Well after the concert, I sought out my old AAR cd, guilty about its neglect. On my search, I ran into old CDs I used to love at one point in my life and popped them in one-by-one and listened to each of them all the way through remembering that I still loved it. Midway through relistening to the first CD on top of the pile (We the Kings - We the Kings [2007]) this conclusion popped into my head and I decided I had an answer.
Good music is music that is genuinely loved by its listener.
I turned inwards and realized that I spent my last year and a half in high school trying to impress these talented musician friends. I tricked them into thinking that I was a legit music critic, that I knew the pop music I had such an affection for required no skill, that my favorite bands were full of talentless hacks, that a simple four-chord melody was totally lame. I started to believe it. There was once a time where I was able to defend the bands I knew and loved, but no longer. It got worse as I spent my first quarter in college trying to convince people I was into obscure indie, or complicated art rock, or popular folk, or even doom metal. At the very least I let them think that I thought this music was "good" by telling them that I " was able to appreciate it for what it was worth." Crock of bullshit.
I died inside. I stopped liking music! At the very least I stopped having an opinion about music. Suddenly everything sounded pretty good to me. In reality I just didn't have the energy to care further than agreement. I had no talking points, no reason to negate or affirm anything. Well this madness stops now.
Anyways, follow-up question: "Is there a way to look at music objectively and know what's good and what's not?"
No. But that's what fuels the best things about music. Debate, argument, intellectual discussion, bringing people together! The truth was that this "music I was supposed to like" didn't light a fire inside me, inspire me, or make me feel passionate about anything and that was a terrible feeling. Good music should do that to you. Good music should make you want to pick up an instrument, dance around, tell a friend or tell the world about this new record, update your facebook status, WHATEVER. Good music gets you passionate enough to talk about it, to say something about it, to get into an argument with your best friend over it, to hop on a plane in the hopes of singing along with a chorus or two. Good music should make you wanna get off your ass and DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. If it's done that, it's done its job.
I'm going to create a few conditions, in my opinion.
- The music must be made with honorable intentions.
- It goes back to passion. If the musician puts love in what he/she is creating then what he/she is creating deserves to be loved. Basically, I'm weeding out the capitalizing cash cows here.
- The music must be music.
- It sounds silly, but my friend Tyler once said "I can open up two buckets of paint but it's not a painting until I do something with it." In other words, notes, sounds, chords, rhythms, lyrics, harmony, melody etc. etc. etc. must be put through a creative process.
- The listener must be acting on his/her own accord.
- This is important to me. The listener's opinion must be without the influence of others. None of this "It's good because (insert music critic/magazine/blog/trusted friend) said it was and I trust their opinion" bullshit. A true music fan trusts no opinion but their own. Music can be obtained through those avenues but at the end of the day, the music is in the hands of the fan. Music criticism takes the music out of the hands of the fans and that is why I hate music critics. They've created a tier of "experts" exists and people stop trusting themselves with their own opinions. Entire careers are built or broken with a single sentence and that is fucked up.
There, I said it.
