The Egalitarian Elitist: Musical Musings
[Since I've been too busy recently to post, and because that isn't going to change for a week, I'll be throwing up some pieces I wrote for classes in College. They aren't my favorite things I've written, but they'll show you how I write with more in the way of formal constraints.
This is already posted, in .doc form, on the zine Jake, Will, and I talked about forever then developed with absolutely minimal effort. Check my links if you're interested.]
Hypothetical Hyperbole
Imagine an extraordinarily normal baby, drooling and vomiting, naturally and adorably limited by typical baby coordination and a lack of vocal control. Now, imagine the baby’s music-obsessed, ex-acid-dropping father, an unfortunate felon twice convicted of drug possession stemming from arrests on both ends of a long 1969 road-trip to New York. The now mature, responsible and drug-free father raises his child on a fulfilling diet of classic music, from Hendrix to Joplin to Coltrane to Mozart to James Brown to the Ramones.
The baby’s reliable reactions to the music, listless eyes and globs of drool meandering chinward, don’t surprise the father. Yet soon the baby reveals itself to be anything-but-normal in the most paradoxical way – exhibiting an uncanny ability, unprompted and untrained, to repeatedly retune the stereo to the most generic musical broadcasts available, a favorite being Casey Kasem’s American Top 40.
The father, initially trapped somewhere between proud and offended, becomes increasingly concerned. One day in a shopping mall the father notices his carriaged child appearing to celebrate, with wiggling stump-arms and a pronounced gurgle, the same blaring popular-noise harassing his respectable sensibilities, torturing his discerning ears. In an unfortunately timed flashback to his youth, in an even less fortunate public location, the father imagines that correcting his infant’s musical taste is as simple as “fixing” its brain - so he mashes and squishes its still fusing, still malleable skull in a corrective procedure unendorsed by medical professionals.
Nature Versus Nurture
The balance of influence has tilted toward nature in the age-old debate, and concern nurtures a whole new set of questions. The most intriguing, perhaps: what perplexing imperfections embedded within human nature allow otherwise functional beings to pervert perfect musical upbringings, emerging paradoxically as damaged goods from all the right circumstances? Does sanity allow half-baked delight in a Limp Bizket? Concern with a Nickelback, or even 50 Cent, in the midst of The Arcade Fire? The decision to remain mired in a Puddle of Mudd when Nirvana is attainable?
The perverts of perception are a new, young generation of listeners whose easy satisfaction and spectacular laziness provide mainstream media the excuse to pollute the airwaves, showering the masses with vile discharge. These deviants aren’t society’s favorite (musically concerned) scapegoats, the brash, mohawked-pierced-and-tattooed “punks” or swaggering, pants-sagging, diamond-studded-earring-having “thugs”, but, rather, boring individuals who don’t inspire labels, robot-like listeners with no distinctive qualities.
So what if big money provides big production provides big sound, mainstream music is incapable of producing any lasting reverberations. For this precise reason, radio friendly is a term now uttered only in disgust (outside the spinning-rimmed-rides and diamond-plated-dens of musicians whose only artistic aspirations concern the bronzing of their own countenances). Listening to quality music is often invigorating because, like a good game of hide-and-go-seek, it’s a challenging but ultimately satisfying process to unearth what one’s looking for; popular music, in contrast, promises challenges and thrills equivalent to a game of hide-and-go-seek with a boulder.
Popular music has been McDonaldized, reduced to an unsatisfying, rehashed, over-processed jumble of addictive and appealing elements stolen from a history of originality; the unimaginative industry is equipped to churn out nuggets of instant gratification, rarely more. Accordingly, today’s mainstream artists won’t be represented in the annals of legendary music, as are respected genre innovators from rock to jazz to hip-hop to Motown and everything in between. What parent will tell their kids they saw Godsmack, Disturbed, or Nelly in concert? Who is going to remember Britney Spea—Wait, who?
Exactly.
A tragic circumstance, persons never lucky enough to have concerned parents or friends to redirect their misguided conceptions of musical mastery are doomed to think KissFM’s broadcasts represent the most innovative, intriguing, and stimulating music man is capable of creating. Worse, as an illogical mechanism to defend their limited views, they’ll offer excuses for not exploring music outside the media mainstream. A favorite of the deluded, self-assured jackass: “The best music eventually makes its way to the radio.” And there is no counter, no verbal equivalent of a stiff smack, no naming Chingy or Ja Rule because that person is liable to be a fan. “See. I told you so.” And so our faith in humanity declines1.
