Steve Jobs has stolen a piece of my soul
So I've been AWOL for the past while, despite the end of exams and the holiday season. Right now I am sitting in my room, surrounded by piles and piles of my cd collection. Why? I have joined the ranks of the iPod owners. I received two as gifts, so now I'm packing 34 gigs of music mobility. I feel dirty yet tingly all at the same time. I know, I know, I have become a media sell-out, but hey, who am I to turn down over-priced gadgets?
So this new-found technological freedom has got me thinking about musical choices. I've been spending the past week or so sifting through my music collection. These heart wrenching decisions of whether or not I want David Gilmour's newest album with me as I make my way to school, or whether I really need Morissey at my fingertips. As I peruse the selection I have amassed, the question that comes to my mind, after "I own this?!?" is: Why do we choose the music we listen to? What makes us inclined to belt out NIN's "Closer" or to unabashadly dance around to the stylings of the Commodores? Brick House aside, what I really wonder is how is it that our music preferences are formed?
Is persistent preference for a certain genre of music a sign of unrelenting devotion, or a mere reluctance to experience the new, or the unfamiliar? Similar to that, is having a very broad and diverse music repertoire a sign of inability to focus? As I pull some ancient cds out from the back of my shelves, I wonder why on earth I still have them, or why I acquired them in the first place.
As a former psychology major, I have always wondered about the nature versus nurture debate. That whole debauchle of whether we are biologically programmed to behave in certain ways, or we are taught it. It has always gone beyond mere temperament and behaviour for me. When it comes to wide world of musical choices and preferences, sometimes I feel like I am sitting on the fence when it comes to forming an opinion. Being a product of that teeny bopper era, I know how the effect of the musical nature has an impact on the way we listen to music. Some of those not to be mentioned cds I have cowering in the back of my collection is a clear testament to that. However at the same time, I look at what my tastes have evolved into, completely aside from "popular" music. If you had asked me a few years back if I ever thought I would be listening to the David Gilmour or buying Cream cds, I would have laughed at you and turned up the Disturbed. Angry teen years are such a fount of wonderful musical memories. Back to my point, shall we?
I watch the throngs of emo-angsty kids come into my store asking for the same generic crap and my questioning goes even further. My Chemical Romance anyone? A dash of Fall Out Boy? A smidegeon of Franz Ferdinand. What drives us to this music? Is popular music merely a product of media bombardment? Is it the general accessibility of the music? This music is not the symbol of a disenfranchised generation, as punk or the entire movement of the 1960s is argued to be, so why? Why are we choosing the music we listen to? It is not just random dumb luck that these artists are making it onto the stage of popular music, so what brings us to support them?
Post-modern theory argues that none of this art that we call modern music has any semblence of origniality, and that it merely reconstitutes that which has come before. Along this line of thinking then, are our personal music tastes guided by that which we have experienced before? There are times when I tend to think that it does. In my job, there are countless times when customers ask me for suggestions on something new to listen to, and I will have to ask them what they like to listen to. I have to make suggestions by approximating how far they would seemingly go from their musical norms. Recommending Mindless Self Indulgence to someone who thinks Black Eyed Peas are amazing would probably futile. So many of us only tiptoe softly into the "new", and even then, is it really new at all if it is merely the old jazzed up by a dub-remix or kick ass vocoder?
While some may have trouble doing a 6 degrees of separation chart of say Britney Spears and Children of Bodom (a cookie to whomever can do that), could there be a connection that our brains make that lean us towards certain types of music? I have always argued that as a generation, we are increasingly afraid of experiencing the novel, that which is completely foreign. If you look at the popularity of artists like K-OS or Matisyahu, who are syncretizing varying musical styles for mass consumption, you can see what I am getting at. Modern music is seemingly an attempt at creating the pseudo-novel by appealing to that which we have already embraced.
Now to play hardball in my own argument, what about those who completely disregard this incestuous world of popular music, and embrace the underground? What brings them to it? What drives them to this love of the avant garde (if that)? What makes someone move from listening to The Killers to embracing Cannibal Corpse? I've never really been able to figure it out, but I still theorize that despite the tonal difference there is an underlying similarity (and don't say that they are all music, lazy wankers) between even the most unlikely artists and genres that drives us to them.
So thus it comes down to the cd by cd basis of loading my ipod. As I sit here typing, I have a pile of cds stacked at my right, awaiting their ripping fate. Whether the Deftones make the cut, or if the Smiths get placed back on the shelf, I have yet to decide. Maybe they'll both win my round of musical roulette, or maybe Great Big Sea will knock'em dead. Who knows anymore.
