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Music and why should we love it.

A brutally honest reflection on what it means to feel nothing for music in a world obsessed with sound. One writer explores silence, social pressure, and the myth of universal taste.

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A fresh website. Am I supposed to say, ‘I love it?’ I do not care. But I see all these new quickies, and I am supposed to write one?

I will give it a go.

Unedited posts written directly on the website. Expect randomness, rawness, and written on raw emotion.

The Quickie.

My problem is a lack of passion for this genre of writing. Written without a plan, riffing has never been me. If I were a musician, I certainly would not be playing jazz. I know people swoon over jazz but all I hear is confusion.

Do I listen to the right jazz?

How would I know, and before you reach for the comments section, I do not care.

Jazz sucks.

In fact, all music does.

Forcing us to listen, music is everywhere. I must wonder why.

Feel the emptiness inside your head. Embrace the silence. That reveals more to me than any rhyming couplet I have ever heard. Never be afraid of silence. Of emptiness inside your brain. Even more intense is listening to the narrative inside the cells of grey. That reveals the neurosis that you are trying to hide behind the noise. Hear it, act on it, pacify it, or seek help to control it. Never ignore the self.

Everywhere I look humankind has plugs in their ears. People moan about the constant need for a phone in the face but what about our ears, people!

Call me old if it pleases you. I am not saying the music of my youth was any better. It was not.

One friend said, “Got myself a preamp by Julian Green and new speakers by Bouchard and I played my new Floyd album. You can really hear the triplets and switch from manic F to D sharp.”

(NB: Made up brands in italics – the whole conversation is fiction.)

I had no idea what he was talking about, I just nodded and smiled. He told me once the amount of cash he spent on the gear to play the music. A deck, an amp, speakers, graphic equalisers, and loads of other gadgets that I have no idea what they did. Each one costs over a week’s wages.

Showing off, he took out an album. With delicate fingers he slipped the vinyl out of the inner sleeve. Took a cloth and wiped it in a circular motion, before placing it on the turn table. He took two deep breaths. And with a delicate touch he lifted the needle arm and guided it to the beginning of the – now- spinning disc. He took another deep breath and held it. Slowly he lowered the needle to the vinyl.

Call me a sycophant. Call me uneducated. Call me simple. But what I heard was bumph. I am a man who admires a ritual. And there was ritual galore in his handling of this. The wall of sound did no justice to that ritual.

Shame. Shame. Shame.

My teenage years the choice was glam rock, prog rock, or blues rock. A choice of androgenous, self-indulgent, or appropriation. I did not enjoy any of it. And outside the rock it was all so clean, all so straight, all so safe. As I left my teenage years and that genre called punk exploded on the consciousness, I wondered if this would be ‘my rock’ but no it was not.

Punk was crass.

Rapidly, I concluded that I just did not like music.

A shocking revelation.

When others hear it

In every eye you see madness, as if they want to reflect the insanity that I must possess. They like to think even the outsider; the pariah of society still holds a glimmer of cultural normality. That disappears with a blink and the obvious whirling of the clockwork cogs working out a way to detach themselves from our conversation.

That led me through my thirties and forties to answer, ‘I like a variety, I am more into songs than a genre or a particular band.’ Occasionally, I would change it up and declare I enjoy classical pieces. I even memorized certain orchestras rendition of various pieces from famous composers.

You can say you do not watch the television. It is acceptable to confess to listening to radio four or reading books. But to say you do not like music seems to ostracize one as a complete anti-social, possible serial killer, and certainly a narcissist.

Am I the only one? Are there any others out there that feel the complete and total anathema that is music. I have never heard a single string of notes or sung poetry that moves me beyond apathy.

Am I the only One?

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