“I work hard every
year/I seize my bread/I ain’t gonna let you women/Go to my head”
-
JD
McPherson, “Country Boy”
My past birthday, a
good friend of mine gave me a philosophy book, “The Sublime Object Of Ideology,”
which is theoretically related to psychology, my academic vice of choice. I say
‘theoretically’ because I can’t make heads-or-tails of the bloody thing. The
whole thing is just slightly beyond me, the language rendered impenetrable by
alien phrases. I don’t consider myself dumb, but this is a book that makes me
reconsider.
Though impressive
technically, the insight the book contains and the craft used to put it together
become pointless due to my inability to understand it. In the same way, most
art rock, high-level jazz, and other deliberately complex music tends to fall
on deaf ears. If people lack the vocabulary, the language, or, most
importantly, the interest, then even the most technically impressive piece can
be left deserted.
Pop hooks, past
successes, and press buzz can help alleviate this issue, bringing even
self-dubbed “art pop” into the #1 spot, but most of the time art music doesn’t
even get glanced at by the majority. It gets consumed by small groups of people
with scarves and far-too-large frames, as well as those of us who are always on
the lookout for new things to hear. Otherwise, exposure to art music relies on
word-of-mouth, blind luck, and lovely little bars and cafes willing to venture
outside of Pandora and Starbucks sampler CDs.
The fact that people
don’t like to seek out the kinds of music that often revel in their ability to
offend and distance the listener doesn’t surprise me, and in fact it doesn’t
even particularly bother me. All appearances to the contrary, I’m not enough of
a snob to insist that people immerse themselves in the heady worlds of bebop
and no-wave. Hell, even I don’t spend all of my time in those worlds, or even a
majority of it; most of my leisure time is spent listening to music I enjoy rather
than music that challenges me to decipher it.
