Music Matters, or does it?
Martin Willett
Do you really care about music?
Is music second only to sex in your life?
If you have spent your teenage years in a western country these questions
will not be familiar to you because it is automatically assumed that the
answer to them all is YES! Absolutely! Naturally!
There is an enormous industry that exists to feed your desire for music. If
the desire is not there it must be created.
I have never met anybody who didn't like music to some degree, with the
exception of deaf people, and even deaf people are exposed to the "of course
you like music" propaganda (by music teachers, naturally). The point of this
is not that the desire to listen to music is alien to people and has
been created by evil manipulators but that the option to care for music only
a little bit is not given to young people.
To clear up the point I do like music. The key word is like. I am not
obsessed by it, it does not control my life. I have a preference for one
type of music over another just as I have a preference for particular
scenery, perfume, fabrics and methods of making coffee.
Music is a very minor part of my life. In the last twenty years I have spent
less money on music than on headache tablets or anchovies. I have always had
something more important to spend my money on, I have not refused to buy
music, I just haven't got round to it. Music has always been available to me
on the radio, if I could find nothing better to do. This attitude I regard
as healthy. It is not an option for teenagers. Teenagers are told that they
must be obsessed by music. The only choice they have is which music to be
obsessed by.
There is an enormous industry that exists by stimulating and servicing the
demand of teenagers for music. It cannot be left to be an option for
teenagers to like music a bit, but not enough to buy it. The music
production industry is in a symbiotic relationship with the children's media
industry. Children's television is full of promotional videos for records
and concert tours. Half the airtime on Saturday morning television is filled
with music videos and interviews with "popstars". The music producers want
the publicity, the television companies get to fill the airtime. I often
wonder who pays who for what in such circumstances. This uneasy relationship
can take on new twists when the musicians make records which are in effect
three and a half minute commercials for their own brand; naming the band in
the title and chorus and introducing band members individually in the
verses. The children's television presenters and wannabe popstars are so far
up each others bottoms that they probably cannot see the issue.
Another mind boggling institution that nobody seems to challenge much is the
music chart. How many sad people must there be out there for whom the total
weekly sales figures for records is the biggest thing happening in their
life. Why should anybody really care? If the world had its head screwed on
right the music charts would appear only on the inside pages of specialist
music industry magazines. But in the world we live in for some people this
stuff really seems to matter. Why? Do these people have shares in the acts
or record companies? No. They have absolutely no real reason to care at all.
I am as mildly curious about which musician is selling records as I am
curious about what the most popular holiday destination or brand of soap
powder. But when I watch MTV (sorry watch is the wrong word, it suggests too
high a degree of commitment, when I *see* MTV) it seems that knowledge of
what is number one this week is the most important piece of information that
mankind has ever been privy to.
Not caring much about music is not an option. Of course you care. You have
to, many people rely on your obsession for their living. Actors are for ever
droning on about the importance of Shakespeare. Nurses constantly warn that
we are not spending enough on healthcare. Teachers are constantly making
sure that education is always the first priority. Musicians, music
journalists and music media presenters are constantly fanning the flames of
our "natural obsession" with music. Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll! It is
more important than life itself. Life without music would be not worth
living.
Young people are like sheep, if they constantly get the message that music
is the most important thing in their life they begin to internalize it.
Hitler would be proud of his protégés, they have proved his point that if a
lie is big enough and repeated often enough people will believe it. Not only
believe it but be willing to kill for it. The big lie is that music really
matters.
Do teenagers from African tribes get obsessed by music, staying up all night
listening to newly invented drum beats? Did the teenage children of the
Pilgrim Fathers sew the names of fiddle players on the back of their
jackets? Of course not. Obsession with music is not a human universal. A
liking for music is. The obsession is engendered by our culture and the
manipulation of a huge exploitative money making industry.
There are more than six billion people in the world today. Many of them can
make music. There is an enormous back catalogue of great music from the
past. There are fresh new people constantly coming of age into the music
producing industry with the burning desire to produce even more music.
People are going to college to learn how to be record producers, the
unspoken assumption being that they will each work forty hours a week for
the next thirty years churning out more music. There is the constant problem
of oversupply to contend with. To keep the market in music going it is not
enough for you to know what you like and like what you know. You must be
driven to constantly buy new music, to spend a significant fraction of your
income on music playing hardware and music playback software. If you don't
want new music you must be educated until you do.
Feel free to enjoy music if you want to, just as much as you want. But not
as much as they tell you to. Music is not more important than life itself.
It is just a (usually) pleasant noise. It should not be the driving force of
your life, even if you are a musician.
Along with not taking music too seriously I suggest we should all try not to
take musicians too seriously either. Why care what these people do with
their lives when they are not producing the product you consume? I don't
care what politics my dentist espouses so why should I care about the
politics or sexuality of musicians? They are our servants; like waiters or
cooks. Treat them with respect, not awe.
Get real. Grow up. Think. How can you be so shallow as to take this stuff so
seriously. It is just noise. It is not the rhythm of life, the beat of your
heart or the song of your soul.
Martin J Willett
www.mwillett.org : The Meme Machine
john
"Martin Willett" <martin.te...@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:ucYn9.273$DS3....@newsfep1-gui.server.ntli.net...
But why the obsession about people obsessed about music?
Most of society is plied with buying products they don't need.
The film industry for example is ran the same way the music industry is,
just substitute musician for actor and bob's your guitarist.
I think what you may be confused about is the word obsession and your use of
it .
Alex Van Starrex
--
---
Making it happen: the Australian Yes tour for 2003
---
My main web-sites:
http://homepages.tig.com.au/~avanstar
(Sydney Morning Herald: "Best Personal Site on the Web")
http://www.mp3.com.au/AlexVanStarrex/
My mp3 page (25th most popular artist - Sept. 2002)
http://www.geocities.com/~avanstar/index.html
"A Virtual Serenade: 50 Popular Songs in Real Video"
There are others...
"Martin Willett" <martin.te...@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:ucYn9.273$DS3....@newsfep1-gui.server.ntli.net...
Martin Willett
"john" <jo...@roker.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
news:anpl9c$gc0jp$1...@ID-131621.news.dfncis.de...
>
<snip>
> Phew that must be a weight off your chest.
> But why the obsession about people obsessed about music?
> Most of society is plied with buying products they don't need.
> The film industry for example is ran the same way the music industry is,
> just substitute musician for actor and bob's your guitarist.
> I think what you may be confused about is the word obsession and your use
of
> it .
I'm not obsessed, I'm just pathologically opinionated. If I was obsessed I'd
be having the same debate all the time rather than keep picking different
vicious debates with different bunches of people.