Hello noobs! My name's Whale and I'm a Mod here at RG.
Are you a noob when it comes to music?
Is the iTunes store one big "NOOBS NEED NOT APPLY" sign?
Can't tell Stevie Ray Vaughn from Stevie Nicks?
Aesop Rock from A$AP Rocky?
Do you often find yourself in conversations with hipsters who refer to "DJ Kool Herc," "The Velvet Underground," "post-dubstep UK EDM," and "Bob Marley's Exodus-era spiritual politics," and you nod along and say "Totally!," but inside you're thinking WUT TEH FUX ARE THEY TALKING ABOUT?!
It's okay... I've been there. In fact, no one becomes not a music noob without being seriously shredded on some forum somewhere first for, well, being a noob.
You're probably young. Maybe, you're a little kid with a precocious and not-very-endearing desire to sit at the big boys' table.
Maybe you're 16 and you just listened to a song not recorded by Eminem for the first time and, hey, that's pretty neat. It was a Fall Out Boy song. Relax.
Or maybe you made it into your late '20s without venturing outside the comfortable confines of the hip-hop world. Hey, don't misunderstand, hip-hop is awesome, but you feel a little left behind on this whole "Mumford & Sons" thing.
Whatever the reason... wherever you came from... I am here to educate and edify you, turn you around, and set you rolling towards being a well-rounded, non-noobish, straight-ballin' gangsta music listener and lover. Thank me later.
In future installations, which will be dropped each Sunday for the next x number of Sundays, I'm going to be looking at individual genres and artists and breaking them down for you. And there is an entire world of beautiful music you've never heard out there. But first, if you wanna lose the noob and gain the shrewd, I have a few basic rules for listening to music.
Learn them. Internalize them. Tattoo them on your genitalia. Maybe don't actually do that last one so much.
#1: WHATEVER YOU'RE ALREADY LISTENING TO IS FINE
Somewhere... somehow... somebody is going to try to make you feel bad about the music you listen to. They may say that it's music for babies, or music that promotes rape culture, or that anybody who listens to it is literally a motherfucker and deserves to die a slow death by roasting on a spit over a large open flame. But whatever they say, they're gonna try to lampoon your tunes, and by extension, you, for listening to them.
Now... it is possible... and I need you to brace for this... that your music, the song you got the lyrics of tattooed on your inner elbow, the artist you bought the actual, physical CDs of to help support and waited for three hours after their show at the hockey rink in your podunk town to meet... it's possible that it all sucks. It's possible that it all sucks huge, frat-bro-choking donkey balls.
But here's the good news: you have no reason to care.
The reason that you don't need to give two cold, hard fucks anytime soon is that music, and musical taste, is entirely subjective. If I listen to Bob Dylan, but you think his voice is too nasal, that's fine. If you listen to Hopsin, and I think Hopsin is rap by noobs, for noobs, and that Hopsin can suck a dick six ways to Sunday for all I care, well, that's fine too! We are both wrong and right in equal measure.
Nobody has the right to tell you to stop listening to the music that you're listening to, any more than you do to tell them. If you discover some cool new music (say, Louis Armstrong or A Tribe Called Quest), there is no reason to put the music you already listened to (say, Nicki Minaj or One Direction) to rest. They don't cancel each other out! You can love both.
Oh yeah, which brings me to...
#2: THE MUSIC YOU LISTEN TO DOES NOT MAKE YOU BETTER THAN OTHER PEOPLE
This one is hard for hipsters to swallow. You put all that work in! You read the rock encyclopedias! You took that Intro to Music in World Cinema course in second year! You subscribed to the zines, joined the elite P2P sites, got into the hot clubs! Surely, you deserve recognition for all of this?!
And I have to admit that, yes, some music listeners have put in the time, enough that they become walking encyclopedias and maybe, just maybe, have something to offer (hint, hint). But it's a crucial difference: some people learn about music and listen to it because they love it, and want to give something back to the communities they belong to in the form of knowledge about it.
But watch out for another kind of music "listener," the kind who accumulates vast swathes of knowledge about music to fuel their latent inferiority complex, and to whom actually enjoying music is entirely secondary. Beware this person, who will try and bully you with their knowledge, and thinks that they are better than you because of it. They are not. They have missed the point, and in some ways, are a bigger noob than you'll ever be.
