCD Soundsystem, seized the moment of heightened visibility and threw it back to the audience. As this synergy unfolded, the city, and its history, seemed like the coolest and most vital thing going. To varying degrees, these artists borrowed heavily from the music of New York’s past—Blondie, Television, the Talking Heads—and they seemed not only to capture the audacious spirit of the moment but also embodied the vast and powerful sweep of the city’s musical history. 

Jay-Z was already a premiere rapper in 2001 with four No. 1 albums to his credit, but “The Blueprint” was also a tremendous hit critically and looked ahead to big records to come. A few of its beats were by a young producer named Kanye West, including “Izzo (H.O.V.A.),” Jay’s first Top 10 hit. His production style, heavy on soul music samples, would quickly become one of the most important in rap. But Jay’s confidence and lyrical skill were the record’s greatest selling point. Whatever else was going on in hip-hop in the 2000s—and it was a time of massive growth and geographic diversification—Jay-Z’s towering presence post-“Blueprint,” which included promoting influential artists like Harlem’s the Diplomats via his Roc-a-Fella label, kept New York in the conversation.

It was such a landmark, the rapper followed it with “The Blueprint 2: The Gift & the Curse” in 2002, and on its song “The Bounce,” he recognized its place in the canon while also noting the irony of its release date—“Rumor has it ‘The Blueprint’ classic / Couldn’t even be stopped by Bin Laden / So September 11th marks the era forever.” For a time, Jay-Z so dominated the rap game that the only thing left for him to do was retire, which he did, briefly, in the middle of the 2000s. In 2009, he released “The Blueprint 3,” which featured Alicia Keys on a hit called “Empire State of Mind.” It was an instant standard that captured the joy and strength of the city where both were raised, and it put a bow on both New York’s decade of renewal and Jay-Z’s run of dominance.

Jay-Z

Photo: WireImage

Ten days after the attack, all four major networks carried a live telethon called “America: A Tribute to Heroes.” On a candlelit stage, Bruce Springsteen performed a beautiful and haunting song called “My City of Ruins.” He’d actually written it a year earlier about New Jersey’s Asbury Park, but on the program it seemed like an elegy for the post-9/11 city, contrasting images of boarded-up windows and empty streets with a call to “rise up.” It was the right message at the right moment, and it was one only Mr. Springsteen could deliver: While the rocker is New Jersey to his core, he is and always has been an honorary New Yorker. 

In his 2016 autobiography, Mr. Springsteen described the chaos of 9/11 and wrote that when he drove to pick up his children from school that day, a fan recognized him and said, “Bruce, we need you.” This televised performance was the beginning of his response to the call, but it wouldn’t be the end. In July 2002, he’d release “The Rising,” an LP inspired by 9/11 that reunited him with the E Street Band, which hadn’t appeared as a unit on a new album from the Boss in 18 years. 

“Our band was built well, over many years, for difficult times,” he wrote in his memoir. “When people wanted a dialogue, a conversation about events, internal and external, we developed a language that suited those moments.” For these artists, and quite a few more, the roots of this language can be traced to the period after 9/11, when they reminded the world, once and for all, of the ineffable energy of New York’s music.