Systemic Diagnostics
So, finally, what is the sinister force lurking behind normal human faces that corrupts sound musical judgment? Considering that the under-25 demographic is the one most responsible for determining popular radio rotations, the obvious answer is that youthful indiscretion must be a critical contributor.
Bu…but – Bite your damn tongue. Kids’ personal tastes are definitely not as valid as those of competent adults. Pop quiz: what kinds of people are most likely to have recently enjoyed coprophagic poo-play or booger-buffets? That’s right, kids and madmen – and as a general rule people who’ve willingly played with or ingested any excretion or bodily filth within the last 10 years aren’t trusted with their own wellbeing.
Excluding an exceptional few, even kids who haven’t dined on dookie apparently have some age-specific attraction to shit. Amazon.com’s user album reviews offer a simultaneously hilarious and disheartening view of adolescent incompetence2. One raving Limp Bizket fan, MeTaL GaNgSTa, makes such mind-boggling claims that most trees and some cupcakes become visibly agitated: “what really makes this album great is Fred Durst. He is the best singer in metal music in my opinion. he has awesum rhymes and is very cool. if you don't like this album, you dont like metal music, end of story.” Immediately afterward the young suicide-needing-to-happen proclaimed Freddie Mercury and Johnny Cash the “greatest-rappers-of-all-time” and Huffy bicycles “the best cars on the NASCAR circuit.”
More disturbingly confounding than anything else, there’s substantial evidence that masses of Hot Topic frequenting kids actually move beyond the radio to music just as generic and poorly conceived, if not more so3: “Insane Clown Posse is the greatest thing to happen in music. ICP is like metal but ‘twiztid’ around so that its metalrap. they are the best of the dark carnival. ICP is the craziest and most outrageously funny band to ever walk the planet. So to u juggalos and juggalettes get this wicked shit n stay down wiv the clowns4.” Not even the mental retardation required to make sense out of what is being said can excuse such grammatically deficient depravity.
Another reviewer accomplishes a difficult feat, convincing music aficionados in only 37 words to never support whatever band he is endorsing: “I like this kind of band and I like a band like the Insane Clown Posse. That is kind of surprising huh? I would really suggest that anyone with a ear for GOOD music would enjoy this.” And music respecting individuals really suggest this reviewer apologize to the unlucky band for ruining their careers – and then, maybe, pull a Van Gogh, the reviewer’s delicious screams rewarding the unintentional promise of “a ear for GOOD music.”
The Tyrant Exposes Himself
No scourge can be universally condemned. Terminal illnesses occasionally infect deserving parties; accidents can decapitate annoying personalities; and popular radio sometimes spurs a musical quest that explores the overshadowed and underappreciated 5. But don’t read this as unwavering praise of everything obscure, anything non-mainstream. Plenty, nay, most, bands left publicly unpraised and unplayed deserve that fate, to be ignored and overlooked if not ridiculed. While some bands revel in “anti-popularity” stances on (sometimes respectable) principal, legions more unwittingly adopt that position because they’re brute musical butchers, the Parkinson’s ravaged surgeons of singing, songwriting, and instrumentation.
and…shhh…it’s a status-destroying secret more fiercely guarded than adult-drug-dabblin’, fetish-toe-tasting, hobby-hit-and-run-or-baby-bashing: even musical elitists never totally wean themselves from the radio. And those who scream the loudest “it sears the ears” are hiding the most. For those with (relative to radio) extensive and refined musical tastes, guilty pleasures – and everybody has them – are musical masochism at its finest. However, it’s a problem serious enough to warrant aggressive advising when someone fully subsists on that which should be enjoyed in tiny portions alone. It’s those still living on straight aural McDumplets, defying better advice to flaunt their offensiveness, who are the inconsiderately thonged morbidly-obese of the music world.
Help Wanted
The majority of human civilization won’t willingly lick Ebola infected blood, floss with razor wire, sniff anthrax, or stare at the sun, but, un-gun-prompted and with options beyond, masses pick popular music. A response from irked intelligence, indications are the 11th Commandment is to respect a sincere appreciation for Top-40 radio as one does a cheery, legally mandated door-to-door welcome to the neighborhood6. Indeed, the only acceptable excuses for not cultivating respectable musical tastes within 20 years of birth are being deaf or dead7.
