From Sludge to Ambrosia: Popular Music and Why I Hate It

Hello again audience. It hasn't been too long since I last wrote, and some personal thinking and a couple conversations and such in the last few days have led me to want to write this blog about music.

Before I begin, I want to explain that music is so ingrained into who I am that it's practically an organ in my body. When I was still a tiny growing fetus, I would go completely nuts as soon as the worship portion of Sunday morning church service began. As I grew up, music continued to fill the air around me, and as soon as I learned to whistle, my fate was sealed. I'd pick up jingles from commercials on TV or the radio and whistle them over and over and over again until my dad was ready to glue my mouth shut. I sang at church in plays and in front of the adults during Sunday evening services. In fourth grade, I was introduced to the cello and began playing in my elementary school string orchestra. My sister was interested in playing piano for a while, and I took what I knew of reading music and such from cello and taught myself how to play some things on piano. I picked up guitar around seventh or eighth grade and fell totally in love with it. My brother played bass for a while and I used to sit in his room every once in a while and listen to him play. I played cello up until ninth grade, and then my parents traded my cello for an electric guitar halfway through tenth so I could pursue that. And I've played it religiously ever since.

My music tastes started humble, listening to classical music and contemporary christian from the radio. I got into some christian rock, and then my friend Alex introduced me to classic rock, punk and metal. The Beatles, Pink Floyd, The Who, The Doors, The Clash, The Ramones, The Misfits, The Offspring, Beastie Boys, followed closely by Iron Maiden, Metallica, Megadeth, Guns N Roses, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, AC/DC, that kinds of stuff. Some more modern stuff came up, like Disturbed, System of a Down, Korn, Slipknot, Breaking Benjamin, Chevelle, secular radio tunes and such. I stayed pretty close on the christian side of things for a while, but eventually branched into heavier metals. Dethklok came really early, along with Children of Bodom, Amon Amarth, then heavier stuff like Psycroptic and Quo Vadis, then even heavier stuff like Origin and Fleshgod Apocalypse. I got into hardcore, growing into liking early Haste The Day, As I Lay Dying, August Burns Red, The Devil Wears Prada, Underoath, earlier All That Remains, Anterior, Trivium, Killswitch Engage, and eventually more southern style stuff like Every Time I Die and Norma Jean. Everything changed pretty drastically when I was first introduced to Dream Theater.

All of these men are better at music than I'll ever be. Especially the little Asian one.

Progressive metal became my thing, and I fell in love with Andromeda, Pain of Salvation, and Cynic, and Coheed and Cambria on the lighter prog rock side of things. I got really into technical stuff again around then, discovering one of my very favorites, The Human Abstract, and getting into Meshuggah thanks to obZen. I started really liking the subgenre some call 'djent' this last year, picking up one of my other favorites, Periphery, and being introduced to bands like Textures, Heart Of A Coward, and Wayfarer. Now, between all of those, I found some more indie or alt rock bands I liked, including some stuff I can only honestly label as pop punk. Those bands had less influence on me, but are still things I like to listen to. I've carried a stereo to and from school because I didn't have a smaller cd player to listen to music during study times or such. I eventually got an iPod and filled it to the brim, then got a bigger one and now that one stays consistently full, around 3500 to 4200 songs or so and at least 150 artists if not more. Its headphone jack and screen broke and I cannibalized another iPod to replace them, and now I've ruined the headphone jack again. I constantly whistle or tap my feet of click my teeth back and forth against each other or hum or sing to myself or listen to music in my head. As long as I'm awake, there is some form of music going on, either physically or just where I can hear it.


I say all of this to make one point clear: When I say 'Music is my life,' I don't mean what most people mean, being 'I like to listen to some top 40 songs off the radio that are kinda catchy so I can memorize the lyrics and not be a social outcast at school.' Music really is my life. I've been doing something musical for as long as I can remember and I really don't go a day without listening to at least two to four hours of music and playing music on my guitar for a similar amount. It's my favorite thing to do, my primary way of connecting to people and getting to know them, and it's the first thing I have ever been dead set on doing for the rest of my life.


All that being said, I'd like to return to the title. Recently, while listening to Meshuggah in bed, I listened to the final track off their album Nothing, titled Obsidian. It's almost six minutes long and completely instrumental. Due to recent events and general stress, I had a strange ache in the pit of my stomach. Now, I'm usually affected by music in a way that is sometimes tangible, feeling warm and fuzzy or indestructible or getting the chills or whatever, but I have never been made to feel ill by a song, up until I listened to Obsidian that day. It took my stomach ache and made it twist and wrench and grow in an uncomfortable manner. I thought about it for a bit, and it's definitely not the heaviest or most extreme music I listen to, but it's probably the most extreme I've been exposed to in a while.


