Can't Turn You Loose
Click to viewThere are so many things I hate about liking music. But what I really hate is what it does to people's relationships with other people.
An emo kid finds out that I like folk music and she looks at me different. The indie kid finds out that I don't actually OWN that cold war kids album and feels like I betrayed her. The earthy guy finds out i don't listen exclusively to the weepies and guster and blows a gasket. I feel constantly pressured to keep on the newest stuff, even if i think it sounds like shit, i've got to at least listened to it once so i can make casual conversation. I feel compelled to follow my favorite artists and find out what's on their play-lists. (I haven't consistently read any band blogs since the summer because of time restraints, but last year, I found a YC playlist with NOFX, Less Than Jake and Bad Religion on it and didn't listen to anything else for at least a solid two weeks. And I fucking HATE bad religion) When I go to a concert I tie my hair in a bun so people can't tell it's so curly, i wear eyeliner, a black tee, dark wash straight jeans, and black converse untied with the tongue out. I would NEVER wear that in regular public. And I mean NEVER. When people first meet you, they check out the mp3 player. See if i'm suitable friend material. I build relationships based on my favorite bands. I develop a circle of concert-going buddies. I watch scene movies, Read scene books, and hell, occasionally even eat scene food.
WHY???
The music someone likes is an expression of self. I know that sometimes it's nice to fit in. I get that it's possible to unconsciously build a relationship based on a shared love of Fleet Foxes and M. Ward. I get that it's possible to have best friends, and shared interest friends, and book friends, and music friends... yadayadayada. Because I do, and I love it. I love having all those different kids of people to talk to different things about- but what i hate is that sometimes i feel like i NEED to talk to a certain set of people about a certain set of things. And I feel like the fact that i you know, happen to talk about different kinds of music alot, is actually dividing me from some of my other friends. I feel like music creates fault lines in a community.
Part of me wants to stop- maybe not stop listening, but stop talking.
But then I realized how many friends I would completely isolate myself from.
And that's not something I want to do. Really.
So, What I did is take my most embarrassing guilty pleasure (partly in light of the completely ill-representative jazz assembly that actually made me completely and fully ashamed to like any of this kind of stuff. Even though otis isn't exactly jazz- he's soul/ r&b which i think is kind off a branch off of some of the big band stuff) and post it. Because I decided, also in light of Emily's post, that it's time to stop letting music become a fault line. It's time to stop letting music get between things. It's time to be proud of the fact that my ideal song is a cross between folk and soul (ie anything by paolo nutini) or something jumpy and fun and exciting and bnoxious and ear shattering. Music was never meant to divide, or cause peer pressure, or cultural tension- it was supposed to break it. DEAR GOD. I hate what this has become.
*emo light shines on head as narrator dissolves into the shadows*