Music, in the words of a Deviant

This expresses a few of my opinions about the many music lovers out there, legitimate or otherwise.

Music, in the words of a Deviant...

This is an off topic writing for me, a sort of exercise to get my mind back into the state that it needs to be for the book at hand that I have started (“started” is a very counter-intuitive term, seeing as I wrote the conclusion and the climax before anything else. I have the gist of the story in my head however, I just haven't tied it all together yet.) to write here on the Writer's Cafe. Think of this writing as a free-form type of self expression of a common topic, music. It can be looked at as a sort of... free association, except that I'm not relying to a man giving me random words in which I spill out some of the things in my mind. It's simply an exercise in which I will express my opinions. On this note I shall begin.

Music in my opinion is nothing more than an art. A different form of art where the beauty lies in a different sense all together, that sense is hearing. It is the art of the many individual notes and possible words that compose them. For me, music has always been less about the words themselves but of the sound. It functions much the same as real art in itself as well. Words can be used artistically to modify the work, however it isn't the main work by any stretch. Valuing a song highly for the words within it is the same as valuing a woman for her external beauty alone. It is an act of embellishment that adds to the beauty of it all.

Knowing this, why is it that people try so hard to derive a discrete meaning of this embellishment? I had always believed that music was easily as simple as you allowed yourself to view it. If you enjoy the sound of the song, then wouldn't that alone be enough to call it good music? Let's drop the actual quality factors of music for the time right now, because if you had included them than many people would throw stones at me for being hypocritical (I say this because out of my own preference I cannot stand artists like Lady Gaga, Justin Beiber, or even various other Pop culture musicians not so much for the sound, but because of the motive behind some of these songs as well as a light bias). My point I am trying to make is that I believe people focus far too heavily on “meaning” in a song than they do on the actual sound itself. I have proven that meaning has nothing on the impact of how good the song is in most cases. An excellent example is a song by the artist: Tool. I forget the track's name, however it because a crowd favorite song by this German rock band for awhile. If I recall correctly I believe the song was literally called something along the lines of “Death be to Satin”, or something like that. Little did many people know (due to the fact that it was foreign and sung in German) the song itself was literally a brownie recipe. Psychostick is another band known for their hysterical nature in using outlandish and random lyrics with their songs. They have a song where they literally bash on the stereotype that women cannot give directions properly without confusing the holy hell out of the receiver.

If you are noticing by these song examples, there are bands that intentionally add terrible and meaningless lyrics to otherwise great sounding songs. This is not to say that lyrics are not important at all what so ever. On the opposite end of the spectrum, there are many artists that create meaningful and sometimes even cryptic meanings behind their songs that add to the overall creativity of the track. Breaking Benjamin's “Dear Agony” album confused me for the longest time. I thought it was about getting over a lost one that he had loved. A year passed after listening to them regularly, then a friend of mine revealed that the album was a story (more or less) about the lead singer getting over his alcoholism.

I believe people enjoy music for all of the wrong reasons now. I have friends who love terrible terrible TERRIBLE foreign music for no reason other than that it comes from Japan. This makes about as much sense to me as a second coat of paint. I also have friends who believe that all music from a specific time frame (IE: The 80's). This also makes no sense at all to me. I was brought up to 90's rock and roll like Sevendust, Creed, Staind, and the like. Knowing this, I know a terrible 90's song that I do not enjoy when I hear one. Be wary that I never once believe that my opinion is god when I dislike a song because I do not like the sound. I only begin to sound stubborn when it is about a song that is terrible in many other criteria as well (which we will discuss in a moment). Another musical type person that I cannot stand are the hipsters. These people are among some of the most arrogant people I have ever met. They go far out of their ways to find a self-trend that no one knows about so they have a sense of... unique personality. Although I have been known to exhibit hipster-like qualities at one time or another, I have a moderate level of understanding that just because a song has a lot of hype behind it, does not necessarily mean that it is terrible music.

On the opposite end of the spectrum I'll be ripping apart the main part of the community of “music lovers” who I like to call the Conformists of society. We all have these friends, and you know them well. The kinds of people who mention that they adore this new song on the radio where 2 weeks later (when the song itself has been forgotten because it was of terrible quality to begin with, and everyone had taken 2 weeks to figure out) they don't shut up about how much they can no longer stand the song. These conformist individuals are among my least favorite music lovers, and can hardly be considered a true music lover. These people are often the types that prowl around with clothing with things like “music is my life” and pretend like they enjoy everything when in reality they only enjoy the next trend that the crowd rates highest. Its an attention ploy, and nothing more. Hype does NOT under any circumstances prove a song is great and in most cases, it does the opposite from what I notice. If it sounds good, then that is fine. I enjoy a lot of songs with a lot of hype. In most cases however, the good songs are the ones I get overloaded with on the radio every time I ride the bus to class, which leads me to despising the song instead. Take the song “Payphone” by Maroon 5. I have nothing against the band, I just hate that song. Sounds good, has somewhat of a relatable meaning behind it, but I hate it. Why is this? Well, maybe because every single bleeding heart woman that I have ever met (sorry ladies, but it is in my opinion that women generally get flustered far more easily than men with any song that can be related to a love song. No offense is meant towards the female gender and I apologize if it seems so.) doesn't shut up about this particular song. Once again I stress that if I do not like the sound of a certain song, I will always enunciate when asked “why” that I don't prefer it. This insinuates that I don't like it, however I will not throw stones at it. It is an opinion, and opinions are free to everyone from my understanding.

