Is it okay to hate music?
I've always been an snob when it comes to music. If a vocal or a rhythm track wasn't exactly "right", it would ruin the whole song for me: I'm a musical Goldilocks who can never settle on the best tempo of porridge.
I've picked easy targets in the past for my most hated music. On this blog I have railed against, specifically, James Blunt, Ocean Colour Scene and Celine Dion. I forget their crimes now: their apparent transgressions have faded over time.
I still hold a seething hatred of the following:
- "Dad music", usually comprising ageing rockers.
- Country and western, which is just folk music with horses.
- Opera, obviously.
- And anything popular. That's right: if the masses are into something, I have to be contrary and pretend I'm some kind of proto-John Peel into something obscure and difficult.
Hmmm. Actually, I don't seethe. I never seethe. So much of my hate is simply comical ire because it makes for funny writing.
I have never been an angry person. I remember a lot of shouty fighting in my family when I was a kid: my oldest brother storming out after a blazing row. I remember the tension, and spending some of my (mostly very happy) childhood being afraid. Combined with relentless bullying in school, it shook the rage out of me: made me see it as a futile emotion.
So I've always been quite chilled. Very level-headed in a crisis. I'm also 16 years older than when I first started this blog, so I'm even more mellow than I was. Added to my natural inner calm is the gradual slowing of age, the creaking mantra of my ageing bones. I'm also getting fatter as I get calmer. I think I am possibly becoming Buddha.
Don't get me wrong. Opera really sucks. And I can't stand Free's All Right Now and any version of American Pie: both songs have all the dynamic energy of a dead person's heart monitor, flat-lining from start to finish. Also if I hear Imagine one more time, I'm attacking John Lennon's piano with a hammer. And what about Nickelback and Billy Joel? Absolutely awful: I want to boil them in oil then boil that oil in oil. And if one more person comes up to me and says "techno techno techno techno", I'm going to get the twelve-inch of 2 Unlimited's No Limits and shove it right up their—
No. Stop. Deep breaths. Find your happy place, Fats. Like I said, I'm a really calm, chilled guy. Ulp.
Is it okay to hate music? Well, James Blunt, Ocean Colour Scene and Celine Dion are not really music, are they. It's just noise: an awful pop cacophony with as much musicality as a hundred walruses being fired out of a cannon. See? It's easy when you know how to write it.
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