Good Music vs. Weird Music

Good Music vs. Weird Music

Part 1: n case you missed it

So, expanding on the ideas in some the previous essay:

Music – is not necessarily good or bad because it’s weird or normal.

So, let’s talk about weird:

Music that is made up of intentionally abstract sounds, or made up of intentionally jarring rhythms, music that has no pattern, no form, or no structure. If the intent of the music is for you to *think that’s it’s weird; ie. “man, I’ve never heard anything like that – it’s so *weird.” And so on.

Some examples of Weird music; intentionally abstract music, some glitch house, some minimal or tech house, anything with changes in tempo or format that distract you from the music itself, hyper-unnatural or hyper-natural tones, expression, or if it’s beyond the capability of humans to enjoy (ie. so loud that it’s painful, or so quiet that it’s unhearable).

I think there is an important distinction here, though – majority rule does not make music weird or normal. If most people thought George Gershwin’s or Jimi Hendrix’s music was weird – they were still wrong; they just didn’t understand enough about music to make the distinction. Think about it. Just like majority doesn’t make food or fashion weird, the Mob can’t make music weird.  Without knowing what the basic constructs of cooking, design, or music are, you don’t have a vote on those matters. Sorry. But you can always join the club. All you have to do is pay attention, observe and be able to back your opinion up, and you’re in. You don’t have to be an expert; you just need to know the agreed-upon basics. And within each field, in order to understand what those basics are, all you have to do is ask someone who knows. Easy, right?

On a little side note: and not just about Weird music, but about lots of Stuff: something to be cautious of –

If you enter into conversation with Someone-Who-Knows, and they don’t accept your questioning of where they got their information or why they believe what they do; if they don’t have concrete references, or push information on you that can’t be verified: these are the Demons of the Informational World. You might know them as Posers. And they’re sometimes hard to spot because they speak with authority and assertiveness, and lots of other people may believe them. Ultimately, though, you have to decipher who knows about music and who doesn’t. I’m not sure there is a clear path to do that, other than by constantly being suspicious on the information being put out.

You can trust facts as such: “The Black-Eyed Peas have the #1-selling song on iTunes right now”.

But you should be more dubious of people passing off their *opinions as fact: “The Black-Eyed Peas are good musicians”.

“What proof”, you should say, “do you have to back that up? High sales do *not make music good.”

So – you people who know about things, wake up and start talking! It’s the only way to counteract the damage that’s being done by people who *don’t know about things, but talk about them regardless.

Anyway.

So if you’re attracted to weird music just because it’s weird, or you don’t like it just because it’s weird – that’s up to you.

But, I reiterate – weirdness or not-weirdness does not make it good or bad automatically. If you embrace the musicality of weird music, it will both expand your brain and help you to appreciate why standard sounds are standard. Keep an open mind.

-Ryan Xristopher