Life, Music

On musical purism

Febbraio 7, 2014 4 Comments

I happen to witness a lot of querelles between self-declared musicians fighting to establish whose musical taste and culture is better, why what they listen to is gold while what all the other unworthy common human beings listen to is plain sh*t. I’m saying self-styled because, in my humble opinion, whoever has a prejudice in music can’t be called a musician, a real musician listens to all of the possible streams and, most importantly, understands and respects them all, even the ones he doesn’t really dig.

Of course this is just my point of view, I don’t mean to impose my opinion or sound pretentious, but this is what I learned from my experience, from when I was a kid ‘till now.
It’s ok to say you don’t like something, but it’s not ok to say that it’s worth nothing.

 “It took 5 authors to write a Beyonce song, Freddie Mercury wrote Bohemian Rhapsody all by himself” 

What’s that supposed to mean? Freddie was obviously one of a kind, a true genius with a voice like no other (don’t deceive yourself, I know someone who does not recognise even his talent), but that shouldn’t diminish the merit of all the other artists or there wouldn’t be anyone singing again after his death. So Beyonce doesn’t write her own songs? Who cares, she still has an AWESOME voice (I dare you to say her songs are easy to sing), a beautiful face (and body), a great personality and a strong charisma.

 “You’re a DJ and you think you’re making music? You’re just playing around with noises and a computer”

“Metal is for men, what’s that Lady Gaga-wannabe doing?”

“If you call that band genius, then what should we say about Frank Zappa?”

“Do people really listen to One Direction?” (says the one who at 12 had an entire wall of Backstreet Boys posters)

“Mainstream music is for suckers who know nothing”  (like Jon Snow)

You know what, I think music is the most democratic essence in the whole world, it’s for everyone, it touches the heart of the good, the bad, the young, the old, the mild, the tough. Some people let it in their geart easily, some people are hard to get through, but even the least emotional person on earth has had goosebumps listening to a tune.

So who are we to judge wether someone should feel or not a sense of happiness while listenint to Justin Bieber? And what harm does it make?

And don’t even get me started on all the comparisons between artists that i hear, that’s simply foolish!

 Let’s not put restraints on the freest thing there is, our feelings. Music arouses all diffrent kinds of feelings in us, no genre is more noble than another so judging people by their musical tastes is pretty silly.

 Music connects us to the divine: it is physics, pure mathematics, it’s nothing but a wave that propagates, a vibration and yet it is able to stimulate our soul and, so ineffable and inexplicable, manages to speak when all our words fail. It unites us, gives us hope, keeps us company.

I am the first one who isn’t really fond of most of the Italian artists, they don’t suit my taste, de gustibus non disputandum est, so I do go and deprecate everyone who just went to the latest Ligabue concert. Respect, respect is the key to everything, in music, in religion and every other thing in life.

If you’re somehow a music “purist” try to be a bit more open minded and note that there are a lot of levels on which we can appreciate things, understand that what you feel is not what the other feels and nobody is superior. Enjoy some good music, even the song you’ve always considered silly, shake you booty to Call Me Maybe because damn, that song is catchy and fun!
You can go back to Deep Purple later, their record will always be there for you.

I really don’t know if I made my point with this, there are so many things I wanna say, but I fear the post would get too long and boring… maybe I’ll come back on this subject.
Thanks for reading, I hope you agree with me!

Lots of love,

Sara