Efficacious Nonsense

I am, to put it bluntly, a music snob.

I am the kid who prefers to listen to Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention rather than listen to Herman’s Hermits or The Turtles. I am the kid who prefers to listen to Dream Theater rather than Slipknot or Trapt. I am a hypocrite. I am a close-minded person. In essence, I am ignorant to the grander things that may hold the key to understanding and interpreting how and why people indulge in various forms of popular culture. In the case of myself, I realize that this has been a long plaguing problem for me and I am trying to better myself (and maybe you’d do well to try and better yourself too while were at it).

This snobbery of music takes place in various genres but none with quite the ferocity of the genre dubbed heavy metal. That genre is indeed so snobbish that people will quarrel and squabble over the most mundane and idiotic topics. For instance, the name of the genre itself has given way to much debate. Who coined the phrase heavy metal? Was it the music critic who, in response to hearing Jimi Hendrix, made the famous proclamation that, it sounded like heavy metal falling from the sky? Or was it Steppenwolf who in the song Born to be Wild used the phrase heavy metal thunder? Who knows? And frankly, who cares? I use heavy metal as a stepping-stone, a starting off point, for a few reasons. The prime reason is that I know more about heavy metal and its history than any other genre (classic rock would be a very close second). Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, as a template heavy metal fits perfectly in the discussion at hand.

Even when looking within the genre we see little subdivisions growing rapidly every day. That is to say, the fan of Black Sabbath will not accept a band like, say, Godsmack on the sheer principle that they are a new band. Without even giving the band a listen, they have already been judge and jury and have deemed the band worthless. So here we have two groups of people who like the same genre and yet are poles apart. One may think of this split as being a sheer generational phenomenon, but I will disprove that right away. Two bands that are contemporaries of one another, Black Label Society and Slipknot have fans that would never be seen in the same place. Both bands are relatively equal in the heaviness realm (which is another topic all together), but there is one difference. You can turn on Total Request Live on MTV and see a Slipknot video, where a BLS video has yet to be seen there. On the sole basis that Slipknot is featured more prominently on a pop culture platform like TRL, they are deemed not worthy of the time of metal fans.

There is also what I refer to as the nuclear arms race of heavy metal. Can I ask when it became a challenge, nay, a necessity for bands to get increasingly heavier to legitimatize their own metal-ness? At one time playing a Deep Purple album was considered pretty heavy stuff. Now, that can be seen as classic rock top 40 nonsense. If you can understand what the lead vocalist is saying, the music has lost its metal credibility. This is both shocking and sad. In the mid 80s when metal bands like Slayer and (dare I say) Metallica were at the height of their popularities they were fast, aggressive, brutal and coherent in what the vocalists were singing and playing. Granted, it was fast thrash, but there were brains behind it. Just as there are brains behind bands like Papa Roach. People need to realize that behind every, and I mean EVERY band there is someone making decisions and pulling strings, be it Deicide or Nickelback. I don’t care how crushing that may be to the Deicide fans out there, but it’s true. Bands are marketed like any other consumer good to be appealing to a certain group. Glen Benton is a showman. Case closed.

No other band has complicated matters more than the alt-prog band Tool, which makes things complex for a few reasons. It seems as though Tool has the so-called street cred among metal fans, but still is played on Top 40 radio like the former WXRK in New York. How and why this happens is still an anomaly to me. By all accounts fans of Tool (who are among the snobbier fans in all of music) should have shunned them years ago when they started garnering number one hits. Dare I say, they (as I) are hypocrites.

Why we assume the popular to be somewhat less legitimate is really beyond comprehension. We are all into some forms of popular culture. That is ALL of us. All of us accept these items, just in different ways. And for me to sit here and point my finger at those who listen to Coldplay or Weezer is not only incorrect, but hypocritical. We all receive the information, how we use it and the way we use it is what makes things interesting. They can, in turn, accuse me of being out of touch and outdated in my music liking. They would be correct.

