Derrick Rossignol
Editor In Chief
It may feel a bit premature for this conversation, but New Year’s Eve is only a couple weeks away, so maybe it is time to talk about trying to better yourself by setting New Year’s resolutions that you promise you’ll stick with.
Go ahead and lose some weight, spend some more time at the library or start that novel you’ve been writing in your head. That’s all good, but this is also a great opportunity to expand your musical horizons in many ways.
What do I mean? More often than not, one of the main points of this column is to expose people to sounds they may not have heard otherwise. Experiencing new music is definitely part of what I mean, but it goes deeper than that.
I’ve taken the liberty of kickstarting your list of musical New Year’s resolutions with a few that I’ve either observed in the past of am going to in the future. First:
Don’t hate pop music just because it’s pop music
When I am not busy trying to provide the University of Maine student body with the best possible student newspaper — along with my great staff, of course — I work another job that involves working behind a desk, dealing with people and forcibly listening to the pop radio that plays over the speakers for the duration of my shift, every shift.
I’ve heard Demi Lovato’s “Heart Attack” more times that I can or would care to count. The experience has given me a more negative view of the state of pop music than I already had. Before, I was able to ignore it and be blissfully unaware of what One Direction’s new song is. Now, it’s pounded into my face on a near-daily basis… which isn’t an entirely bad thing.
As a fan of music more indie and alternative than Z107.3 tends to play, my taste doesn’t often coincide with what’s big at the moment. It sometimes does, though: “Applause” by Lady Gaga and Justin Timberlake’s “Suit and Tie” are a couple tunes from the past few months I really enjoyed, songs I would not have heard if I let my stigma against pop get in the way.
Pop is cheap, easily digestible and not enough to get by on, but every now and then, bits of it are worthwhile, so don’t phase it out completely.
Give metal and hardcore music a chance
Speaking of branching out and defeating stigmas, the past few months, I’ve become increasingly interested in metal and hardcore music, two genres I had previously deemed unlistenable. They’re just fast-paced noise with testosterone-fueled men shouting over them, right?
Nah, that’s not quite the case. My roommate is into hardcore music, bands like Confide and Of Mice and Men. He’s also into playing music loudly in the apartment, more often than not opting to blast some hardcore jams. I put up with it at first, then there was one day when I was looking for something more intense and it fit the bill. I got past the “ridiculous” screaming and saw it for what it is: just another form of singing.
This newfound acceptance allowed me to revisit metal bands like Baroness and Mastodon that had previously been recommended to me by my cousin, which I liked a lot more this time around.
Whatever genre serves as your hardcore, try to branch out into it. You might be pleasantly surprised and make yourself a more informed music consumer.
Buy more music
It’s insanely easy to get almost whatever album or song you want for free via torrents or other illegitimate means, or to stream them with services like Spotify. Both of these methods are not great for the financial well-being of the artists, however, so do your part and help these people remain financially viable and able to stay in the business.
I’ve downloaded and will likely continue to download my share of free music, but over the past couple years, I’ve started to buy more CDs. I made an iTunes playlist the other day consisting of the music I legally own, and it constituted about a fifth of my library, a tremendous step up for the zero fifths it was at a few years ago. Plus, it’s nice to have a physical copy of an album, so you can flip through the liner notes and play it in the car.
Make music, even if you don’t know how
Music is art, and art can be made by anybody. Therefore, anybody can make music. Not anybody can make good music, but the act of making music of any quality is easy. It can be as simple as layering synths on top of each other in GarageBand and making an ambient song, then working up to songs with rhythm and different sections once you get more comfortable.
I’m not a musician, but that’s exactly what I did and now, I make a bunch structured experimental electronic music. I don’t know if it’s any good — well, I think it’s OK — but I have a lot of fun making it. Don’t be intimidated and you can, too.
Watch all of R. Kelly’s “Trapped in the Closet”
I’ll give him a pass because of “Ignition,” but the series of “Trapped in the Closet” songs and accompanying videos is one of the worst things made by a talented artist. And it’s an absolute must-watch. Most of them are available on YouTube, so blow an afternoon on an extremely entertaining and awful audiovisual experience.