Derrick Rossignol

Editor In Chief

My first musical love was U2, after watching the “U2 Go Home: Live from Slane Castle, Ireland” when I was in middle school. After a few uninformed years of literally listening exclusively to U2, I branched out and developed my tastes, today enjoying music that ranges from indie rock to 60’s Brazilian samba to Japanese ambient folk to alternative hip-hop and everywhere in between.

I strive to be an informed music consumer: I’ll give everything a chance for the sake of being knowledgeable about it, and expanding my comfort zone has led me to some of my favorite artists and songs.

Still, there are a few major genres that I haven’t really been able to enjoy. As far as country music goes, I can do pre-’80s country: Townes Van Zandt, John Denver and Jimmie Rodgers, to name a few I enjoy. But I can’t do today’s “pop country,” as I call it: I yearn for the days when country and folk were more closely related.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, metal, hardcore and similar genres have also eluded me. Until recently, the closest I have come to that area of music is stuff like punk group The Men and harder post-rock like This Will Destroy You and Red Sparowes.

I say “until recently” because, despite all the stigmas I’ve built against screamo and like genres, over the past couple months, it’s been starting to grow on me.

My roommate, with whom I’ve been living for four months or so, is really into the stuff: thinks bands like The Devil Wears Prada and Of Mice and Men. He’s not opposed to playing his music loudly on his speakers, and since I’m non-confrontational and don’t really care anyway, on it plays, with its increased tempos, fury of percussive activity, gravelly shouted vocals and general disregard for aural sensitivity.

Initially, I dismissed the music as noisy rubbish for emo kids with daddy issues — not that my roommate is that. It wasn’t until the other day when I was in the car with my roommate and a mutual friend of ours, whose musical tastes align with my roommate’s, that I started to gain an appreciation for the stuff.

A couple songs caught my ear, one of which I believe was by Of Mice and Men, although I can’t recall what it was called at the moment. Recently, I had been looking for something more high-energy: the new albums by Moby and Toro y Moi, as well as an older one by Sound Tribe Sector 9, had been in rotation the past few days. All three of those records are pretty downtempo and easy to vibe out too, but I had been “vibing” for too long and was vibing myself to sleep. Little did I know that the 5-Hour Energy my ears needed had been right under my nose this whole time.

It was when I realized that hardcore genres are essentially more intense rock music that I began to understand their appeal. Once you get past the social “Oh, come on, man: that noisy crap?” that comes with hardcore music, what you’re left with is something a little off the beaten path, and justifiably so.

Hardcore music offends the sensibilities of the casual rock listener because it is a lot to take in at once and takes a while to get used to. The onslaught of instrumental activity is like watching a colony of ants: they may appear to be chaotic, but they’re surprisingly organized while calculatedly working toward a clear goal. It takes getting past the initial illusion of disorder to understand that.

I challenged my roommate to give me an album that would get me into hardcore music. That job may be easier than he thinks: my ears are already opened and I’m ready to fill them with whatever joyful noise he wants to throw my way.