So what exactly is the point being put across in this writing exercise? Simply put, I'm encouraging you all to judge a good song mainly by whether or not they sound good to you. It is all about preference after all. As with art in a museum, you enjoy what is there. The point and beauty behind art is to inspire thought, and more often than not you will come to realize that there is no real and true meaning behind it other than “it just is”. Sometimes there simply is no REAL reason as to why the man in the center of the painting is floating above the ground, flipping off the man to his left. The artist simply put it there for you to ask yourself “why the hell is he doing that?”.

Judge your music 1^st by the quality of the sound. What do YOU think of how well it sounds? Drop your bias on the genre because I have found that it rarely counts. I hate country music but I can admit it when a song sounds good. 2^nd ,try and find a motive behind the song. I didn't highlight this in the writing at all, but try and find a motive. By that, I mean that it should be painfully obvious on whether or not songs are pumped out to the public commercially. A lot of pop culture artists do this everyday, just to make some more money. I love Linkin Park, however I can't stand anything after their Meteora album. Why is this? That is because they have gone seriously commercial after that point. Listen to “What I've Done” and the “New Divide” sometime when you get a chance. They LITERALLY play off of the same cords but have different words. 3^rd and finally, use the lyrics to form an opinion of what you think it means. Is it cryptic? Is it black and white? Either way just form an idea. If the song interests you enough, look it up. You may find that the black and white meaning is not at all what you had expected, or vice versa. Don't despise Rise Against because you disagree with their cause. Don't love the song “Bad Apple!” just because it's a Japanese song and you love anime, therefore you must obsess about anything from Japan. And finally, don't either value older music from a certain time frame over anything else, or despise anything outside of said time frame for no reason other than “it's what I grew up with” and all that s**t. It's a terrible reason to value the music and you are being arrogant to many other great bands that are out there. Don't miss out on experiencing new things and be open minded about it. I speak from experience when I say I myself have been VERY surprised at the things I thought I would never enjoy. I cannot stand romantic mushy crap for the life of me, yet.... I'm writing it right now. This is because I've found a variation of romance that sits well with me that I enjoy.

On this note I say farewell folks! Explore the many things out there.

~Christian Tavares~

Author's Note

No comments or notes to behold here.

Reviews

[Nusquam Esse]

I have always been a bit of a loner when it comes to music; pretty much no one I know has my same taste in it. I mean, I can listen to and enjoy most types of music; but that is very different than what you go to to enjoy. I need strong melodies and rhythms, the music needs to be complex to hold my attention (since I have a fast moving mind, and once you have heard the same chord progression and riffs dozens of times, it gets old), and the emotions and ideas behind the music are important (I put a lot of value on ambiance and atmosphere), but not necessarily the lyrics. I listen to a lot of foreign music (but there is still some good domestic stuff), so I am used to not understanding the lyrics. I lived in Japan for a while, and speak the language... but with the exception of a few bands and singers, I despise most of their music. J-pop can occasionally put out something good, but the vast majority of the moe s**t is just that... vocaloid garbage. Anyway, I could go on and on about bands that I particularly enjoy; but I generally assume that people are not going to want to listen to Pagan metal, Atmospheric Black Metal, or Melodic Death Metal... the metal fans I do know are all about metalcore or stuff that I consider to be more 'rock'. Our reasons for liking music are very different, so I never see eye to eye with them. As for the writing itself, it rambles a bit too much without strong structure to actually be a strong argument. I just happen to agree with many of your points; if I didn't, I wouldn't have been particularly impressed with the explanations and reasoning behind it. Such things take a strong structure and tight focus to convey.

[The Silent Deviant]

You sound like a particularly well spoken individual. I can come to respect that very well. And while I agree our taste is a bit different, I can't really knock it either. In all honesty I'm not sure I am familiar with the genres you listed XD but all in all yes I agree. I listen to music that is rather... foreign in this area of america (for lack of a better word). It's rare to find someone who says things like "Wow! You like the Autumn Offering too!?" lol, so I feel your pain to at least some small extent. To each his own I always say, and keep loving the music my man. You listen to music like a truly "passionate for music" person should be. I respect that.

[Nusquam Esse]

I just find a beauty in the melancholy that music can convey, that words just... can't--or at least not in the same way. I can just lean back and lose myself within the melodies, and sometimes wonder how I got to 'this point' in an album, even though I have listened to it hundreds of times. Here is an example of the more accessible stuff that I enjoy,
Agalloch - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHJjSSrR6x4

[Nusquam Esse]

I have an Agalloch shirt from their recent EP called Faustian Echoes (which is much heavier than most of their work); I love its design, with a large sigil on the back which always makes me imagine Faust calling upon Mephistopheles to seek more than a knowledge constrained by human understanding, such a haunting feeling it gives me. Anyway, I was wearing it at work about a week ago, and was actually confronted by someone who recognized some of the design, and wanted to learn more about the band because of it. I ultimately ended up having a long conversation with them later on about black metal... a genre they had dismissed in the past because they had not liked the mainstream songs they had heard. But I love the atmosphere it has, the beauty and/or the malice; they ended up walking away with an appreciation to a side of the Genre they had not known before. I was surprised to encounter someone who enjoyed the stuff I showed them: stuff like Borgne ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sILQOn1tWec )

[The Silent Deviant]

It has an interesting sound yes. I'll have to keep this band in my mind for record lol. The sound is pretty good and I get what you mean about the whole melancholy sound thing. The ambiance and such.

[Nusquam Esse]

it is an acquired taste at best... not many people want to listen to songs that are thirty or more minutes long... lol