The moral? Every experienced music lover has a responsibility to expose their lazy, misguided, or sheltered friends to the musical wizardry behind the curtain, music less about deceptive cheap tricks and stale regurgitation and more about honesty, invention, and substance. Whether it’s introducing friends to independent artists, labels, or web-zines, taking them to a cheap show at a small club, or burning or buying them a mixtape, jumpstarting an interest in the obscure is the first step in making music matter – for everyone. And if the needy soberly refuse these helpful advances, drug them8, inundating their senses with iTunes visualizations and unfamiliar sounds9. The consequences of failure, “Now I am a 37 year old Juggalette and I'll be that way 'til I'm dead in the ground. My son was buried with an ICP shirt on and a Hatchetman round his neck. And I plan on going the same way,” trivialize most wars and natural disasters.
1 The future of the world may rest upon the answers to these questions:
Are gaud, glitz, and faux charisma really so captivating they can consistently mesmerize into gleeful submission? By extension, since nu metal, bubblegum-pop, and watered down hip-hop (flimsy as flip-flops) incomprehensibly represent the popular face of musical excellence, might cardboard (or rusted nails), if chargrilled or iced and sprinkled, someday be accepted as the face of culinary excellence? Finally, in relation to offensively disheartening (aka mainstream) musical tastes and the desire to restore faith in humanity, what constitutes a justifiable homicide?
2 Unfortunately, the odds that these reviews are all the product of random-keypad-pounding-sessions are pretty damn infinitesimal.
3 Popular Solutions Series #1: Dealing With Radio Rebels:
If any friends are listening to “edgy” radio friendly music (or that similarly silly and repugnant, like ICP) in order to rebel against their parents, inform them that the most shocking content they’ve discovered is mere Teletubbies compared to their many non-popular options. If a friend really wants to freak the hell out of their parents urge them to stop that embarrassing chanting to Godsmack’s “Voodoo” and investigate black metal, a genre with an unsettlingly evil (and nonchalant) history of satanic worship, church burning, and brutal murder; not only will that provide the meekest rebel the firepower to strike fear in adult hearts, it will also expose some truly vicious but exceptional, oft-overlooked music in the process.
Post-reading Quiz:
Q: Which underlined word in the last paragraph defies anything disturbing or troubling?
A: Trick Question! Both do!
4 Select claims and quotes compiled from reviews obviously authored by preteens or bagels. Apparently there’s no difference in either’s ability to evaluate music critically.
5 Whether through genuine interest or simple disgust it is debatable, or depends on each case, but it doesn’t really matter. While the radio doesn’t unfailingly neglect talented, deserving musicians, raging fads that mishandle and plagiarize once adeptly handled originality do plague the soundscape.
6 Further indications are that actions motivated by this forgotten but overriding Commandment excuse a strict adherence to the first 10.
7 The obvious exception, the only case that approves feigned appreciation of decidedly bad music, is an attempt to impress trashy strippers.
8 Repeat this step until the desired effect is achieved.
9 Especially, given their induced altered state, the atmospheric noodling of eccentric rock bands, the enchanting ambience of experimental noisemakers, and the mesmerizing flows and beats of hip-hop’s greatest.
This is already posted, in .doc form, on the zine Jake, Will, and I talked about forever then developed with absolutely minimal effort. Check my links if you're interested.]
Hypothetical Hyperbole
Imagine an extraordinarily normal baby, drooling and vomiting, naturally and adorably limited by typical baby coordination and a lack of vocal control. Now, imagine the baby’s music-obsessed, ex-acid-dropping father, an unfortunate felon twice convicted of drug possession stemming from arrests on both ends of a long 1969 road-trip to New York. The now mature, responsible and drug-free father raises his child on a fulfilling diet of classic music, from Hendrix to Joplin to Coltrane to Mozart to James Brown to the Ramones.
The baby’s reliable reactions to the music, listless eyes and globs of drool meandering chinward, don’t surprise the father. Yet soon the baby reveals itself to be anything-but-normal in the most paradoxical way – exhibiting an uncanny ability, unprompted and untrained, to repeatedly retune the stereo to the most generic musical broadcasts available, a favorite being Casey Kasem’s American Top 40.
The father, initially trapped somewhere between proud and offended, becomes increasingly concerned. One day in a shopping mall the father notices his carriaged child appearing to celebrate, with wiggling stump-arms and a pronounced gurgle, the same blaring popular-noise harassing his respectable sensibilities, torturing his discerning ears. In an unfortunately timed flashback to his youth, in an even less fortunate public location, the father imagines that correcting his infant’s musical taste is as simple as “fixing” its brain - so he mashes and squishes its still fusing, still malleable skull in a corrective procedure unendorsed by medical professionals.
