#12 Good Music - Olivia

This may be the first post thus far where words are failing me.  

That's sort of why it's late.

This time last year, I wrote for the Brigham Young University - Idaho newspaper, The Scroll, in the Arts & Entertainment section.  I wrote about all sorts of things, but music is and perhaps will always be my niche.  I felt like I got a name for interviewing bands, describing sounds, assimilating tastes, and casting judgements on music like shuffling cards.  This is of course in my head, but I'm over that fact. 

Telling people why they should listen to something is what I do.  

This topic feels too big almost.  I will, however, outline what it is I like about music so much.  

I like music for basically five reasons. 

Because it sets a scene.

Because it's got my back.

Because I can share it with my friends (or not).

Because I can tell my children about it.

Because I can dance to it. 

Soundtracks are invaluable to shaping a film.  Why would I neglect the soundtrack of my life?  Every morning, without fail, I wake up with a song in my head.  The song changes daily, and sometimes it doesn't make it past the shower before it gives way to another groove.  But I submit that it shapes my day completely.  

If you awake to a brisk autumn morning with sunlight streaming through yellow leaves, as I have for the past month, my scene is set.  But the music is key.  Am I particularly reminded of my Appalachian home?  Should I put on some Old Crow Medicine Show or Avett Brothers.   Or is it more of a softer light?  Is the morning more suited to Liszt  or Debussy?  Both variables?  Fleet Foxes then.  Is it Saturday?  That changes everything. 

But luckily, thanks to the technology of today, I have my options.  I love music because I can depend on it.  If not my iPod, then my laptop, or my vinyl record player, or the radio, or me and my guitar.  Or just me.  I sing to myself all the time.  

I sleep soundly at night knowing that if I need the tender sounds of something particular, it can be arranged. If I don't have it, someone does.  And if nobody does, there's always the internet.  

The internet should be used (correctly) anyway for a heightened musical experience.  I can promise you right now that there is music hidden in secret places out there that demands your attention.  This very minute there are songs that would might make you feel better than any other small indulgence might.  I regularly check a detailed list of music blogs, just to sniff out a new beautiful thing.  I also take suggestions.

I love recommendations actually.  Because mostly, music should be shared.  I don't mean this with any kind of legal implication, just that a song listened in warm company resonates differently.   That's why we all sing songs at holidays; it feels magical.  

I grew up with my family feeding me on music like it was nutritionally advised.  My father would quiz me on rock and roll history while I was still probably more inclined to jam out to Raffi.  And when I have children, I want them to know what I was listening to when I was young and retrospectively beautiful.  Music is so soaked into our culture, it gives a different context to my life, my country, my family, and my peers.  Music provides a common ground.  

And if that ground is big enough, there will be dancing.  I hope there will always be dancing.  

Essentially, I want to live in a way in which nothing is wasted.  Like anyone, I want my days to be full and sweet.  I need sounds in my life.  And I encourage you to want the same.

I realize I have completely neglected the "good" part of the blog topic.  That is because we choose our own definitions for such words.  While beauty is in the eye of the beholder, the capacity to identify it increases with exposure.  The more you listen, the more you'll know.  

I don't care if you like something as long as you can legitimately tell me why.  As long as you know why you like something, I'm satisfied. 

And if you can't find any music you like, that's your cue to write some. 

Don responds:

I guess this is one of those posts were my age begins to show.  I have no idea who you are referring to when you mention Liszt  or Debussy.   I'm okay with that.  I've got my music, my cannon of folk, classic rock, bluegrass, R&B, blues, country, and the odd Raffi album that I know well enough that I don't feel the pressure to keep up with what's new.

I guess when your iPod has The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Tom Petty, Steve Earle, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon, Queen, and The Eagles and all the other great music from "back in my day," then I guess I don't feel the constant yearning to find the next great thing.

Now, don't get me wrong.  I like a lot of the current music.  I put the Avett Brothers, Arcade Fire, The Black Keys, and The Decemberists in the same category of "Great Music" as I file my old stuff.  It's just that I don't feel the burning need to keep up with it all.  I think I'll go listen to some Beach Boys.  Now,  name one current band that has that type of singular Rock Vision, and perhaps I'll change my mind.

