Riding along in my best friend’s automobile, once in a while I’ll convince her to put in the Poison greatest hits disc. But if she doesn’t have that with her, I am either subjected to hours of Kelly Clarkson And Friends or Land Of Poodle Skirts.
Other friends? Thank you for the Savage Garden disc on repeat. Oh yes, I so totally enjoy country music. And how’s about turning down that crunk, dawg?
Then there’s the people I have dated. Granted, I could never truly date anyone for a long period of time if they liked really shitty music, but nobody has ever come close to my eclecticism. With one guy, I only got to indulge my classic rock side. Another, ’80s pop. One was alterna-grunge, one thought Garbage was the greatest thing since microwave popcorn, one in a small scope of metal. Then there was the prog guy, but we don’t want to talk about him.
All of these people and more, in some way or another, expanded my musical horizons within their limited genres of choice. I reciprocated in many ways, mostly outside of their spheres. Yet many times, it felt like pulling teeth to move these people outside of their comfort zone.
Exposing Classic Rock Guy to Liz Phair made him twitch quite uncomfortably. Savage Garden girl picked up on Rob Zombie just fine, but had a clear aversion to oldschool thrash. Grunge boy couldn’t grasp the technical nuances in several higher-class hair bands, my lovely best friend enjoyed apologizing profusely for not being able to get into new music I sent her, and well, only one of my friends ever got turned on to Dream Theater. Did I mention prog guy before? He just about shit himself when I suggested he listen to Pet Sounds sometime to understand what the hell pop sensibility is all about.
Have I been closed-minded? Sure, but only in the realm of country, honestly. I think I’m open-minded in enough other areas for my hatred of twang to be forgiven, thanks.
Aside from that, “eclectic” is nearly an understatement when it comes to my tastes, and it seems for most people that any time one enters my space, chances are 50/50 that one will either hear something they love or something they abhor. Current playlist includes Kittie, Arch Enemy, Bon Jovi, Broken Spindles, The Caesars, Cathedral, Disturbed, Echo & the Bunnymen, Gizmachi, HIM, Klaustrophobic, Liz Phair, Ministry, Nevermore, New Order, Opeth, The Church, The Old Dead Tree, The Project Hate MCMXCIX, a few Dr. Demento songs and some miscellaneous songs from Twin Cities bands. I recently removed TATU from rotation and I want to check out the new Gang of Four.
This also becomes a problem when making mix discs for others. In my head, I can think of 14 songs which either make me think of a person or contain some element that I think a particular person would appreciate. However, I’m often limited by their tastes; even though the combinations I create for my car jump from the Scorpions to Rammstein to Madonna, most people can’t tolerate that much chaos on their palette.
Should I be looking down my nose at those who don’t, as I see it, “open their mind” to new music? Or should I just accept taste as taste and move on?
Frankly, I look at music like I look at food. Trust me, I once weighed over 270 lbs, I looked at a lot of food. How do you know you don’t like it if you don’t try it? And even if you don’t like it, how do you know if you won’t like it if it was prepared slightly differently? I gasped in horror when my friend said she hated rice. How can you hate rice? That’s like hating noodles, that’s like hating bread. She said she tried a couple of grains and she didn’t like it.
Oh for f*ck’s sake.
I see a lot of people’s music taste in a similar light. “I don’t like metal” stems from someone who once saw a Judas Priest video or only ever heard their obnoxious neighbor cranking Slayer at 1 am. “Rap = crap” is heard from a lot of white people who just can’t get crunk. There are those who fear the synth as if it was made of penis-devouring mutant spiders from hell; guys, I swear, keyboards will not make your balls fall off. Sure, I might cringe at the sight of shitkicker boots and a 10 gallon hat, but I’ve experienced enough country to know that some of it is fun. I got me some friends in low places, yesiree.
On the INT0RN3TZ, you will find packs of folks who glom together to become an unholy machine of snobbery in any genre. Metal folks might be the worst of the bunch; frequently you’ll find them arguing which sub-genre is best and who among them is secretly a pop-loving pussy. Indie, emo, punk, and hardcore groups (lumped together for sake of brevity) would probably be next on the list; a band signed to a major label? SELLOUT! YOUR MUSIC SUCKS NOW! Rap fans have real lives and don’t argue on the Internet so much as shoot each other, so why any of these weeny white kids would talk smack about rap is a Darwinian mystery. And the pop kiddies? They just don’t care. Whatever’s on radio or MTV, you know. No time to argue, no time to hunt around for anything that isn’t served on a plate in three minutes or less.
I remember when I first met my friend Rob. Both of us were metal fiends, but we shared this love of terrible ’80s pop. We vowed that someday we would have a convention with all of these metal people, and we’d roll up together, cranking some Hall & Oates.
There’s Drew, who became my instant best friend ever because his favorite bands were Dream Theater and Erasure. These combinations do not come up nearly enough in nature for one to just let someone this neat slip through one’s fingers.
Scattered here and there, I have found others who dabble across the spectrum. Still, it’s been difficult to find anyone with the extreme fervent passion for everything that I seem to have. Sure, metal is my first love, but I was a child of the ’80s and I am forever endeared to its sound. I picked up on industrial music, made my way into darkwave, goth, EBM, techno to include ambient/trance/trip-hop/etc, drifted into past nooks and crannies that I had missed in various underground scenes, checked out what was going on overseas (spawning my love for Blümchen, from whence my namesake was born), all culminating in Random Grabbing Of Something That Sounds Cool. I still do that quite often and am often pleasantly surprised.
All of this makes my mind boggle just a bit more at people who turn up their nose at anything described to them as not fitting their normal rotation of music. So you listen to indie rock; would it kill you to move into something heavier once in a while, maybe Opeth? I promise it won’t bite, and you’ll find as much artistic beauty there as you do in your land of whine. Metalheads, go grab some Joy Division and listen to the drum work. If nothing else, it will give you yet another person to add to the list of whose drumming is better than Lars Ulrich’s. As for pure rap fans, if you can appreciate the Beastie Boys, you have won half the battle. Go the full nine and start picking up some Velvet Underground, maybe some Stooges. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
Just do it. Throw some lemon juice in your macaroni and cheese. Add jalapenos to your can of Spaghetti-Os. Ditch McDonalds and go find some Korean barbecue, trade in your tacos for sushi.
People of the world, spice up your life.
Every boy and every girl, spice up your life.
–gloomchen