And do not think that these people are only rock fans, because hip-hop is loaded with (alleged) OGs that will jump at the first chance to call you a faggot, a CAC, or WOAT. That's because hip-hop is cool, and whenever something's cool, there are bound to be parasites, so I understand the "sus until proven worthy" mentality. But the OGs forget that they, too, were once ign'ant teenagers to whom Marshall Mathers LP meant everything, and I find a lot of the bullying in the community counterintuitive, if not downright mean.
The point of music is that it's supposed to move you, supposed to be meaningful to you, supposed to free your ass and the rest will follow. It is not to be used for the dark arts of snobbery and pseudo-intellectualism.
#3: DON'T GET TOO POLITICAL WITH MUSIC
If you're looking hard enough, you're going to find some way to hate on any musical artist for reasons that have nothing to do with their music. Sometimes, these reasons are going to be too much to handle. For example, I can't hear Gary Glitter's hockey anthem "Rock and Roll Part 2" without thinking of pedophelia.
Just as often, though, I find it advisable to not think too hard about the artist when enjoying their art. I mean, I love every single album that Kanye West has ever released. Seriously. Like... I wanna take my copy of MBDTF out to dinner, nice place, nothing too fancy, couple drinks, go out for a nice walk around the city after it rains, maybe take it back to my place, turn on some Marvin, and... wait, I'm getting way off track here. My point is, do I think Kanye West is a blowhard, a manchild, and a self-righteous prick, most of the time? Of course! Who doesn't?
But, I am an adult. And just like I can now look back to the bullies who beat me up on the playground, and realize that the reason that they beat me up is actually that they were going through some tough shit that my privileged ass did not, then, have a reference point for, I can love Kanye West's music while at the same time realizing that his inner life is messed up. So is mine.
Feminists often forsake the music of Tyler, the Creator, because of references to rape. Are these references to rape distasteful? Absolutely. Some of them make me cringe. But I am not prepared to throw out the baby with the bath water over them! First off, both Tyler and his closest OF buddy, Earl Sweatshirt, have grown up and realized that those rhymes were borderline and omitted similar lines from recent recordings. Second, many feminists who want to see queer people represented in our pop cultural zeitgeist totally ignore the fact that not one, but two, members of Odd Future are gay: Frank Ocean and Syd the Kid.
What I'm saying is, the primary question to ask of new music is "Do I enjoy this?" Not "Does this artist agree with all of my opinions?"
#4: MUSIC IS LIKE FOOD; TRY EVERYTHING (AT LEAST) ONCE
The most obnoxious noobs in all music are the ones that you have this conversation with (non-noobs, feel my pain). Here, the noob in question is invariably a white twentysomething from the suburbs attending a liberal arts university.
NON-NOOB: So, what do you listen to?
NOOB: Everything!
NON-NOOB: Everything?!
NOOB: Well, yeah! ... Except for country and rap. ... And techno. ... And anything with screaming
NON-NOOB: So... you listen to... indie rock?
NOOB: ... Yeah, everything!
Whether rich or poor, white or black, gay or straight, country or city, your demographic is biased towards a certain genre or genres. Break this mould, immediately. Now, don't misunderstand: I'm not saying that you will be one of those rare individuals who enjoys all genres of music, nor that you're obligated to. What I'm saying is, don't be willfully (or worse, belligerently) ignorant of other musical genres.
There is worthwhile classical music, there's worthwhile boy band music, worthwhile gangsta rap, worthwhile neo-soul, worthwhile dubstep, UK folk, rockabilly, emo, black metal, nerdcore, indie, smooth jazz, tribal field recordings, and modern country. You don't have to like all of it, but don't make the mistake of not giving all of it a chance!
Your new favorite band might be waiting just around the corner.
#5: MUSIC IS SUPPOSED TO BE FUN
The most important, easiest to grasp, and final rule is that music is supposed to be... wait for it!... fun.
Sure, listening to music can be a disciplined intellectual exercise, especially for jazz and classical listeners. And it can be used as a vehicle for some pretty brutal emotions, especially where hip-hop, metal, and punk are concerned.
But the ultimate goal of listening to music is enjoying it, and at the end of the day, if you're not... you're doing it wrong. Don't worry; it's not too late; you can go back to the drawing board, and you can start by asking, what album do I really, honestly love, in my soul? Go get it off the shelf or pull it up on iTunes.
Press play, and let yourself swag out. Sing into a hairbrush, rap along while mumbling half the syllables, whatever makes you happy. That is what listening to music is about.
Well, you're now 1% less noobish. Does it feel good? Tell me... do you feel lucky, punk?
Join me next week for Vol. 2, "Bach to the Future," in which I'll tell you why classical music deserves some time alone with your earholes... and which composers to look for first.