#12 "Good Music" -- Don

This is the logo for my forthcoming album, Bubble Lawn.

There’s just no way to condense everything I have to say about “good music” into a single blog entry so consider what you’re reading a Sparks Notes explanation of the Reader’s Digest version of what I would say if I had the room to say more.

So since sticking to the essentials is obligatory if I want to keep this post under 1000 words (which is always the goal even if I often stray into the 1500 word zone), I here present Dr. Don’s 5 Rules of Good Music.

Rule #1: “Good Music has everything to do with groove and nothing to do with genre.”

I feel bad for people who tell me they only listen to one type of music.  Whether it’s Rap, County, or Classical, people who restrict themselves to only one type of music have no idea what they’re missing out on by segregating themselves away from the greatness that can be found in every genre.  It’s beyond my ability to comprehend why people would want to narrow their life like this; as far as I’m concerned, listening exclusively to a single style of music is like being at a enormous buffet and deciding you’re only going to eat the dinner rolls.  Sure the dinner rolls might be great, but come on, you need to sample the feast that lies before you.

Great music is entirely independent of genre.  I often hear people say things like “I can’t stand bluegrass (or Rap or Classical); it all sounds the same.”  And I typically let those comments go because there’s nothing I can say to change these people’s minds.  They would have to actually experience the range of a style to understand how diverse it can actually be.  Thus, while I usually just let those comments go, what I’d like to say to these people is, “perhaps the narrow bit of bluegrass you have listened to all sounded the same, but trust me, there can be a light year’s distance between Bill Monroe and The Avett Brothers.”

It doesn’t matter what the style is, the important question is, “Can the musicians find the groove?”  Groove is nearly indefinable, but when musicians find it, you know it exists because you can feel the music vibrate in every fiber of your being.  Groove is the hum of the sacred.  Groove is the universe feedbacking on itself through guitar amplifiers.  Groove is the auditory passageway that transports us out of The Present and hurls us briefly into The Eternal.  No single style of music can claim to hold the exclusive path to Groove.  Every style of music holds the potential to find The Groove.

Rule #2:  Good Music can singlehandedly provide motivation to get out of bed. 

Although Rock & Roll is capable of educating the mind, soothing the soul, and revealing one’s place the universe, ultimately Good Music’s key function is to remind us to be grateful for being alive.  Sure, quite often life sucks lemons.  It seems like we can’t catch a break and sometimes, bad luck sticks to our heels like a faithful little dog.  But even when it feels like our lives are utter shambles, good music can lift us up and remind us that ultimately, it’s all good.  Bad times are going to pass, but the music that rocks us is always going to be there for us when we need it. 

I cannot reckon the number of times I have climbed into my car to go to work while feeling as grouchy as a hung-over grizzly only to have my entire universe turn around because magically some DJ found just the right song to blast me from my doldrums.  I didn’t need Prozac; I needed some Freddy Mercury or some Bob Seeger.  God bless you, Chuck Berry.  Hail, hail rock and roll.

Rule #3: “Good Music is more substantial than cotton candy.”

There’s a science fiction writer by the name of Theodore Sturgeon who once rather famously observed, “Ninety percent of everything is crud.”  Although he was referring to science fiction when he made this observation back in the 1950’s, when we apply Sturgeon’s Law to pop music, I’d say that the estimation of 90% being crap is overly optimistic.

There is so much bad music that somehow makes it over the threshold of obscurity into the realm of public consciousness that it makes me wonder if the Norse God Loki is actually the program director behind Top 40 radio.

The problem with most pop music is that it tries so hard to be popular; it’s like that rich kid in elementary school whose parents are wealthy so he tries to get everyone to like him by giving out candy bars but this tactic always backfire because even though we’re just kids, we understand how his generosity is cynically motivated and we can’t be bought with Milky Ways.  Pop music tries to hard to be liked; good music knows people are going t like it merely because it’s good.

The reason most pop music is so bad is that only occasionally does a brilliant, fresh, authentic musical artist breakthrough with a different sound, and when that does happen, this musician’s success soon gets buried beneath the simulacra that follows when other record companies mercilessly crank out inferior duplicates of the music without ever understanding what was good about the original. 

