On Music

I was musing today while driving to work about what my current repetoire of CD's that I actively carry around with me looks like compared to a year ago... two years ago... fuck, two months ago even. I am most certainly a music elitist--as is anyone who actively seeks out new bands or shows--and I constantly try to maintain a balance that keeps me enjoying my shit without suggesting that it's superior to what else is out there. By definition that's nearly impossible to do, as a key requirement of elitism is being able to mock any opposition that may arise. Even so, I've learned to realize that the selection of artists I have to pick from is generally confined at a bare-minimum to a certian genre. Rephrased: I couldn't have a mix cd that took extreme leaps track-to-track, putting NOFX up against Sigur Ros, as an example. With this in mind I've found I usually follow a musical pattern like that of the game Simon. Every few months I'll make a return to the cd books that are collecting dust in my room, pulling out Reel Big Fish and The Starting Line or Nine Inch Nails and Nirvana--whatever catches my eye--and begin an abbreviated version of the musical path that took me to whatever I currently am listening to. I don't do this on purpose, but it happens again and again and when I reach the most recent of groups I almost invariably move on to find new bands. Then repeat.

That's been the healthy pattern for years now. Old Material/New Material. Old Material/New Material. Give and take. The past couple weeks has been of the take variety. I've been acquiring music at such a rate that it would take me literally weeks to get through it all, and that's if I was doing nothing but pouring over music all day long, every day. But, with that in mind, my most recent acquisitons haven't been reinforcing or expounding upon the current ones, as seems to be the rule of thumb with music snobs. I've just been blindly taking, archiving, listening and accepting. Now I haven't been just grabbing at random, but in the past when I would get two discs--one of them heavy and abrasive, the other vocal and thoughtful--I would only be able to listen to one of them right away, and the one that was ignored wouldn't garner any attention until weeks or months later when I would musically shift forward or revert. But as of right now it's like the funnel of what I'm listening to has widened considerably. I still won't just jumble all the shit together and let it go, but as I'm moving band to band I don't have that expectation that they're going to sound kinda like the last.

And I know why this is.

In High School I went through Grunge, I went through Nu-Metal. The latter two years I started to transition out to Punk and Ska and those were my weapons of choice for a good while. I was aware of Pop-Punk but had labeled it "Movie Montage" music as it was always the type of shit you'd hear when hey gang, let's put on a show and save the day! or i'm gonna prove those suckers wrong! and I didn't think it would work outside of such context. I started to come across these bands more and more as I moved out of my range of Reel Big Fish/Rancid/NOFX/Sublime/Save Ferris/ETC and thanks to the advancements in p2p I found myself introduced to the Emo and Indie genres while I was silumtaneously building up my collection of New Found Glory/The Starting Line/Midtown/Sewing with Nancie/Goldfinger... My domestic life at this time was hostile like the fucking Middle East, living 45 minutes outside of Milwaukee while trying to go to UWM, living in an apartment I couldn't afford with a girl I knew wasn't going to work out. And I didn't realize it at the time but I would drive to work or school blasting the upbeat, let's-get-it-done pop-punk bands to get past whatever bullshit argument I was coming from, and then on the way home again I would listen to something mellow and depressing to "get ready", in a way, for the irritation and overall affront against rationality that was to come. So when I moved to Madison and had bands like Lucky Boys Confusion and Fall Out Boy thrust into my view? "I don't want to sit here and say I'm sorry, I just want to drink beer and play Atari?" Hey look at that--gospel truth. "So wear me like a necklace around your throat, I'll wear you down, I hope you choke. You look so good in blue!" Damn straight, I was a vengeful motherfucker.

As such the loop has always been I would become angst-filled and hit the proverbial emo/pop-punk pipe, then gateway-drug myself back into a sense of the emo/indie breed and then take a few baby steps on my own and find some new bands. Inevitably I would regress and "use" the more frowned-upon genres again. But as of late I've been--for the first time in years--fairly angst-free. As such when I'm getting new bands: Bayside Acoustic? Sure. Destroyer? Bring it on. The last Silver Jews release? Great. NOFX has new shit? Well no shit. It's like the cycle's been at least temporarily broken.

In a roundabout way this has led me to a comment utterly devoid of significance: I listened to some Fall Out Boy yesterday. Idly, while I was straightening up. When I take out the xSoxHipxCorex or the bar scene, the MTV or the Best Buy, I have no problem with the band. Their last CD was overly generic and not as good as the two before it. Done. The fact that these kids are all about[s] it because of the beat and lyrics they can't even discern words from irritates me. It really does. It's to the point where hearing the name invokes disgust. And I'm not going to even try to say Well, at least a good band is getting some recognition...because it's just not the case. If Take This To Your Grave had been getting the recognition I might argue that, but the cd that they actually put out? Forgettable at best. But I still don't think I could listen to the old acoustic disc or one of my older favorite tracks and not have a smirk come to my face for explicitly vicious reasons. I then--out of curiosity--pulled up the last Starting Line album. After distancing myself from it for a year? It's good shit. It's a huge step up from typical three-chord-cleverness and it really didn't do so well when it should have.

Also: A good number of the bands I listen to now my old roommate was listening to back at the Prospect apartment. The difference is when he liked a band you would hear about nothing else for a solid week. And I mean like conversations about the lead singers fucking pets. It may be a slight exaggeration but I think there was actually an instance or two where that was the case. As such anytime a band was suggested to me from him I would make it a point to avoid them at all costs and now I'm at a bit of a slow start to some of the groups catching my ear.

My last two comments on being musically-obsessed: I complain a lot about Best Buy and The OC, specifically. Keep in mind I work for Best Buy and I actuall watch The OC. My complaints about these two are not mutually exclusive. My only problem with The OC is that the bands they pick are whored out shortly after, and they pick damn good music. I have no problem with the songs they play on the show and only once or twice has it seemed like shameless marketing. The show mocks itself constantly and has a show-within-the-show called The Valley, which they use to such ends. On one episode they had background dialogue coming from this fictional TV show, making comments about a Death Cab For Cutie concert. An OC character caught it and looked disgusted, remaking Ugh. Death Cab's on The Valley? Guess I'm never listening to them again. Done! The OC called me out, do I get to keep bitching? No, it's time to be a stop being a woman and shut the hell up (You heard me).

Best Buy has been playing a couple songs that kept catching my ears at work, and I could never actually tell who they said the artists were. I heard one of them again today, while driving to work. On one of the CD's I had just downloaded and was really impressed with. Turns out it's The Cribs. Best Buy didn't have any lead-in comments about how they stole this song from X-WB show or any attempts at witty banter--I have no right to complain.

There's no point in all of this, don't look for it. You can bitch about pop-punk and I can bitch about Best Buy and in the end we're all just complete tools.

EDIT: As if on cue, Dance Dance just came on our overhead.