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Michael considered fate at 15:41   |   Permalink   |   Post a Comment

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Comment posted by  Anonymous @ 4/26/2008 2:27 PM:

You live on stereotypes and abstractions. You think that people "just hear" music. You think you can't see or smell it (you can do both at concerts, coincidentally, but why does that even matter?)

Your local yokel comparison makes no sense. First of all, the people you are making fun of might enjoy local bands as much as stadium tours. Second, the terrible bands you despise were, it stands to reason, once local bands themselves. Even Jimmy Buffett, I suppose. Sounds like you are being a "local music" snob.

It's not obsession, it's purely joy. Don't you enjoy anything? Does that make you 'weird?'

Maybe metalheads are happy when they hear music they like. So strange? Again you have stereotyped a lot of people based purely on the kind of music they like. That is simply dumb. I'm sure they pay rent, go to work, use the toilet, and are happy about things just like you.

Besides, why does the end goal have to be to make you feel "okay"? That is idiotic, like something an anchorman on the local news would say.

It's not so much 'embracement of the human condition' as it is just having a soul. You do have a soul, right? I'm sure you do. It's just some people don't feel to uptight to express that they do have a soul. Even in public. Go figure. Have fun being happy. 

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Comment posted by  Michael @ 5/15/2008 3:56 PM:

A stereotype is almost, by definition the opposite of an abstraction, so I don't really know what you're talking about. I don't think people "just hear" music, only that I have my own way of appreciating and taking in music, and that may be different than other people, and that is OK.

As I clearly stated, there is nothing wrong with that.

If I don't care for the taste of, say, lima beans, that doesn't mean I am calling into question the validity of someone else's enjoyment of lima beans.

And as far as local yokels versus big business bands point goes, you completely missed the point. Just because I like to search out, say, homemade fudge from local vendors doesn't mean that, by defacto, I dislike snickers bars.

The key factors in this post are the words "me" and "I". If you picked up on this, you would realize I am not at all "making fun" of anything, I am not at all calling any particular band bad.

In fact, the whole post ends with a statement that I am probably wrong and that I do feel, if not the same exact way, at least very similarly about music as many metalheads do:

"Embracement of the human condition, maybe? I guess maybe I do understand. It's not so complicated afterall."


It seems like you approached this post with assumptions about what I was saying, without actually reading and interpretting carefully what I was saying - or I write so poorly that it is difficult to pick up on the subtleties that I am intending for the reader to pick up. Either is equally possible.

Thanks for the comment. 

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Comment posted by  Unknown @ 5/15/2008 4:01 PM:

Yeah Mike, where is your soul? 

I'm not sure I'll ever understand the devil-horn pumping insanity of a truly obsessed metalhead. Don't get me wrong, I've raised the horns in my time and I've certainly been obsessed with certain music, certain bands. The moshpit I get, that makes perfect sense to me.. even if I usually hang out at the edge and just bob my head. For me, concerts are introspective events. If I wanted to party I'd buy some beerz and go to a bar. You can't see music, you can't smell music. You can just hear it. This is why I can't understand the push-to-the-front-and-touch-his-shirt mentality.

Not that there is anything wrong with that.

I don't get parrotheads or dave matthews band fanatics either. Especially not U2 freaks. U2 sounds, in my book, perfectly fine at home on my hifi. There are a heck-ton of a lot of other bands that I don't a) see nearly as much, b) hear nearly as much, and c) get innundated by through media attention as much. These are the bands I'd rather see. The locals, the yokels, the amazing artists that are doing it not so much for money or fame (they've been doing it for a decade or more - they've figured out by now that it certainly isn't going to get them fame or fortune). They're doing it for the pure enjoyment - nah, love - of the act and action of performance and the crowds inhalation of that.



Obsession is a weird beast. It's fantasy at it's finest, as if one day you'll wake up and be friends with the band or be in the band and you'll be touring the country, putting your body through motions it wasn't meant to be put through on a daily basis, and staring out over the top of thousands of people's heads, their hair spiked, gelacquered, coloured, greased, dreaded, black. It's about the grind, and secondary is perhaps money.. maybe the money.. but only tertiary - in the deep recesses of their minds - is it about making a living doing something you love.

Metalheads don't like to admit anything about happiness, right? Hope? Forget hope. Happiness is a four letter word. Somehow it's about the viscerality, not about the end goal of feeling okay.

Embracement of the human condition, maybe? I guess maybe I do understand. It's not so complicated afterall.