Turn of the radio; every band sounds like every other band.  If you can track down the first band that started the latest trend, you’ll find one good album followed by a couple mediocre albums because the record company wanted them to sound the same while the band wanted to distinguish themselves by the onslaught of wannabe imitators.

Rule #4: “Good Music needs to be able to chew up highway.”

The best way to recognize good music is to take a long road trip.  If you can go a couple of hundred miles listening to an album without it getting old, you know you’re on to something.

I’m currently working on a new album.  Now it’s not going to be up to me say if it’s good or not, because obviously I’m too enmeshed in the project to have any chance of perspective.  But both Chad Dotson (an enormously big-hearted and gigantically talented musician who I am lucky enough to teach with and who has taken on the Sisyphean task of producing my album) and I agree that when we’ve finally reached that elusive “final mix,” we’re going to take a road trip and listen to it multiple times because the only way to ultimately decide if the music’s going to suck air or blow people’s minds is by putting pavement beneath it.  (Shameless Plug:  if you’re a regular reader and you’d like to help me finance this next album, go to iTunes and download “The Dinosaur Song” for 99 cents.  The new album is going to sound nothing like “The Dinosaur Song,” I promise.)

Rule #5: “Good Music must always be bigger than the person who is singing it.”

Okay, here’s a short list: The Beatles, Elvis, Michael Jackson, Frank Sinatra, Bruce Springsteen, Johnny Cash, Arethea Franklin, and U2.   What these folk have in common is that no matter how big their celebrity became, it couldn’t swallow the enormity of their music. 

Many people on this list had huge train wrecks of personal lives.  Elvis died on the toilet from overdosing on fried peanut butter sandwiches. Michael Jackson owned a monkey, a theme park, and Joseph Merrick’s skeleton while sleeping in a hyperbaric chamber when he wasn’t having sleepovers with little boys.  Sinatra got in deep with the Mafia in Las Vegas.  John Lennon was burned in effigy along with stacks and stacks of Beatle albums for suggesting that the popularity of his band was beginning to surpass the popularity of Jesus Christ.

I could go on and on, but the point of Rule #5 is that no matter how stupid or infamous their lives became, nothing could take a single note away from the music they gave us.  Good music will always outlive the shenanigans of its creators.

And that’s why when CFMs (Currently Famous Musicians) do outrageous stunts or make extreme political statements, I like to postpone judgment on whether or not their music is any good.  I kind of like Lady Gaga, but it’s hard for me to hear what she’s singing when she’s wearing a dress made out of meat.  Is she making good music?  Ask me again in ten years, I’ll put it on my truck’s speakers, hit the road, and then get back to you.


Olivia says:


I would just like to say: Yes, absolutely, agreed, positively, true that and amen.  I agree with all that you've written.


Especially the commentary on the phenomenon of sound popularity and pop music turn over.  The parable my generation will look to is Weezer.  Every kid from my age to a handful of years older saw Weezer as something to believe in while they were growing up.  Here were unabashed nerds, singing cheeky lyrics about how they looked like Buddy Holly and would sacrifice a knitted sweater for closure or irony.  We thought they sounded like what we thought garage bands should sound like.


We bought the Blue album and could feel it.  We bought Pinkerton and were still convinced.  But as the albums progressed, we noticed that Weezer hadn't.  Somewhere in the processes of becoming rock stars, Weezer stopped writing what they knew and shifted their aim for the perfect pop song.  Their metal roots no longer showed, just the edges of an obvious desire to be catchy.  I mean, Raditude? Really? And Hurley?  Please, why?  Rivers, I miss the bowl cut. 


And another pop music party foul.  Please stop telling me to listen to Owl City.  I don't need Owl City, I have the Postal Service, which happened circa 2003.  


Now don't misunderstand me in regards to pop music.  If I have learned anything from my generation's music output, it's that music can be there simply for feel-good vibes.  Sure, we all need some real perspective from now and then and music can be powerful.  But the first album I ever bought was Hanson's Middle of Nowhere.  MmmBop is pretty much lyrically empty, but it feels good.  I can't begrudge someone jamming to Justin Bieber or whatever the pop outflow of the moment may be. 


All I ask is that you be aware of variety is all.  It's good for you, I promise.