An unnecessarily critical essay involving music

Published on Thursday, April 17, 2008 at 1pm

I really did mean it when I said that I wanted to take your suggestions for topics. Admittedly, I said this thing that I meant back in 2006, but that's hardly the point. It also reminded me of nihilism. Those were good times. Anyway, it is to Sierra Rush, who is not reading this, I dedicate this jibba-jabba.

[Note: Please take the following a bit lightheartedly, as I'm not being overly serious here. Seriously, I got nothing but love.]

Since she is one of the many no longer here with us in the Loowa motherland, S.R. probably won't mind that I'm changing her topic a bit (I'm not going to type the word Timberlake even once... except there). It's still going to be a complaint, though, because what else would I do? Now, I fear I'm going to step on some toes (you should have danced floating in the air in between molecules of oxygen and carbon dioxide), but hear me out. I'm probably not stomping the way you think. My problem lies with people who have no taste in music.

"Isn't that pretty judgmental of you, Psychic?" I hear some of you asking. Well, I'm not actually referring to poor taste (in fact, I don't judge a person's choice of music, even polka*). I mean people who don't have an opinion one way or the other. I'd guess that you've, more than once, heard something like the following upon inquiring about a new acquaintance's preference for tunes, "Oh, I like a lot of different things," or "I like all sorts of music except country." Now, there are two (possibly three) types of people who give this answer. The first are people sort of like me who actually listen to a wide variety of music, have some preferences about and some understanding of what they listen to and may start the day with Anthrax or Azure Ray, cruise through the afternoon with Hamza El Din and Hank Williams and go to sleep with Mozart or Massive Attack. As I am a part of this group, I'm going to refer to them as cool people. The other group, or non-cool people, don't have a well-defined set of music they enjoy because they listen to whatever is on. Their local or satellite radio stations put together easily consumed simple patterns of repetitive pablum. The implication that many types of music are enjoyed is misleading as the reality is usually more along the lines that they listen to both the Alternative station and the Hip/Hop station. Their CD (or worse, MP3) collections are on the small side and generally contain little to no material not introduced to them by The Industry. There may be some really good music in there, but it's quite by accident (ex. Tool, U2, etc) or was introduced by a cool friend. The "possible" group are a theoretical branch containing individuals with very specific and limited tastes in music but don't just want to say, "I listen to Swedish Alternative Folk-Metal**,"for some reason or another such as fear of rejection by all. I have never actually encountered anyone like this, but they may exist. Obviously, I am ignoring all the people who listen to punk or electronica or jazz and are up front about it, but they don't claim to like everything.

Out there in Meat World, I recently discussed the topic of how to convert the non-cool over to the cool way of life. You see, in case you're cool but have never discussed this topic with a non-cool or, heaven forbid, are non-cool yourself (-_^), you may not know that the differences between independent band A and mass-market band B can be remarkably hard to quantify verbally but overwhelmingly obvious to the cool. It can be like trying to describe the color blue to a blind person.

After much debate and thought, I was left with two possible ideas. The first is that there is no difference between, for example, Tori Amos and Christina Aguilera***, the Welfare Poets and Ludacris, King's X and Mötley Crüe. Cool people have just been imagining how cool their music is compared to the better marketed, higher budget material next to it on the rack. This clearly cannot be the case. Cool people are never wrong. I thought that was well established by now. No, I think that there is a clear difference, but too much has been made of it. In our society, one is judged by his taste in music. If a person likes the corporate "art" fountain thing at the trendy strip mall more than he likes Michelangelo Pistoletto's The Etruscan, it is unlikely to cause a controversy or set off a Spanish Inquisition style effort to "enlighten" him. One can also go through life taking Stoli over Grey Goose, Dolce & Gabbana over Saville Row, stock Hyundai over tuned Evo, Cirque du Soleil over the ballet and Little Chef over something edible without raising an eyebrow. The problem is that music is used to judge people ("It's what you like, not what you are like...") these days and therefore much is made of one's preferences, probably too much.

I am not suggesting that music is unimportant -- far from it. Music is one of the most powerful forms of expression we have. For some, music can build up joy, break down emotional boundaries to inner pain, unite with the stirrings of love and even give courage in times of peril. For other people, music is just entertainment. There is not one viewpoint that is inherently better than the other. However, if you look back up, you'll see I said that I have a problem with these sort of people. My problem is a lack of understanding beyond the purely, shall we say, philosophical level. I cannot truly believe that music is not life. Those who are functionally deaf to music are as confusing to me as zombies would be. As you can see, though, the shortcoming lies within me and nowhere else. If music doesn't speak to some people the same way it speaks to us cool people, maybe we just need to get over ourselves.

No homework this time. Nobody did it last time. It was a bad idea anyway.

*Don't think I'm getting all hatey on polka. From "Weird" Al Yankovic's out-there flights of fancy to "Gatemouth" Brown's jumpin' German blues rave-ups, polka can set me flying. Not to mention the fact that Central Texas is more full of crazy Germans and crazy German festivities than Germany. Even Tejanos play polka.
**Ah, Amon Amarth, you rock.
***Hahahahahahahahahahahaha! Spellcheck tried to change it to Christina Uglier.