I jokingly once wrote an article about how my metal head union card was revoked when I picked up an album by Avril Levigne. I don’t care anymore to carry such an item. Those who make the rules about what is and what is not acceptable are just creating new ways to sucker consumers into buying into their particular brand of pop culture. Don’t listen to Slipknot, they’re not legitimate metal. Listen to Ozzy and Megadeth. You know what? Listen to Slipknot all you want. Conversely they say, Man, you still listen to Queensryche? Dude, they’re like 20 years old. Get with it. To that I say, play Operation: Mindcrime and blare it out of your speakers.

So, to all the music snobs I say this: get over it and accept that no one has the right to point any kind of finger at anyone because of their music interests. Slayer still kicks ass and is probably better than any music you listen to. That’s my right. And I am right. And so are you.

It seems as though with each passing generation there is a new fangled way for the youngsters of America to receive music. In the 1920′s through the late 1960′s the primary modes were vinyl records or radio airplay. Most children of these 40 years had to go through some sort of inconvenience to receive their music (be it dolling out cash to buy the records or patiently waiting by the radio to hear their favorite song). Either way, they had to go a bit out of their way to receiver the music. With the 1970′s came the advent of two important technological breakthroughs: the 8-track tape and the later incarnation of cassette tape. Again, both of these inventions had their drawbacks (the no skip function and possible half a song cut off of 8-tracks as well as the lower grade quality of cassette tapes). The 1980′s ushered in the era of the compact disc where the music was digitally recorded onto a plastic disc that could withstand the beatings that vinyl LP’s could not. The sound quality was indeed better, but you still had to have a portable player device in order to ‘take your music with you.’ These portable player devices were pioneered by SONY with its Walkman. You could, in theory, take your songs with you. Finally, in the 21st century with new computer technology, people can download songs off of the internet, place them onto an iPod and have every single song they could ever hope to hear at the snap of a finger. This is where music has gone awry.

 To be sure, as the decades progressed it became easier and easier for us to take our music with us. We no longer have to spend the money or wait for the song to play on the radio. We push a few magic buttons and within seconds have over 2000 songs at our fingertips. As a nation we have become considerably more self-focused in the later part of the 20th and early 21st century. That is to say, if we cannot have an intimate relationship with an item, we do not wish it for ourselves. “Why can’t I listen to every single song recorded in the English Language when I want to?” “Why can’t I?” We ask these questions because we are a greedy society who needs to have everything at the push of a button. I’ve often mused about the next step in receiving music. Will we have a chip implanted in our brains at birth, which carries every single song ever created? All we need to do is blink to change the play list.

 I mentioned earlier about the inconvenience factor in those early modes of music reception. People would have to jump a few hurdles in order to get their favorite songs. However, when they got them, they were treated to large artwork, album inserts, photographs, posters and a million and one different things that came along with the album art. Nowadays, this seems to be a rather odd scenario. Listeners seem oddly content with taking data files (that is all they are, a bunch of 1s and 0s) and plugging them into a device that stores them away. I feel that it should be worth the effort to jump these metaphorical hurdles, being as it is producing and recording albums. I know from being in many bands over the years that it is not an easy task. So to have my music converted into a data file where it can be stored among minions of other artists on a compact, portable device is just sad. It is yet another step in the dehumanizing of modern music. 

 I know a few people who have never had the experience of dropping a needle on a record. They never got to experience that feeling and slight hiss of the beginning of a record. Is it just me, or does Immigrant Song by Led Zeppelin just not sound right without that slight pop and hiss at the beginning? The sound of vinyl is wholly more dynamic than CDs, mp3s and the data files stored on players like the iPod.

Moreover, these items (including, but not limited to the iPod) have become more of a fashion accessory than anything else. As if to further mutilate music, we are taking a mode of reception and trivializing it. They now offer iPods in various colors and storage capacities. You know, so that it wont clash with your Abercrombie and Fitch T-shirt.

I know I will be called old fashioned and possibly a technophobe by my peers, but it just breaks my heart to see such a wonderful thing like music becoming so trivialized and broken down. If it is any indication as to where we are headed, I fear we are taking the wrong steps. Is the next step to hold a rock concert completely with an iPod on the stage playing every song YOU want to hear? No. You’re supposed to like the spontaneity of music be it live or recorded. We must appreciate the artists to the tenth degree. They work hard, trust me. If we don’t change our ways, the soul of music will be forever changed for the worse.

