Crimes
Against the Music Credential Hawk
When
I mentioned to Person X that I had just been playing the drums to Frank Ocean's
new album, Channel Orange, he picked
up the newest copy of Rolling Stone, pointed to Ocean’s spot on the Billboard
list and asked if that was where I learned of him. When I said, No. He replied,
Good for you. Previously I overheard this same Person X use the word, Pretentious,
twice, to describe others, in the span of about thirty minutes, but that’s just
a side note.
In
the last decade or so a new crop of music fans have become cynical little imps,
overly preoccupied with everything surrounding the music—except the actual music. In a world of mass sharing and interweb interjecting,
this just cannot be acceptable.
The
tone in Person X's voice was intended to make me feel emboldened by the fact
that I learned of Frank Ocean elsewhere from a major American publication. (I
was first drawn to Ocean by his video for "Novocain," which I saw
posted on Pitchfork.com.) His response
made it seem that the origins one first discovers a certain artist or band by
actually mattered, and somehow changed the power of the music; as if learning it
from something popular made it less good. This
is a problem because it feeds into the notion that good music can't be popular;
which is a trite, unbecoming, shit-in-your-ears kind of statement to make. It's
the exact kind of thinking that disallows the work of some glorious music to be
heard by people who might actually need
it.
Now,
don't get this writer wrong: a lot of popular music is total trash. A lot of
fourteen year olds are easily persuaded; they'll change their minds one day.
But, some of popular music can be quintessential shit. I could list examples of
bad and good, but everyone's got their own lists. What you listen to does not
sound any better if only a few shmoes in Austin and Brooklyn listen to it and
conversely, what you listen to does not sound any worse if every yoga mother or
obnoxious preteen listens to it. When the stuff slides into your earholes none
of that surrounding information should even be close to entering the equation. When
you press play just shut your trapdoorhole and groove your knees into a funk. I
want to see that sweat leaking from behind your kneecaps!
Music
is not and never was meant to be a vehicle for division. It's not like politics
where if I say I support Obama then a whole flood of perceptions can come into
view (though they shouldn't). It's not as if I get all my music from one
magazine my mind is being shaped by that one entity like it is for people who
watch Fox News or MSNBC religiously. I’m not only hearing one side of music while
the rest is tuned out. Getting music from a recognizable source does not
brainwash you or sink you into category because its power is way bigger than
all that. Music, more than anything else in this world, is meant to be shared.
You don't hole it away in the corner of your room rationing it to yourself. You
don't fear someone hearing your favorite song because then they might listen to
it all day and then you'll just be hearing them listening to your favorite
song. Music lives in the fucking air. No one can claim it. Lighten up and let
go. It doesn't matter where you get your music from, it only matters that you
got the music and that you love it ‘til death does you apart.