About 20 years ago, while I was pursuing one of my undergrad degrees, I took a quite impactful humanities / cultural studies class on the 20th century. My first paper was to write about a form of art , or a particular artist, that had a powerful effect on my life. And the immediate reaction in my head was, “Being a musician, this is going to be a slam dunk of an assignment! Woo hoo!”
From there, I quickly crafted an essay on the three reasons why I started playing guitar in, *ahem*, the late 1980’s: Iron Maiden, Metallica, and Joe Satriani. And though I sort of broke the rules of the assignment – I was supposed to focus on *one* artist or art form – a lot of rock musicians, in particular, know how difficult it is to choose an all-encompassing influence. Moreover, considering that rock has been around for, oh, about 65 years now, and has spawned a plethoric monster of various styles, it is not so easy to choose the ultimate influence. At least in my case it is almost impossible.
About a week after handing in my assignment, my teacher bluntly started out our class by chastising us, as just about everyone in the class wrote about music being the most influential force in the arts. Apparently, she had expected us to steer away from the obvious and choose anything but *that*. I understood her point, but…
Here’s the thing about, well,*that*: Music is, indeed, leaps and bounds more influential than all other forms of art. We memorize lyrics, we tap our hands or feet to drum beats, we can access a whole range of music styles to fit our mood, we dance to it, we fantasize about being rock stars, we are nostalgic about various decades of music, we play air guitar…hell, we even play Guitar Hero!
Music is the background story of our lives. It’s why music is so powerful in movies, in commercials, during special events (weddings, prom, graduation, road trips with our friends or family) – really, you can’t go anywhere (except for maybe a desert island or other place that is in the absolute middle of nowhere) without being affected by music. Shopping at the grocery store? Music is usually playing overhead. Watching a sporting event? Music is played to get you pumped about the game and to give dramatic effect during cut-scene biographies about your favorite players. Working out at the gym? Chances are you are rocking out to motivating music through your headphones or the gym speakers.
The examples, no doubt, go and on.
Yet, because we humans often embrace tribalism as way of relating to other people who share similar interests – the rock genre of music, specifically, has ironically turned into a hot mess of music subgenres and staunch subcultures that have created a tunnel-vision like effect to appreciating music.
Thankfully, because YouTube has grown astronomically in popularity within the past 15 years, it has helped bridge some gaps in music appreciation. For example, there is now an ever-growing rash of hip-hop/rap listeners who are exploring rock, metal, and other genres of music. So, in all fairness, it’s not that there isn’t any opportunity to expand musical horizons. However, our Western society is now paradoxically just as segregated as it is inclusive.
Of course, we all have our preferences. We are all individuals. We should have the freedom to choose what we like and what we do not like. But where is the line between being enjoying certain genres of music and all-out becoming obsessed with a genre, to the point that we shut down from other genres?
It’s a bit of a shame that music genres from certain decades, or genres that have spawned large subcultures of fans, have created a society of music snobs. If you like 80’s hair bands, you are cheesy. If you were a fan of Nu Metal, you are cheesy. If you liked 90s alternative metal, you are “old school’. If you like pop stars, you don’t know “real music”. And don’t ever tell your metalhead friends. If you become commercially successfully, you’re a sellout. If you are a hip hop artist, many older generation rockers will skewer you for “making beats” and samples, instead of writing material on a traditional instrument. If you’re a metal band that is not scream-o, you are not necessarily all-out rejected, but you are not very warmly accepted either. And if you like country – you’re doomed.
Metal is particularly contradictory when it comes to music appreciation. I am not aware of any other genre that has such a cavalcade of “purists” in all subgenres. If you are into black metal, make sure you don’t have any Avenged Sevenfold songs In your collection. Or if you are a musician who isn’t using an eight-string guitar tuned to drop Z and playing chunky down strokes to odd time signatures, then the 20 year-olds who think Metallica is “dad rock” probably won’t vibe with you much. And if you spend enough time on YouTube, you will see swarms of metal listeners come out of the wood work arguing about which form of metal is the “true” metal (similar to religious people who fight over which beliefs are “true”).
Am I the only who thinks this is so asinine? Isn’t the whole purpose of rock music to free your mind and embrace raw rebellion against the status quo? If you are in a brutal death metal band, how do you become “purist” about your genre? Wasn’t the whole point of building your genre to show that you want to do your own thing in that way, but that it all falls under the umbrella of “let’s learn to appreciate our different forms of rebellion”?
Yes, you don’t have to like every piece of music you hear. But should you hate any music based on what you are not willing to hear? Or that you get puritanically hyper-focused on your genre and think all other music sucks?
This reminds me of an interview with Corey Taylor (of Slipknot) that I watched several years ago: He went on a rant about how he missed the “old days” of rock shows, when you could watch five different styles of rock bands and enjoy the diversity. He then explained that is why he isn’t always keen on playing metal shows that featured only one genre: he quite astutely pointed out that when you go to a single genre metal show, you don’t know where the first band ends and the second band begins.
Granted, if the headliner band is doom metal, and the opening band is a shoegaze, experimental band – it is a drastic mismatch. And the club hosting the show, of course, does not want poor decisions to drive them out of business. So, yes, sometimes a more defined theme night has its place.
Yet when the pendulum swings too far to the side of puritanical music listeners, then it is more than time that we rethink what exactly music appreciation means to us.