Dashboard Confessional and Holter
Monday October 26 • 06:18 AM
While checking out a few music blogs I decided it
would be blasphemous to read about music while not
playing any in the background. I picked a band I
thought wouldn't be too distracting and to my
surprise (and disappointment) I realized I don't like
this band very much. A while back I bought Dashboard
Confessional's album "The Shade of Poison Trees". I
got this album because when I was in Alabama I had a
few friends that really liked this band and wanting
to be nostalgic I got the album. To my horror the
impression I heard when the first song started
playing was, "this is hippie music!" We all have our
own taste and mine does not include music that makes
me feel like I'm out in a field with smelly people
playing guitar, sitting in circles, holding hands,
and singing.
Now, to be fair, this is not my overall impression of
Dashboard Confessional, nor should it be your
opinion, nor was it the bands intention. I heard this
music in Alabama in a coffee shop I frequented and I
liked it there. It fit the atmosphere, the people,
and in some ways the songs I heard that I don't like
do remind me of that time when I sat in the coffee
shop chatting with friends and relaxing after work.
Amusingly, while hearing this music and my reaction, I was reading a blog post by Colin Holter on NewMusicBox called Everyone's a Critic. Give it a read (it's short). Holter writes his reaction to someone calling a passage in his music "stupid" and stupid it is to use such a stupid word. Just as I was thinking the music I was listening to is stupid I was reading this. Stepping into my own hypocrisy I completely agree with Holter. Describing music as stupid or-worse-gay shows such a lack of interest and actual thought that it makes us wonder if people with those opinions actually heard the music or if they're just zombies roaming around and happen to step into a concert hall.
Don't tell composers/artists their music is stupid. Instead tell them it doesn't appeal to your taste. Stupid is a thought that came to mind when I first heard DC, but repressing those primitive thoughts I then described why I don't like the music. Guitar with a subdued drum beat and "whiny-sounding" voices does not appeal to me. At least that song doesn't appeal to me. I feel I have good reasons. Based entirely on my opinion it says nothing about the quality of the music, whether it is good or bad.
Then the question comes up: what is good or bad? Stepping into a contradiction I would say it depends on whether you like it or not. And with that being said, we all have to question ourselves as to whether our opinion is worth repeating to the outside world. Indeed, it would have to be or else how would composers and songwriters know what to write? My argument: composers and songwriters just write what you like (what is good to you). At the end of the day all art comes down to experience. I don't care to listen to this album while sitting here writing this post (yet, it is still playing), however put me in a coffee shop with my friends after a long day at work and you'll see me tapping my foot. Objective descriptions of good or bad art do not exist. But, saying stupid is stupid. Come up with something better.
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Amusingly, while hearing this music and my reaction, I was reading a blog post by Colin Holter on NewMusicBox called Everyone's a Critic. Give it a read (it's short). Holter writes his reaction to someone calling a passage in his music "stupid" and stupid it is to use such a stupid word. Just as I was thinking the music I was listening to is stupid I was reading this. Stepping into my own hypocrisy I completely agree with Holter. Describing music as stupid or-worse-gay shows such a lack of interest and actual thought that it makes us wonder if people with those opinions actually heard the music or if they're just zombies roaming around and happen to step into a concert hall.
Don't tell composers/artists their music is stupid. Instead tell them it doesn't appeal to your taste. Stupid is a thought that came to mind when I first heard DC, but repressing those primitive thoughts I then described why I don't like the music. Guitar with a subdued drum beat and "whiny-sounding" voices does not appeal to me. At least that song doesn't appeal to me. I feel I have good reasons. Based entirely on my opinion it says nothing about the quality of the music, whether it is good or bad.
Then the question comes up: what is good or bad? Stepping into a contradiction I would say it depends on whether you like it or not. And with that being said, we all have to question ourselves as to whether our opinion is worth repeating to the outside world. Indeed, it would have to be or else how would composers and songwriters know what to write? My argument: composers and songwriters just write what you like (what is good to you). At the end of the day all art comes down to experience. I don't care to listen to this album while sitting here writing this post (yet, it is still playing), however put me in a coffee shop with my friends after a long day at work and you'll see me tapping my foot. Objective descriptions of good or bad art do not exist. But, saying stupid is stupid. Come up with something better.
blog comments powered by Disqus