Nature Versus Nurture
The balance of influence has tilted toward nature in the age-old debate, and concern nurtures a whole new set of questions. The most intriguing, perhaps: what perplexing imperfections embedded within human nature allow otherwise functional beings to pervert perfect musical upbringings, emerging paradoxically as damaged goods from all the right circumstances? Does sanity allow half-baked delight in a Limp Bizket? Concern with a Nickelback, or even 50 Cent, in the midst of The Arcade Fire? The decision to remain mired in a Puddle of Mudd when Nirvana is attainable?
The perverts of perception are a new, young generation of listeners whose easy satisfaction and spectacular laziness provide mainstream media the excuse to pollute the airwaves, showering the masses with vile discharge. These deviants aren’t society’s favorite (musically concerned) scapegoats, the brash, mohawked-pierced-and-tattooed “punks” or swaggering, pants-sagging, diamond-studded-earring-having “thugs”, but, rather, boring individuals who don’t inspire labels, robot-like listeners with no distinctive qualities.
So what if big money provides big production provides big sound, mainstream music is incapable of producing any lasting reverberations. For this precise reason, radio friendly is a term now uttered only in disgust (outside the spinning-rimmed-rides and diamond-plated-dens of musicians whose only artistic aspirations concern the bronzing of their own countenances). Listening to quality music is often invigorating because, like a good game of hide-and-go-seek, it’s a challenging but ultimately satisfying process to unearth what one’s looking for; popular music, in contrast, promises challenges and thrills equivalent to a game of hide-and-go-seek with a boulder.
Popular music has been McDonaldized, reduced to an unsatisfying, rehashed, over-processed jumble of addictive and appealing elements stolen from a history of originality; the unimaginative industry is equipped to churn out nuggets of instant gratification, rarely more. Accordingly, today’s mainstream artists won’t be represented in the annals of legendary music, as are respected genre innovators from rock to jazz to hip-hop to Motown and everything in between. What parent will tell their kids they saw Godsmack, Disturbed, or Nelly in concert? Who is going to remember Britney Spea—Wait, who?
Exactly.
A tragic circumstance, persons never lucky enough to have concerned parents or friends to redirect their misguided conceptions of musical mastery are doomed to think KissFM’s broadcasts represent the most innovative, intriguing, and stimulating music man is capable of creating. Worse, as an illogical mechanism to defend their limited views, they’ll offer excuses for not exploring music outside the media mainstream. A favorite of the deluded, self-assured jackass: “The best music eventually makes its way to the radio.” And there is no counter, no verbal equivalent of a stiff smack, no naming Chingy or Ja Rule because that person is liable to be a fan. “See. I told you so.” And so our faith in humanity declines1.
Systemic Diagnostics
So, finally, what is the sinister force lurking behind normal human faces that corrupts sound musical judgment? Considering that the under-25 demographic is the one most responsible for determining popular radio rotations, the obvious answer is that youthful indiscretion must be a critical contributor.
Bu…but – Bite your damn tongue. Kids’ personal tastes are definitely not as valid as those of competent adults. Pop quiz: what kinds of people are most likely to have recently enjoyed coprophagic poo-play or booger-buffets? That’s right, kids and madmen – and as a general rule people who’ve willingly played with or ingested any excretion or bodily filth within the last 10 years aren’t trusted with their own wellbeing.
Excluding an exceptional few, even kids who haven’t dined on dookie apparently have some age-specific attraction to shit. Amazon.com’s user album reviews offer a simultaneously hilarious and disheartening view of adolescent incompetence2. One raving Limp Bizket fan, MeTaL GaNgSTa, makes such mind-boggling claims that most trees and some cupcakes become visibly agitated: “what really makes this album great is Fred Durst. He is the best singer in metal music in my opinion. he has awesum rhymes and is very cool. if you don't like this album, you dont like metal music, end of story.” Immediately afterward the young suicide-needing-to-happen proclaimed Freddie Mercury and Johnny Cash the “greatest-rappers-of-all-time” and Huffy bicycles “the best cars on the NASCAR circuit.”
More disturbingly confounding than anything else, there’s substantial evidence that masses of Hot Topic frequenting kids actually move beyond the radio to music just as generic and poorly conceived, if not more so3: “Insane Clown Posse is the greatest thing to happen in music. ICP is like metal but ‘twiztid’ around so that its metalrap. they are the best of the dark carnival. ICP is the craziest and most outrageously funny band to ever walk the planet. So to u juggalos and juggalettes get this wicked shit n stay down wiv the clowns4.” Not even the mental retardation required to make sense out of what is being said can excuse such grammatically deficient depravity.
