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The Modern Age
Jan. 23rd, 2002 07:21 pmA few days ago, I bought The Strokes' albumIs This It? and have been listening to it on a loop ever since then. I'm struggling with my affection for it, because it skates a little too close to the mainstream to sit comfortably with me -- note its preeminence on radio stations and in music magazines. Far from being original, it is hopelessly derivative; at the same time, I love the groups it steals from -- The Pixies, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, The Beatles, and The Crickets preeminent among them. Julian Casablancas has the straining voice of one who has likely smoked too many cigarettes -- which reminds me of Roger Daltrey, Janis Joplin, Mick Jaggar, and a dozen others.
That may be the root of it -- I have always been obsessed with people who can sing as though they are screaming. It is something I have never been able to do -- not the singing, but the screaming. I can't scream. I can yell, holler, shout, shriek, and very rarely wail, but I can neither scream nor howl. It either stems from the number of times I was told as a kid "don't scream unless you mean it, or else no one will listen," or from a stubborn unwillingness to show pain which somehow carries over to vocal stylings.
Yes, this is me trying to justify the purchase and enjoyment of a CD which has been relentlessly hyped, but which is not groundbreaking. I've even tried to convince myself that it's part of a subculture -- Emo -- but since said subculture is gloriously derivative anyway and does not include people older than 18 (anyone older than that who claims to be Emo is probably a poser), my case is not aided.
Why, you might ask, must I justify at all? An argument could be made that an anti-mainstream stance is just as constraining as a mainstream one, and through my preoccupation with defying the mainstream I am allowing myself to be defined by the mainstream, thus giving them the very power for control they crave. It is a point I have considered and rebutted several times throughout my life, but it is not actually the main issue here.
I must be able to justify my choices in music, because I am judged on them just as harshly as a model is on her weight.
Everyone in my family is a musician, and has spent at least some time at a professional (paid) level. Uncle Rex plays the banjo, Mom sings, my sister and I and both of my cousins play guitar and piano, and I play half a dozen other things. My grandfather was an organist and choir director. My father can identify any piece of music upon hearing the first few notes, and can't listen to opera because of the fluctuations off pitch. Whenever people say musicals are unrealistic, I point to my family's tendency to improvise ariettas and dance routines over things as ordinary as the delivery of the mail. (I love it when we do that.)
For both middle and high school, I went to what amounted to conservatories. The only reason I've never been in a band is because all of my friends who I would have asked to join me were already in one, or sometimes three -- I wrote off-the-cuff lyrics for a lot of them. My relationship with Chris Blacker begin with Debussy at age 14 and ended at 19 over arguments on whether credit for "Wooden Ships" should be given to David Crosby or Jefferson Airplaine and which Greatful Dead songs were worth loving. It then resumed at 20, along with a compromise on String Cheese Incident and Iranian folk music.
Patrick plays saxophone. Valancy was a state-level bassoonist. Raine worked at a record store. For my first week of college, my roommate and I never saw each other, but simply left notes evaluating our respective CD collections.
And really, is there a better way to define someone? People don't have "off days" with music the way they do with appearance, and they don't listen to it because of the image, but because they love it. So the fact that I like this CD says something about who I am, and I have to come to terms with it.
Really, I think part of me is disturbed because Valancy likes it and it's a running joke that we share no music in common. (For years, we shared exactly one CD: Stunt, by Barenaked Ladies. It was the only CD of theirs she liked, whereas I purchased it out of respect for the cleverness of their earlier work. Since then, we've both embraced Radiohead, Steriolab, Cream, and a handful of others -- but we don't tend to like the same songs.)
We shall see. For now, I will simply listen.
That may be the root of it -- I have always been obsessed with people who can sing as though they are screaming. It is something I have never been able to do -- not the singing, but the screaming. I can't scream. I can yell, holler, shout, shriek, and very rarely wail, but I can neither scream nor howl. It either stems from the number of times I was told as a kid "don't scream unless you mean it, or else no one will listen," or from a stubborn unwillingness to show pain which somehow carries over to vocal stylings.
Yes, this is me trying to justify the purchase and enjoyment of a CD which has been relentlessly hyped, but which is not groundbreaking. I've even tried to convince myself that it's part of a subculture -- Emo -- but since said subculture is gloriously derivative anyway and does not include people older than 18 (anyone older than that who claims to be Emo is probably a poser), my case is not aided.
Why, you might ask, must I justify at all? An argument could be made that an anti-mainstream stance is just as constraining as a mainstream one, and through my preoccupation with defying the mainstream I am allowing myself to be defined by the mainstream, thus giving them the very power for control they crave. It is a point I have considered and rebutted several times throughout my life, but it is not actually the main issue here.
I must be able to justify my choices in music, because I am judged on them just as harshly as a model is on her weight.
Everyone in my family is a musician, and has spent at least some time at a professional (paid) level. Uncle Rex plays the banjo, Mom sings, my sister and I and both of my cousins play guitar and piano, and I play half a dozen other things. My grandfather was an organist and choir director. My father can identify any piece of music upon hearing the first few notes, and can't listen to opera because of the fluctuations off pitch. Whenever people say musicals are unrealistic, I point to my family's tendency to improvise ariettas and dance routines over things as ordinary as the delivery of the mail. (I love it when we do that.)
For both middle and high school, I went to what amounted to conservatories. The only reason I've never been in a band is because all of my friends who I would have asked to join me were already in one, or sometimes three -- I wrote off-the-cuff lyrics for a lot of them. My relationship with Chris Blacker begin with Debussy at age 14 and ended at 19 over arguments on whether credit for "Wooden Ships" should be given to David Crosby or Jefferson Airplaine and which Greatful Dead songs were worth loving. It then resumed at 20, along with a compromise on String Cheese Incident and Iranian folk music.
Patrick plays saxophone. Valancy was a state-level bassoonist. Raine worked at a record store. For my first week of college, my roommate and I never saw each other, but simply left notes evaluating our respective CD collections.
And really, is there a better way to define someone? People don't have "off days" with music the way they do with appearance, and they don't listen to it because of the image, but because they love it. So the fact that I like this CD says something about who I am, and I have to come to terms with it.
Really, I think part of me is disturbed because Valancy likes it and it's a running joke that we share no music in common. (For years, we shared exactly one CD: Stunt, by Barenaked Ladies. It was the only CD of theirs she liked, whereas I purchased it out of respect for the cleverness of their earlier work. Since then, we've both embraced Radiohead, Steriolab, Cream, and a handful of others -- but we don't tend to like the same songs.)
We shall see. For now, I will simply listen.