Rain as a Motif in Art and Music

by: Domenick Gasparro 
 

I was reflecting the other day (and yes, I do reflect often) about the various uses and abuses of the motif of rain in music. In the modern era of music, this motif has transcended genres and still remains one of the most utilized subject matters in all of songwriting. From this we get different interpretations as to what rain can mean. In some cases, rain is used as a symbol of catharsis, or a cleansing of the body and soul. It is in these songs that rain is a welcome trope in helping us get over our emotional baggage. However, this is not always the case. As was true in many of the older songs from the early 20th Century, rain is seen as a foreboding symbol, one that threatens to soak everything. make it dank and wholly unhappy. It is interesting to see how and when this metamorphosis took (and continues to take) place. 

In the early days of American Popular Music, and the period I’m referring to is the late 1920s through the middle of the 1950′s, rain was seen as an unpleasant activity. “Don’t bring around the clouds to rain on my parade,” was a song lyric from the time. This even flowed over out of popular music to the blues with Charly Patton’s ‘High Water,’ a song about a massive flood that engulfs everything. Some of the sappier and ho hum pop music of te 40′s speaks of things such as ‘Gray skies are gonna clear up, put on a happy face.” There is, however, the one notable exception- this of course being the song ‘Singing’ in the Rain’ where the lead vocalist exclaims ‘what a glorious feeling I’m happy again.’ How can we leave out, ‘You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy when skies are gray.’ We see that sometimes the actual rain itself is omitted and we are left with the allusion to rain. How many times can we mention ‘gray skies?’ To conclude, we see that in the big band era, possibly right up to the birth of rock and roll, a definate disdain for those drops of water that make our eyes turn red. 

Later in the history of pop music, the motif and uses of rain became more varied and interesting. The Beatles sang about it. “When the rain comes they run and hide their heads. They might as well be dead. Rain…I don’t mind.” It is interesting how in one song Lennon is both for and against rain. Creedence Clearwater Revival spoke, “I wanna know, have you ever seen the rain coming down on sunny days.” Clearly in that song there are other things at work, like juxtaposition. This had more to do with the Vietnam War than rain, but it is still a usage. The Who even took it to another extreme with the closing number of their rock opera ‘Quadrophenia.’ The actual title (and spelling) of the song is ‘Love, Reign O’er Me.’ Even though the word is spelled differently, there are more allusions to r-a-i-n rather than r-e-i-g-n. Although, in some cases, you could seemingly substitute either or. “On the dry and dusty road, the nights we spent apart alone, I need to get back home to cool cool rain. The night is hot and black as ink, oh oh God I need a drink of cool cool rain.” Led Zeppelin had ‘The Rain Song’ a dreary , somber piece that is both relaxing as well as downtrodden. “Upon us all a little rain must fall.” Kind of an ambiguous statement, like most of these later uses. 

In the 1980′s things remained complicated with the meanings and uses of rain. ‘How I Wish it Would Rain Down,’ was a huge hit for Phil Collins. Prince’s ‘Purple Rain’ was a cathartic song, one that spoke of a lover standing in the purple rain. The early 90′s gave us Guns-n-Roses epic masterpiece ‘November Rain.’ Rain has been complicated even further in that song and is used as both a trope for death and a cathartic device used by the main character who has to deal with the death of his wife. Finally, we have the infamous ‘New York City Rain’ by the now defunct band Double Down (and no, this entire post was not created just so I could name drop my band). Walking alone in New York City Rain is something everybody has done. The song’s lyrics are about isolation (or feeling isolated) in a large city. For all our differences we still get caught in the rain, and it makes us feel complicated. We all have that in common. 

To conclude, I feel that rain is a wonderful thing in life and in song. If I’m feeling upset about something, there’s nothing in the world like a good rainstorm to wash all the hurt and pain away. Rain has been in song for centuries and will continue to be so. Besides, sunny days are boring.