Life Kinks: It's Personal

Whenever I tell people that I used to (and occasionally still do) write music reviews, a common reaction is, "Oh, you can't review a record. Music is just too *sigh* personal. It's too subjective. It's just a matter of taste." And part of me, the part of me that likes to find the good in everything and can appreciate every piece of art as, on some level, a personal risk on the part of the artist and a statement that, in a truly free world, would be respected as the extension by the artist of something unique to their cognitive and physiological processes, no matter how derivative seeming or dull, wants to agree.

That part of me, though, is very small and quiet. Most of me believes that most things, most anything, is pretty bad. Art, music, books, whatever. Almost all of it is bad. Pick a random CD from the Amazon.com warehouse and, again, it's probably just going to suck. And I think most people will acknowledge this about some things. Given that most people who dis middle-to-late 20th / 21st Century art know nothing about it, I would guess it would be pretty easy to get your average, middle-class, college-educated person to agree that, despite knowing deep down that they are, in fact, ignorant, almost all contemporary art is bad (except maybe the "simple" and famous stuff by Warhol or Rothko - their ability to disguise immense complexity as simplicity is perhaps the most complex thing about them).

But for some reason music always gets a pass. It's always assumed that, even if one person likes it, there must be something worthwhile about it. It's music, I listen to it, it affects me, therefore it is personal to ME. (Not personal from the artist's standpoint, e.g. every song on Rumors is about somebody in Fleetwod Mac. It seems correct to call Rumors personal in that sense, but totally incorrect to call it personal because "Gold Dust Woman" reminds me of that time I was shot down by my 8th Grade crush . . . and 9th, 10th, and 11th Grade crushes.) The syllogism should be clear - nobody calls the weather too personal.

My own theory, my personal (and therefore irrefutable) theory, is that music can simply "happen" in ways that other artforms can't. That is, especially since the advent of the iPod and file-sharing, you can listen to music while you do pretty much anything. Walking down the street, skydiving, having sex, you always have your jams with you. I guess I might feel the same way about Underworld as I do about Bjork's Homogenic if I had ever gotten laid while reading a DeLillo novel. But, barring an unexpected, incredibly long and patient tryst, that doesn't seem likely to happen.

This isn't to say, of course, that literature, paintings, & c. can't carry with them the same sort of autobiographical tinge. Baldwin's Another Country will always remind me of a particularly bizarre, peaceful time of my life, and Barth's The End of the Road will always remind me of a desperate one. But I think most people would say these associations are incidental, and wouldn't do much in the way of preventing me (if I'm smart and good) from making a smart and good assessment of them as works of art.

So, yeah, of course I feel strongly about certain records, because certain things happened while they were playing. Radiohead's "Blackstar" used to be a motherfucker to try and get through, we all know what it feels like. But, come on, too personal? You wouldn't hate if you ignored your own life, just once, for three and a half minutes.