My Music is Better Than Their Music

Time for a history lesson:  when I was a freshman in high school, having grown tired of sports and the people who played/coached/cheered for them around me, I decided to pick up an instrument.  I know public school kids usually get the chance to learn how to play an instrument in intermediate school, but my parents had decided to ruin my life from ages 5-13 by enrolling me in a private Catholic school, so our music classes consisted of singing religious songs or learning parts for the school musicals.  That was all well and good, but by age fourteen I wanted to be able to make some noise, so I talked my parents into getting me a drumset, and I have not stopped playing and teaching ever since.  I have even started to teach myself how to play guitar, and have already given my six year-old son a small drumset and acoustic guitar.  (He also plans on beginning trumpet lessons this summer!)  There are times when I don't touch an instrument for weeks, due to my family life and schedule, but making music is something I have been doing on the side for over 25 years now, and it's something I will continue to do until I am too sick (or too insane) to do so. 

All of which should help explain why I hate the overwhelming majority of music played on popular radio today. 

Yes: I consider the music on the radio to be music.  No matter how crappy, generic, and unoriginal it may be, the garbage being listened to by so many people does actually qualify as music.  I know there are a lot of people out there who want to argue that this stuff is not music, and I'll get to their arguments in a minute, but I feel this is an important point to make: hate it all you want, but if it has notes and a beat, it's music. Pop, rap (or hip-hop, whatever you call it), dance - these are all musical genres, and they all serve a purposes so shut yer yap and keep your musical snobbishness to yourself.

The problem, then, isn't that I don't find this stuff to be music.  The problem comes from who is responsible for creating this music. If you were to look on my computer, you would find over seven thousand songs, ranging from thrash metal to classic rock, from classical music to jazz, to children's music, and even a smattering of country, hip hop and dance (pop).   As a teenager I listened mostly to heavy metal, and I still gravitate toward heavy, edgier music, but I truly enjoy any music that makes me want to come back a second time . . . or better yet, any music that makes me want to grab an instrument and play.

Guess which types of music don't make me want to jam?  Now, guess which types of music I listen to, and own, the least?

Music that has been recorded by humans playing instruments is full of soul, passion, EMOTION.  Even when the music and lyrics are bleak as hell, music performed by carbon-based life forms can still uplift you, because you are able to form a bond with the people singing and playing on the other side of that connection you are making every time you listen to a track.  Just envisioning how long the musicians had to spend in a studio struggling to get all of the parts lined up is inspiring, as we all know how hard it is to get three or four people to agree and work harmoniously on ANYTHING, much less an original musical composition. 

Now: go back and re-read that paragraph, inserting the word "producer" for the words that represent living, breathing musicians.  Here - I'll give you a sample: Music that has been recorded by a producer is full of soul, passion, EMOTION.   It's bullshit, isn't it?  Of course it is!  The thought of one producer - a talented person, indeed, but a musician he is not - sitting in a studio programming beats for a singer to record his or her tracks over . . . it's not exactly inspiring, now is it?   It's sterilized music, programmed to perfection on machines so the pitch and tempo are absolutely perfect.   It's music made by science: cold, distant, soulless.  You cannot connect with a computer, folks, so the least you can hope for is a singer that isn't . . . no - Auto Tuned!

So my music is better than so-called popular music, hands down . . . but if you need one last bit of proof, picture my son, six years-old and as unconcerned about how he looks as can be, standing in my bay window, rocking out to ZZ Top with a Wii baseball bat in his hand, pretending to play guitar.  If you walked by our house and saw that, you would smile.  If you saw him trying to "Air Produce," you would want to beat him with the Wii baseball bat.  I win.