Laura
Musical Stylings: Jeff Buckley
Recent Acquisition: Matisyahu- No Place to Be Live CD/DVD--- I do not recommend.
So this new-found technological freedom has got me thinking about musical choices. I've been spending the past week or so sifting through my music collection. These heart wrenching decisions of whether or not I want David Gilmour's newest album with me as I make my way to school, or whether I really need Morissey at my fingertips. As I peruse the selection I have amassed, the question that comes to my mind, after "I own this?!?" is: Why do we choose the music we listen to? What makes us inclined to belt out NIN's "Closer" or to unabashadly dance around to the stylings of the Commodores? Brick House aside, what I really wonder is how is it that our music preferences are formed?
Is persistent preference for a certain genre of music a sign of unrelenting devotion, or a mere reluctance to experience the new, or the unfamiliar? Similar to that, is having a very broad and diverse music repertoire a sign of inability to focus? As I pull some ancient cds out from the back of my shelves, I wonder why on earth I still have them, or why I acquired them in the first place.
As a former psychology major, I have always wondered about the nature versus nurture debate. That whole debauchle of whether we are biologically programmed to behave in certain ways, or we are taught it. It has always gone beyond mere temperament and behaviour for me. When it comes to wide world of musical choices and preferences, sometimes I feel like I am sitting on the fence when it comes to forming an opinion. Being a product of that teeny bopper era, I know how the effect of the musical nature has an impact on the way we listen to music. Some of those not to be mentioned cds I have cowering in the back of my collection is a clear testament to that. However at the same time, I look at what my tastes have evolved into, completely aside from "popular" music. If you had asked me a few years back if I ever thought I would be listening to the David Gilmour or buying Cream cds, I would have laughed at you and turned up the Disturbed. Angry teen years are such a fount of wonderful musical memories. Back to my point, shall we?
I watch the throngs of emo-angsty kids come into my store asking for the same generic crap and my questioning goes even further. My Chemical Romance anyone? A dash of Fall Out Boy? A smidegeon of Franz Ferdinand. What drives us to this music? Is popular music merely a product of media bombardment? Is it the general accessibility of the music? This music is not the symbol of a disenfranchised generation, as punk or the entire movement of the 1960s is argued to be, so why? Why are we choosing the music we listen to? It is not just random dumb luck that these artists are making it onto the stage of popular music, so what brings us to support them?
Post-modern theory argues that none of this art that we call modern music has any semblence of origniality, and that it merely reconstitutes that which has come before. Along this line of thinking then, are our personal music tastes guided by that which we have experienced before? There are times when I tend to think that it does. In my job, there are countless times when customers ask me for suggestions on something new to listen to, and I will have to ask them what they like to listen to. I have to make suggestions by approximating how far they would seemingly go from their musical norms. Recommending Mindless Self Indulgence to someone who thinks Black Eyed Peas are amazing would probably futile. So many of us only tiptoe softly into the "new", and even then, is it really new at all if it is merely the old jazzed up by a dub-remix or kick ass vocoder?
While some may have trouble doing a 6 degrees of separation chart of say Britney Spears and Children of Bodom (a cookie to whomever can do that), could there be a connection that our brains make that lean us towards certain types of music? I have always argued that as a generation, we are increasingly afraid of experiencing the novel, that which is completely foreign. If you look at the popularity of artists like K-OS or Matisyahu, who are syncretizing varying musical styles for mass consumption, you can see what I am getting at. Modern music is seemingly an attempt at creating the pseudo-novel by appealing to that which we have already embraced.
Now to play hardball in my own argument, what about those who completely disregard this incestuous world of popular music, and embrace the underground? What brings them to it? What drives them to this love of the avant garde (if that)? What makes someone move from listening to The Killers to embracing Cannibal Corpse? I've never really been able to figure it out, but I still theorize that despite the tonal difference there is an underlying similarity (and don't say that they are all music, lazy wankers) between even the most unlikely artists and genres that drives us to them.
So thus it comes down to the cd by cd basis of loading my ipod. As I sit here typing, I have a pile of cds stacked at my right, awaiting their ripping fate. Whether the Deftones make the cut, or if the Smiths get placed back on the shelf, I have yet to decide. Maybe they'll both win my round of musical roulette, or maybe Great Big Sea will knock'em dead. Who knows anymore.
Laura
Musical Stylings: Jeff Buckley
Recent Acquisition: Matisyahu- No Place to Be Live CD/DVD--- I do not recommend.
Labels: Musical Choices
posted by Matsie at 8:19 PM
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