So as an avid music fanatic and a musician, I always run across old school music listeners who constantly have something negative to say about music of today. This is a common complaint made by people as they get older. Your parents hate the music you listen to and swear it has no meaning whatsoever and you probably hate the music your little brothers, sisters, or younger people in general listen to because of the same reason.
After giving this some thought, I realized that, I, myself am guilty of this same thing. Although I do believe a lot of today's music really has no message other than partying, I think about the music I listen to and think that the same thing could be said about what I listen to as well. As a kid, your mind is open for new things to come in and you are more accepting of what you like. Not only in music but things in life in general. When you become an adult, everything is politics, even having fun. When we were kids, we could simply go outside our house, make friends with a random stranger and have the best time of our lives. As an adult, we are overly skeptical of everything and everybody and even something as simple as having a good time becomes as tedious as filling out a job application. With music, as a kid, we like what we like. We don't care if it has a deep meaning or how long the artist has been making music. We just know that we like it. As an adult, some of us still feel that way and some of us won't even listen to an artist unless they have PROVEN themselves to us. As a musician, I feel like sometimes it's alright to just ENJOY the music because at the end of the day, all you really did was listen to a song, so why add politics to something as simple as enjoying music ?
An example of appreciating the new would be Lady Gaga. Now, I'm not a huge fan of Lady Gaga but I have listened to her plenty of times before and even have her album on either my Zune or Ipod. I can honestly say that I do enjoy some of her songs. At the same time, when she first gained popularity, I was skeptical. I was more looking at the fact that she had a huge fan base and she was being looked at as this extremist who was absolutely artistic and creative. The problem with that to me was this didn't seem REAL. it seemed like a mere act. Growing up in the rock community, and even the goth industrial community for quite sometime, THIS was not extreme nor really that creative but society saw it as being that way. To me, I kind of incorporated my personal struggles into my opinion as well. For years, I was stared down and made fun of because I looked different or extreme. Now, this woman comes into the picture looking "extreme" and she is worshipped by many. I didn't think it was fair nor did I think her music matched her appearance. Then some time past, I started thinking about it. I like some of her songs and I claim I am for freedom of expression, yet I thought she was fake because she was liked. To me, I felt like a hypocrite. I felt like for years I've wanted society to be more accepting of musicians that were seperated from the norm and when it starts to happen, I look down on it. To me, that is a sign of a person to old school to appreciate the new.
I was a huge fan of early Marilyn Manson and thought his music as well as his fashion made sense to me because it was extreme and it had logic in it. Of course his music and fashion IS more expreme than Lady Gaga but at the same time, he is a performer, just like her, and many other artists as well. Do I think Manson wears stilts to go grocery shopping ? More than likely not. Do I think Lady Gaga wears her meat outfit to go to the gym, more than likely not as well. The point is they are both artists and I could appreciate Manson because he was the underdog, even though he was extremely popular. He was hated by many and loved by the fucked up, and that made sense to me. But after putting in thought, I realize that at the end of the day, a great artist is a great performer and can impact people. So I gained respect for Lady Gaga because I realized that at the end of the day, she may not be Marilyn Manson but she did gain a massive amount of success with her music and fashion being at least slightly different from the majority of mainstream artists these days and that deserves my respect.
The punch line to all this is to not take things too seriously sometimes and to not turn into your parents. Times have changed. Music and fashion has changed and although sometimes not for the better, sometimes it has as well. At one point, rock fans just listened to rock and hip hop fans just listened to hip hop. These days, both fans are listening to each other's music. That to me is success!
