Monday, November 16, 1998
Appreciating artist’s abilities doesn’t require liking his
style
COLUMN: Appreciating artist’s abilities doesn’t require liking
his style
The machine-brewed coffee stings the back of my throat as the
raspy poet from Minnesota picks his guitar and sings about life. I
listen to that squealing organ and close my eyes, subconsciously
tapping my foot to the beat. Now it comes time for the harmonica
solo, the one my dad likes, the one that reminds me of a
beautifully clear day long ago, when I first saw this sprawling
campus, and began to think about freedom. I’m losing myself in the
energy of an electrified Bob Dylan singing "Like a Rolling
Stone."
Then it comes.
"He sucks. He doesn’t know how to sing."
I’m snatched out of my daydream and smashed back into the
reality of my musicology class. It seems a philistine has found his
way into the audience. According to this genius, Bob Dylan, one of
the most acclaimed and popular artists in the history of recorded
music, knows nothing about singing. Apparently, since Dylan isn’t
using the same voice you might hear on Top 40 radio, he’s a musical
idiot. Otherwise, he’d sing better, right?
Wrong, moron.
I hear people spout off about this all the time, and I’m guilty
of it myself every now and then. People seem to think that just
because they don’t particularly like the way the music sounds, it’s
invalid. This joker in my class continued on at length about how
Dylan couldn’t carry a tune, and thus was a bad singer. The man has
been recording music for almost 40 years, toured all over the
world, won countless awards, and his music is recognized as being
some of the most influential art in the 20th century. I think he
probably knows a thing or two about how to sing.
We all have types of music we prefer and types that we can’t
stand. Personally, I don’t like heavy metal. I find its tone
unpleasant, its lyrics ridiculous and its melodies repetitive. I’d
rather not listen to it. I don’t dismiss it as being irrelevant,
however. I’ve seen the frenzied emotion it can invoke in its
listeners, and the passion with which they devote themselves to it.
Simply because I don’t care for it doesn’t mean it’s musically
worthless, as the vocal pinhead suggests.
I don’t know what it is about that musicology class that
attracts these people, but they all seem to sit behind me, wherever
I am. They sit there, not thinking about what’s going on, loudly
proclaiming their dislike of the subject.
I don’t get it, I really don’t. You don’t have to be a hardcore
music fan to appreciate a few tunes. Even if you don’t really like
them all that much, to dismiss them as being without merit is
ridiculous.
This is not to say that all music is good, either. There are
some things out there that are pretty hard to argue for – I hear
them all the time. My roommate has an album of Christmas songs
performed by bodily functions, and you really can’t support some
guy belching into a microphone as a serious musician. Just because
something has a musical note in it doesn’t make it good. The
important flip-side to that, however, is that just because a song
doesn’t have harmonious vocals, electric guitar, a good beat or
whatever doesn’t make it bad.
This seems to be a point lost on my fellow students, who offer
sentiments such as, "Dude, we’ve been here for, like, an hour – we
should go." The class is two hours of sitting around, listening to
short excerpts of popular music. It’s not like this is
thermonuclear physics or anything. Two hours of sitting in one
place, essentially listening to the radio with a colorful
commentary from the professor is not going to kill you.
I can understand that it might get a little monotonous. If
you’re not a huge fan of the day’s playlist, you could get bored.
As an alternative to listening to the professor talk, though, you
can instead watch the videos he sometimes shows. The gallery has a
response to this, as well.
"I hope he, like, plays a movie today, so I can leave."
Since we aren’t tested on the videotaped material, they use it
as an excuse to depart. God forbid there should be something
interesting on there.
I think my favorite one came from a large young man wearing
athletic warm-ups, who was so excited by the whole class that he
amused himself by throwing pieces of paper at his friends who were
sitting nearby. This young scholar proclaimed in a rush of
brilliance, "I would so not be here if Coach didn’t ask to see my
notes."
Apparently, the idea of going to class to actually learn
something (rather than just getting proof of attendance) is an
alien one. I don’t care if it’s not your favorite subject. I don’t
care if you don’t want to be there. When you sit there like a third
grader and amuse yourself at the expense of the rest of us, it kind
of gets to you.
When these whiz kids can bring themselves to think about
something class related, rather than "that party where I got so
wasted last night," they seem to have a very interesting standard
to judge the music that we’re listening to. It doesn’t matter what
the artists are saying, or which instruments they’re playing – the
important thing is the way they look.
The critics look at Little Richard and proclaim him to be "a
homo." They don’t care about Dolly Parton’s music, they prefer to
discuss her breasts.
I’m glad to have these opinions shot off all around me, but I
was not aware of the fact that Little Richard’s unusual outfits or
Parton’s figure are the driving influence behind their music.
Sure, the way the artists look when they perform is significant,
but it has no bearing whatsoever on the way they sound when we’re
listening to them on the stereo.
This half-hearted musical criticism is not limited to just the
aisles of musicology classes. You can find it wherever there’s a
radio playing. People love to shoot their mouths off about things
they don’t know very much about. (I, of course, have never done
this in my whole life.) Music seems to be a favorite target of
these attacks.
What they neglect to remember is that just because they don’t
like it, it isn’t pointless.
If you reject everything you don’t immediately like, you’re
going to lead an awfully boring life.
Hopkins thinks his own guitar playing really sucks.
Brent Hopkins
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