Why not invest in the future of music, instead of building fortresses to preserve its past?

The line frames cultural policy and music-industry priorities as a choice between preservation and creation. Byrne’s contrast—“invest in the future” versus “building fortresses” for the past—criticizes institutions and business models that pour resources into archiving, canonizing, and defending legacy catalogs while underfunding new work, new scenes, and new ways of making and distributing music. The rhetorical question implies that excessive gatekeeping and nostalgia can harden into defensive infrastructure (“fortresses”) that protects established interests more than it nurtures artistic evolution. It also gestures toward a broader argument: music is a living practice, and sustaining it requires risk, patronage, and openness to change rather than only curatorial reverence.