thePULSEEach month, musician and Pulse Music Editor Alex Kantarelis will share his thoughts on/experiences with different aspects of the music industry. It won’t always be pretty, but it will always be his honest opinion ~ good or bad ~ on all things music, A-Z.
This month’s topic: “Does Music Suck?”
Welcome to the era where music sucks. There are so many bands, so many labels, so many blogs, websites, critics, and general jerk offs who have an opinion and attempt to bludgeon everyone with it until they cave. So with so much music at our fingertips, and so many different ways to discover new music, why does music suck? Are we putting too much trust into the aforementioned blogs and critics (me notwithstanding, of course) who shape our musical likings? Is it our general laziness about going out and finding music on our own? Or is it just musicians not having any talent anymore? Let’s see if we can break it down a bit.
In trying to assign blame, I realized that I am not part of the solution, but rather part of the problem. I asked myself a question: when was the last time I liked a new band? My answer… it’s been a while. I started wondering what it takes for me to like a band in the first place. I used to like bands based on how good their song on the radio was, but not anymore. For me to like a band nowadays I have to go through a checklist of three major rules: 1. The band needs to be on a good label. 2. It has to be made up of band members with some kind of resume (as in, they used to be in an old band I liked, or have toured with bands I like). 3. They have to have excellent reviews. If I can check all of these off my list, then ~ and only then ~ will I give the band a listen.
We live in a world where music is everywhere. We don’t even need someone to recommend it because we can listen to any song we want on the internet and decide for ourselves. So does music suck, or am I just being stupid and not noticing all the good music out there? The evidence points towards the latter. I think music still rocks, and I’m just too idiotic to notice. The good bands are totally still out there.
It is for these reasons that I have a new goal in 2012: to stop judging bands on all these trivial things and go back to just listening to music. From now on I don’t want to know who is in the band, where they’re from, or what label they’re on. I just want to hear a song, and if I like it, I’ll go from there. I challenge you all to do the same, and maybe together we can prove that music doesn’t actually suck.
