I like music, don’t you? I like all sorts of music, which I think is more common than not. We pretty much all have a favorite genre, at least for right now. Most of us are predictable though, we ease into the sounds of our formative years, or are forcibly reminded of them if you get old enough.
If you’re anywhere in between middle school and high school, I am going to make an astounding prediction: The music you and your friends are listening to will more or less disappear for decades. It will reappear in the advertisements for whatever old people are buying in the future.
If there are old people in the future. But that’s another discussion entirely.
Right now, both Salt-N-Pepa and Dee Snyder appear in Geico commercials.
My male childhood friends were mostly into metal. I remember how excited my friend Jim was when he’d get a new album. Yeah, actual albums. He had “Kill ’em All,” everything by Motorhead, and shitty bands you’ve never heard of, like Venom. I was never a fan. There’s songs I like, just like there are country songs I like, but I don’t care for either genre, generally speaking.
I have great respect for rap music. Rappers are wordsmiths. Anyone who delights in playing with words and language is someone I have a certain amount of respect for. Same goes for metal and country. But like metal and country, I don’t listen to a lot of rap music.
So I asked myself what was the common theme that tied those three genres together. At first, I thought I disliked each of them for different reasons. Metal was too loud and I got plenty of screaming at home. Country was what my parents listened to and therefore was the soundtrack of misery. I came of age during the same time as the birthing of rap and hip-hop, but I was geographically and economically removed from the places of first adoption. Or, to be blunt, I was a white kid in Tucson and the only time I heard it was when it was on MTV. And it took David Bowie leaning on MTV to get anything that wasn’t white on MTV.
I do remember the first album that grabbed me by the bones, balls, and brain. You’re going to hear it and either feel the same way about it, maybe like a song or two, or you never liked it for the same reason I don’t have Jay-Z in my shuffle list. I think I am in good company; there’s a reason that record stayed in the billboard album chart for 741 weeks. Music trivia buffs, that one is for you.
But I don’t listen to Dark Side of the Moon much anymore. I’ve heard it too many times. Like my favorite books, I let it marinate in it’s own juices for years and then come back to it.
And then it clicked. The reason why I fell insanely in love with Dark Side of the Moon and can’t abide metal. Or most country. And a great deal of rap. It’s the same reason for my love and my distaste.
Understanding.
Wait what?
You’re going to tell me you understand “Us and Them” and can’t figure out “Push it” (push it real good)? That “The Great Gig in the Sky” is plain as day and “Coal miner’s daughter” is a fucking mystery? Is that what you’re trying to say?
Yes. And you know what I mean. There’s the obvious, “I don’t understand because I can’t single out what they’re shouting/rapping,” then there’s the cultural disconnect that I have with hip-hop/rap and country and to a lesser degree, metal. I mean c’mon, there’s not a whole lot of difference between a metal redneck and a country redneck. Hell, I’ve known people that were both. But generally there is a difference. And no, I don’t think that because you like metal you’re a redneck or because you like country you’re a redneck. I use the label redneck as a description, not an insult. If you must see it as an insult I prefer Jeff Foxworthy’s definition: “characterized by a glorious lack of sophistication.”
Music is a touchstone of culture. Culture is learned. Culture can also be unlearned, but not without great trauma, or effort and a good deal of time. In the case of Native Americans, all of the above.
Far harder is the other way culture changes, not by removal but by addition. You know, the sane way.
The American way.
It’s what we do. There would be no Pink Floyd without rock and roll. There would be no rock and roll without jazz (god I love jazz). There would be no jazz without black spiritual music. There would be no black spiritual music in America without the rhythms of Africa. Culture accumulated. Brutally at first (some argue still and I concur), as was the way of humanity for most of humanity.
But let’s not lose the tree inside the forest. Metal, country, and rap. On the one hand, I can say that I don’t enjoy them because I don’t understand the culture they represent. That’s painting with a broad brush and I understand that. On the other hand, you could say that I don’t enjoy them because I do understand them, or think that I do, which then halts any possibility at growth.
It’s why the guy who thinks there’s only two kinds of music, country and western, is a kindred soul with the guy who only listens to classical music, and that would be Schubert not Brahms, thank you very much.
Each one understands the other quite well. Or they think they do. There’s no tune either one can play that the other can stand. At least not for long. Inevitably, there’s going to be a struggle over who controls the play list. Or else silence is going to be the only thing they can agree on.
Did you see what I did there? Did you catch the false dichotomy?
Because of course there are other options. They could each listen to something neither likes. One could learn to like the other. Both could learn to appreciate the other. Or at least take turns.
But that doesn’t happen, does it? Especially if the tune is so loathsome that you simply cannot stomach it. There is bad music out there, we all know it when we hear it, jarring and discordant. I don’t mind music I don’t understand. I do very much mind music incompetently played.
Or used to march the young off to die.
I don’t know. But I do have the urge to add some Jay-Z, Garth Brooks, and Iron Maiden to my play list.