Another reviewer accomplishes a difficult feat, convincing music aficionados in only 37 words to never support whatever band he is endorsing: “I like this kind of band and I like a band like the Insane Clown Posse. That is kind of surprising huh? I would really suggest that anyone with a ear for GOOD music would enjoy this.” And music respecting individuals really suggest this reviewer apologize to the unlucky band for ruining their careers – and then, maybe, pull a Van Gogh, the reviewer’s delicious screams rewarding the unintentional promise of “a ear for GOOD music.”
The Tyrant Exposes Himself
No scourge can be universally condemned. Terminal illnesses occasionally infect deserving parties; accidents can decapitate annoying personalities; and popular radio sometimes spurs a musical quest that explores the overshadowed and underappreciated 5. But don’t read this as unwavering praise of everything obscure, anything non-mainstream. Plenty, nay, most, bands left publicly unpraised and unplayed deserve that fate, to be ignored and overlooked if not ridiculed. While some bands revel in “anti-popularity” stances on (sometimes respectable) principal, legions more unwittingly adopt that position because they’re brute musical butchers, the Parkinson’s ravaged surgeons of singing, songwriting, and instrumentation.
and…shhh…it’s a status-destroying secret more fiercely guarded than adult-drug-dabblin’, fetish-toe-tasting, hobby-hit-and-run-or-baby-bashing: even musical elitists never totally wean themselves from the radio. And those who scream the loudest “it sears the ears” are hiding the most. For those with (relative to radio) extensive and refined musical tastes, guilty pleasures – and everybody has them – are musical masochism at its finest. However, it’s a problem serious enough to warrant aggressive advising when someone fully subsists on that which should be enjoyed in tiny portions alone. It’s those still living on straight aural McDumplets, defying better advice to flaunt their offensiveness, who are the inconsiderately thonged morbidly-obese of the music world.
Help Wanted
The majority of human civilization won’t willingly lick Ebola infected blood, floss with razor wire, sniff anthrax, or stare at the sun, but, un-gun-prompted and with options beyond, masses pick popular music. A response from irked intelligence, indications are the 11th Commandment is to respect a sincere appreciation for Top-40 radio as one does a cheery, legally mandated door-to-door welcome to the neighborhood6. Indeed, the only acceptable excuses for not cultivating respectable musical tastes within 20 years of birth are being deaf or dead7.
The moral? Every experienced music lover has a responsibility to expose their lazy, misguided, or sheltered friends to the musical wizardry behind the curtain, music less about deceptive cheap tricks and stale regurgitation and more about honesty, invention, and substance. Whether it’s introducing friends to independent artists, labels, or web-zines, taking them to a cheap show at a small club, or burning or buying them a mixtape, jumpstarting an interest in the obscure is the first step in making music matter – for everyone. And if the needy soberly refuse these helpful advances, drug them8, inundating their senses with iTunes visualizations and unfamiliar sounds9. The consequences of failure, “Now I am a 37 year old Juggalette and I'll be that way 'til I'm dead in the ground. My son was buried with an ICP shirt on and a Hatchetman round his neck. And I plan on going the same way,” trivialize most wars and natural disasters.
Are gaud, glitz, and faux charisma really so captivating they can consistently mesmerize into gleeful submission? By extension, since nu metal, bubblegum-pop, and watered down hip-hop (flimsy as flip-flops) incomprehensibly represent the popular face of musical excellence, might cardboard (or rusted nails), if chargrilled or iced and sprinkled, someday be accepted as the face of culinary excellence? Finally, in relation to offensively disheartening (aka mainstream) musical tastes and the desire to restore faith in humanity, what constitutes a justifiable homicide?
If any friends are listening to “edgy” radio friendly music (or that similarly silly and repugnant, like ICP) in order to rebel against their parents, inform them that the most shocking content they’ve discovered is mere Teletubbies compared to their many non-popular options. If a friend really wants to freak the hell out of their parents urge them to stop that embarrassing chanting to Godsmack’s “Voodoo” and investigate black metal, a genre with an unsettlingly evil (and nonchalant) history of satanic worship, church burning, and brutal murder; not only will that provide the meekest rebel the firepower to strike fear in adult hearts, it will also expose some truly vicious but exceptional, oft-overlooked music in the process.
Post-reading Quiz:
Q: Which underlined word in the last paragraph defies anything disturbing or troubling?
A: Trick Question! Both do!
posted by Mr. Pibba at 10:24 AM
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