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Published: September 29th 2008
The dorm had its
kangei (welcome) party today for all the new
ryuugakusei. It was pretty cool. A lot of people showed up, and for some reason I got peer pressured into wearing my "looking for a Japanese girlfriend" shirt again. The funny thing about this is that about 95%!o(MISSING)f the people that came were Japanese girls. I was told by at least two girls that they were "hunting" for a boyfriend. Maybe I'm being to forward...
But to the main point, and this is dedicated to Vince Arnone, the only person I know who will understand fully what I'm talking about. Or at least understand most of what I'm talking about.
First, I think it is very necessary to have music in your life if you want to live a full, happy life. Music is the expression of another person's personality materialized into something that we can actually experience; whereas if someone were to explain emotions through words alone, and not music, much of the feeling would be lost simply due to the fact that human language - all human language - is extremely limited. By experiencing the expression of another person's personality, i.e., their soul, we can both become closer to that person - though we may never meet them in our lifetime - and become closer to understanding what it truly is to be human: all of the emotions that train-wreck into each other, all of the disparate thoughts that seem to contradict and agree with each other at the same time. Through music, through true listening to music, we can understand ourselves more, and what sensible human being doesn't want to understand his or herself more?
I personally love music down to my very core. However, music these days - at least mainstream music, music that you hear on the radio, on TV shows, in stores - is bullshit. Nothing new is happening. Nothing exciting is happening. As a friend from Seattle described it, music these days is simply following a pattern: Chord A, chord B, A, B, C, D, repeat. I understand that music is repetitive, no matter what genre it is; but seriously, listen to some of the music that is "popular" today.
It's fucking shit.
It's the simplest chords and the simplest chord progressions that are possible for the band to arrange and still sell their records. There are few bands that are active today that are trying to change the face of music, and those few bands are not well known so no one experiences the change they are bringing to music in general. It's kind of like a double-edged sword: if you're unpopular, then you can probably make good music but not make a lot of money; but if you're popular and make a lot of money, chances are you've sold out hardcore and make shit music almost all of the time.
Now, electronic music - house, trance, techno, jungle, etc. - is, to most people, the most repetitive music there could be. Why? Because there is a constant beat and there are no lyrics, so it seems that the song is moving nowhere. Here's where the title of this entry comes into play.
People want instant gratification. They want things here, now, quick, and if not quick, then they fucking complain. This isn't just with music. I worked at a plant nursery this past summer selling perennials. The number one thing that annoyed me about helping people look for plants is that almost 100%!o(MISSING)f the fuckers didn't ever want plants that weren't
perfect. They wanted a plant that wasn't too short, wasn't too long, wasn't too green, wasn't too brown, had the perfect flower, could grow in the this or that condition that was almost impossible in Montana. Only one customer of the entire summer bought plants that looked "bad" because she actually felt bad for them.
When it comes to electronic music though, most people just don't want to give it a chance. They don't want to wait thirty seconds to wait for the synthesizers to come in to compliment the beat. They don't want to have a meditative experience where they absorb the music, where they actually
hear the music instead of just listening to it. Most people say that all electronic music sounds the same. Here's my answer to them:
Shut the fuck up.
The differences between trance and techno, between house and jungle, between breakbeat and hardcore are so god damn obvious that it's hard not to punch people who call all electronic music "trance" or "techno" or "electronica." Fucking Madonnna made up the word "electronica." Who in their right mind would call an entire genre of music by the name
Madonna used? It's hard to keep my anger down when people say, "I'd rather listen to something else, this song is boring," when I'm bumping one of Deadmau5's best tracks. I take insults to electronic music as bad as a black person would take being called a "nigger" by a rich white guy, and I am not exaggerating.
The problem is that no one gives a flying fuck about electronic music. The problem is that I've only met one god damn person in my entire life who actually appreciates electronic music. The problem is that I'm almost alone in the entire god damn world when it comes to appreciation for electronic music. Vince, you've opened my eyes, mate. Thank you.
I understand if you don't like electronic music. I don't understand if you won't call it by its proper name - electronic music - instead of "trance" or "techno." If you're going to talk to me about electronic music, don't fucking call it all "trance." Don't call it all "techno." Don't call it all "electronica."
Unless of course you want to piss me off.
Thus ends my rant about electronic music. Next time be fucking careful about what you say.
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Luci Trotter
non-member comment
here here!
thought this was specifically a travel blog but this is fine by me. I can't believe that you only know one person who appreciates "electronic" music! I understand your anger and frustration about matter completely though lol, TRUST ME. Speaking of such music, the line-up for Big Day Out 2009 in Oz has just been announced and I am pretty over the moon about it, though I would be a little more so if Radiohead had been on it like I had expected them to be lol. Pendulum, the Prodigy, Cut Copy and Simian Mobile Disco almost make up for it though.