Music is a funny thing.  It’s material but yet it’s not.  It’s subjective but is good music just what you like?  What makes something move you so deeply it’s absurd?  The rules are made and then they are broken.   And it works either way.  Go figure!  The death of music is when it becomes pure commodity.  It may have a catchy melody, a cool riff or great beat but at the end of it, don’t you kind of feel like you’ve been had?  People seem to get conditioned to think, “This is music, this isn’t music.”  No matter how well it’s done; if it’s not real, it dies.  I know a lot of people get upset when you say some music is plastic.  It’s like you are insulting them.  It’s hard when you’re duped.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, “Pretentiousness is not always bad.”  A good artist has to be prepared to do part confessional, part acting.  Sometimes the acting is more real because we sometimes lie to ourselves without realizing it.  Jim Morrison said that in performance was the only time he felt like he wasn’t wearing a mask.

When we resign ourselves to habit without no variation in sight, we not only become limited and boring; we are executing a part of ourselves.  We lose what’s vital in life.  I may get into a band or an album and play it for a few days straight, then I put it away and it’s . . . “Next?”  We all need variety to some degree or we go insane.  There was a time when “classic rock” was not classic, it was just what’s playing.  When was it decided that AC/DC and Lynyrd Skynyrd were standard bearers?  When did the seventies become the only decade?  Commercialism is founded on simplicity.  Take a simple message and hammer it home again and again, even if it isn’t true.  It’s OK to have a security blanket from time to time, but there are times you have to let it go and be your own person.  Sometimes you just have to venture out and discover.  Otherwise, you just cower in the corner and lash out at anyone who comes near for fear of having your blanket torn from you.  “Only our kind need enter our area.”

Musically, people forget that the best music came when someone challenged other people’s definitions.  Beethoven was called “offensive and discordant” at one time.  His 9th symphony was first performed by any musicians he could pull off the street.  Even then, he had a hard time getting the Austrian government to OK its performance.  Elvis was denounced for playing “Black” music.  John Coltrane was vilified when he was going too “outside” with his music.  Bob Dylan was booed when he first brought an electric guitar on stage.  Grand master Flash was laughed at when he first came up with scratching.  It took a long time for feedback to be accepted.  Most new ways of music started underground.  In Czechoslovakia, people had secret festivals for experimental music in the woods for fear of being killed or imprisoned by the Soviet Government.  Artists risked their lives to play Avant Garde music in the Soviet Union.

It’s kind of confusing to me that the music industry seems to be in its tightest straight jacket since the early 60’s.  With all the technological freedom we have, the variety of musical styles, sounds, and instruments that one could be exposed to, it’s amazing to see such little variety promoted.  But that’s the industry – “safe, safe, safe.”  Then again, it’s was that way when kings and queens subsidized artists.  Maybe it’s just the inclination of the masses to be slow to embrace new territory so readily.  Then again, there really is nothing new under the sun, just variations of pre-existing elements in combination.  That’s all right by me.  I will be writing more about this in the future . . . .