I talked to my metalhead pal David about it, and I asked if maybe it would have an even stronger effect on people less accustomed to extreme music. He suggested the idea that maybe it was like ambrosia, the food of the ancient Greek gods. It was reserved specifically for them and kept from mortals, and it was said that consuming ambrosia and nectar would cause ichor to flow through ones veins rather than blood. The gist of that being that extreme and technical music is powerful and amazing, but that it isn't meant for mortals to enjoy. Which would explain my reaction to such a strong dose of the stuff. Here it is for you to listen to and understand.






Along with that, I have a continuing hatred for popular music, and here's why. The artists may be passionate about what they do, but the product they put out is written and produced and designed purely to sell to the widest audience possible. Their goal in creating music is to sell records and make money, while doing what they enjoy and performing for audiences and such. My problem with this is that their music lacks integrity. It is shaped to be liked by as many people as possible, and therefore has to be simple and catchy and repetitive and talk about topics people like and want to hear about. Some examples of this are just about every song on the radio about dancing, going to the club, having sex, doing drugs, hanging out with friends, being happy, being sad, or partying. You know exactly what I'm talking about, Party Rock Anthem, you despicable piece of useless noise.

A lot of the artists I admire these days are the ones who play exactly what it is they love and are damn good at it. They find influence in really creative and unique musicians or bands, and then write and perform songs grown out of that influence. They end up with a really particular and interesting sound that sets them apart from most music these days. It's usually not the most popular sound, and they don't even end up on the radio a lot of times. In times before the internet music sharing craze, bands like this would gather a devoted cult following and then they would end up having to call it quits due to lack of support. Now, bands from cities all over the world can get their names spread out there and gain publicity and momentum without having to meet all of those people in person or reach them in a physical manner.

Periphery, as I mentioned above, is one of the primary forces in the 'djent' subgenre, finding influence in both progressive and heavy places. They have sounds ranging from light, melodic, and beautiful, to thick, chunky, and gritty grooves. They blend the two with clean and distorted guitars, sung and screamed vocals, and some techno fillers inbetween songs that act as a sort of palate cleanser and interlude. The band started as a result of the lead guitarst Bulb writing and creating music he posted free on the internet, and then pulling together a band to perform it live. Periphery's audience was primarily scattered widely at first due to their birth on the internet, giving them a wider base of support than a band who starts gaining popularity in one city and moves on. The greatest feat of the band is having achieved such success in a generally less popular genre without the help of a major record label, radio support, or large scale promotion. Their music spoke for itself.

All of these men are also better at music than I'll ever be. Especially the ones with hair.

There are plenty of groups like Periphery out there, striving to remain unique and true to themselves while still trying to gain popularity enough to make a living off of their music. But, due to the shape of the music industry today, this just isn't possible anymore. Huge record labels and widely sponsored popular artists make millions, while honest musicians just trying to make it playing what they love get choked out and have to rely on other means to support their music careers.

Here's where it all ties together. 


Popular music is like sludge. It's colorless, shapeless, has a disturbing consistency, and there's plenty of it to be had. It's consumed in small amounts no matter what you do or how hard you try to avoid it, and it's very easy to spread over a large area. You can tell people it's anything and everything you want them to think it is and they'll pay you for it. And it makes me ill.

Mmmm... sludge.

Honest, creative, inspired music is like ambrosia. It's valuable beyond words, difficult to get a hold of, and impossible not to crave once you've tasted of it. It is what it is, and is unmistakable when you find it. It can't be covered up and it can't be diluted. It's not for the faint of heart or the casual consumer, and once it has its hold on you, it changes you inside forever.

The Human Abstract - Digital Veil. Ambrosia.

Music today is either sludge or ambrosia, with very little middle ground between the two. Either it was made to be consumed by the masses, or it was made simply because the artist wanted to write it and it is consumed by the discerning. Either it belongs to the crowd, or it is kept apart from lesser mortals and reserved for those who can understand and appreciate it for what it is.


I hope to one day be able to stand proudly and say that I wrote and performed music that I wanted to play, and not that I sold out and played what would make me popular or liked the most. I want to listen to my own creations years and years down the road and still be proud of what I made. And it would be nice if I wasn't the only one still listening to my songs that far in the future, if my music had gotten under someone else's skin and lodged itself in their brain, if it meant something to them and inspired them, if it made any difference at all to anyone, if it was something more than just noise to even one person. Then I could say that I had been a success. It's not about the money or the fame or the fans or the lifestyle. It's about creating something you're proud of and wanting to share it with anyone willing to listen and appreciate it.

So, audience (who I only assume is still there because blogger continues to tell me I have more page views), what kind of listener are you, and what kind of music are you consuming? Do you believe that all music created to please the masses is sludge, or do you think i'm being harsh in my judgement of popular culture today? What kind of music do you think will still be around forty or fifty years from now, when our children's children are growing up and starting to really listen? Which artists do you think will look back and smile at what they've done, and which do you think will laugh in nervous embarrassment and wish you hadn't brought that album up? I know what I think. I want to hear what you think.