Once when asked what Trans-Siberian Orchestra was about, Paul O'Neill replied, "It's about creating great art." When asked to define what great art was, Paul said, "The purpose of art is to create an emotional response in the person that is exposed to that art. And there are three categories of art; bad art, good art and great art. Bad art will elicit no emotional response in the person that is exposed to it, i.e.; a song you hear in an elevator and it does nothing to you, a picture on a wall that gives you the same emotional response as if the wall had been blank, a movie that chews up time. Good art will make you feel an emotion that you have felt before; you see a picture of a forest and you remember the last time you went fishing with your dad, you hear a song about love and you remember the last time you were in love. Great art will make you feel an emotion you have never felt before; seeing the Pieta, the world famous sculpture by Michelangelo, can cause someone to feel the pain of losing a child even if they've never had one. And when you're trying for these emotions the easiest one to trigger is anger. Anyone can do it. Go into the street, throw a rock at someone, you will make them angry. The emotions of love, empathy and laughter are much harder to trigger, but since they operate on a deeper level, they bring a much greater reward.”
That, to me, was what music was all about. Emotion.
When I was younger, I was less tolerant, less understanding about pretty much everything, but especially about music. There was a part of me that just didn’t want to share the bands I “discovered.” More disturbing were bands I liked that were commercially successful, which was selling out, in my eyes.
20 years ago, in 1991, Nirvana released “Nevermind” on DGC Records. After my initial approval of them as part of the SubPop roster, this was close to heresy. To top it off, EVERYONE loved the album, especially the single “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” I turned away.
(On a positive note, they knocked Michael Jackson off the top of the charts.)
The growing popularity of alternative music made me retreat further from all music, as I couldn’t comprehend the melding of “alternative” and “mainstream.” The slow decline of vinyl and subsequently of CDs lent further credence to my thinking that music as an art form was dead.
I’m not sure when I started listening to music again, maybe when I started exercising again and needed distraction as I ran increasingly longer durations. I started going back to favorite punk artists of my childhood and then worked my way forward. Apologies to my children, but much of contemporary music is ridiculously formulaic and irritating (surely that’s the cranky curmudgeon in me talking?). To see what has added greatly to my dismay, check out this link that Patrick of
StuffAbout.Me shared:
12 Extremely Disappointing Facts About Popular Music. Ouch.
A return to the Seattle scene in my musical meanderings meant, of course, a relisten to two of the greatest bands of the time, Pearl Jam and Nirvana. Much as I have enjoyed Pearl Jam, to me the more appealing of the two bands remains Nirvana. They, in so much of their music, combine the wall of noise (loud guitars, thundering bass and drums) with infectious pop melodies that is the hallmark of my favorite bands.
I recently had the chance to watch “Classic Albums: Nirvana – Nevermind,” which is a documentary DVD released by Eagle Vision in March 2005, as part of the Classic Albums series. It features interviews specifically for this release with members of the band and Nevermind album producer Butch Vig about the recording of the album. Other interview highlights include Thurston Moore from Sonic Youth, and Steve Diggle from the Buzzcocks. If you ever were a fan of the band or just want to learn more about what made them tick, this is a must-see DVD.
I feel like I've come a long way and become much more tolerant. But I still think much of contemporary music sucks.
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