A love letter to music

When I close my eyes and look back on the images of the music in my childhood, it is a slideshow of the covers of my fathers old vinyls. It is Sgt Pepper and his Lonely (but colorful) Hearts Club Band, Bob Dylan and his white boy hippie fro, Joe Cocker wailing, The Rolling Stones rocking. In middle school I would go through a serious classic rock phase, missing out on the pop trends of the time, including the whole Spice Girls revolution (I didn't miss much). Instead I listened to Simon & Garfunkel, Jefferson Airplane, and fell so deeply and madly in love with the Fab Four that three of my friends and I even took on the identities of each of them. I remember sitting in my father's car on a summer day with the top down and the wind blowing and saying, "You had the best music. I wish I had grown up when you did."

I would eventually shed my Beatles persona (I'll leave you to guess who I was) and while these bands that took up such a large part of my heart have never left my playlist rotation, I would soon discover that I live in a world that is as rich with incredible music as my fathers world was. I can't imagine my life now without Dave Matthews or each of the hundreds of concerts I have gone to that have changed my life in so many ways. For months I have been saturated in bands that will be descending upon Austin is less than a month to showcase their gifts. I have been pouring through bandcamps and facebook pages, carefully tracking each musician, taking notes, building playlists.

We are living in an an incredible time for music. Institutions like The Grammys may celebrate domestic violence and auto tune and it is easy to think we are descending into a scary music time of dubstep and amateurs who want to be famous and think, "Thank God there's an app for that!" But turn the dial past the top 40 and there is a world rich in talented musicians. Hell, even Top 40 is being slowly taken over by musicians like Adele and Foster The People!

We are living in a time when artists like Dawes, Blitzen Trapper, The Head and the Heart, and so many others are just beginning. The Fleet Foxes, Bon Iver, Foster the People and bands we don't even know that we will one day love, have many more melodies and poems to enrich our lives and I feel overwhelmingly lucky to be here for it.

I'm not sure my future daughter will ever spend a year answering only to Taylor Goldsmith, Mark Foster or Grace Potter, but who knows if one day we will be driving down the road and she will turn to me and say, " You had the best music. I wish I had grown up when you did."

The Question of Genius and Why Grown Men Openly Weep to Bon Iver

Sometimes the music world has a way of instantly transporting me back to my middle school cafeteria, forcing me to choose a genred table as I listen to everyone music name dropping in order to procure themselves a place at the illusive cool table. And who are the kids at the cool table all in a fuss about these days? Kanye and Bon Iver.

Like most fads, experiences, and ‘cool things’ in middle school, I just don’t get it. 

Kanye. Maybe it’s because I’ve never entirely gravitated towards rap. It’s too wordy and I’m never able to follow along. Maybe it’s because Kanye is a massive ass wipe and I have a hard time separating that from a genre I’m not all together in love with in the first place. Or, he’s just not as great as everyone says he is. Genius? Really? That seems a bit hyperbolic. Am I missing something? Is the emperor wearing new clothes? 

I asked my brother his thoughts on the subject. His response is as follows:

I usually don't like shitting on certain music, cause if it makes someone happy who am I to complain, but in the case of Kanye, he's a douche-bag and his music is confusingly popular so here's an abridged list of things I like more than Kanye West and his music...

Gorilla Glue

Early Britney Spears

Angry Birds (the game)

Taco Bell

Angry Birds (like actual birds fighting)

The View

The Republican Party

The Animorph series

Every puppy ever

P90X

The sound of a metronome

All songs feat. Ludacris

Fragglerock

Beginner Violinists

The letter "P"

You get the idea. Most of this world > Kanye West

Agreed. Still, I am open to some kind of explanation as to what is so ‘genius’ about Kanye. Please feel free to comment and enlighten me. 

And then there’s Bon Iver. It’s not so much his music that I have a problem with. He’s a talented artist with a solid new album. What I don’t get is the extremes with which people revere him. I was recently listening to a podcast of grown men gushing about how genius (again with this word) Justin Vernon is (interesting that he often collaborates with Kanye...)and how they openly wept upon listening to his new album. Openly wept? Really, I shouldn’t judge. I recently wrote about weeping in the airport while watching Adele’s VMA performance of Someone Like You and quite frankly, put me in front of a good old school Kodak commercial and I’m in pieces. Maybe it’s his prepubescent voice that gets to the fellas? My vagina and I just don't get it. 

Again, I consulted my brother for his opinion. 

To the "man" who openly wept upon hearing Bon Iver's new album,

Jack Handy once said that it takes a big man to cry, but it takes a bigger man to laugh at that man. Well here I am, the bigger man, laughing at you.

happy weeping,

Max

Apparently Bon Iver doesn't render every male into a puddle of weepy mess. So for those of you sitting with your ipod and tear stained face, let me know, what is it that does it for you? I'm curious.