I made a horrible discovery recently
and I’m terribly traumatized by it.
I can tell the difference between Selena Gomez
and Demi Lovado and Elle Goulding. Oh. My. God. I feel dirty.
You may think I’m over reacting,
but to me this is both a tragedy and a huge personal failing.
I am literally going
through the five stages of grief.
It starting when I was sitting in my car at a light, minding my
own business listening to NPR, as one does. A 20-something pulled up next to me with her windows down. She was blasting KIIS-FM and chair-dancing to
“Cool for the Summer.” I started singing
along. Loudly. I might have even done a little dancing too.
Then I realized what I was doing. Enter stage
1: denial.
I was so horrified I immediately started
changing my radio channels wildly. Desperately I searched for the
anti-Lovado, but I couldn’t find The Replacements anywhere. I began shaking badly
and was still hitting buttons when the car behind lost patience and blew its horn.
The light had changed and I hadn’t noticed or cared.
Didn’t that idiot driver realize
this was an emergency of epic proportion? I know the words to a Demi Lovado song? It’s in my head!!!
Okay, I admit I’m a music snob. As a rock critic, it’s pretty much a job definition. The whole point is to be able to tell the difference between good music (The Replacements, X, Courtney Barnett)
and bad music (the aforementioned songbirds Lovado , Gomez and Goulding).
Enter stage 2. Anger.
I am furious that this music is taking up
space in my already somewhat cluttered brain. I absolutely can’t know this. It’s a
mistake. A waste. It’s making me question everything.
As most of my compadres in the
field as well as serious music lovers will testify, loving good music goes far beyond
‘liking’ a band or a song. It shapes everything in life.
Back in the day when I had a social
life, I wouldn’t willingly spend time with anyone with terrible musical
taste. It was a bigger crime even than wearing stone-washed jeans.
Oh, I could forgive them an occasional Britney Spears tune. “Oops, I Did It Again” and “Baby One More
Time” are truly awesome pop tunes. They have catchy hooks and Brit’s voice was
pretty good.
But long ago I decided that life is way too short to waste it with anyone who believed N’Sync was godhead, or
that Mariah Carey rules. Anyone who actually own anything by Creed was
automatically off the list. The good thing is that all my real friends, many of whom were in the
business, agreed with me.
Over
the years I’ve mellowed a bit, and have trained myself to tolerate people with
crappy musical taste. I don’t mind that acquaintances love Kelly Clarkson or actually care about who is yodeling
on “The Voice.”. As long as they don’t talk about it. Facebook often makes this
difficult.
I can’t get past the attitude that the
current crop of pop princesses are passing along to their mostly female fans.
Selena and Demi have obviously worked really hard, both as Disney stars and
turning themselves into pop stars. They are nobody's fools. But they primarily
sing about perfecting themselves for some schlumy guy who obviously doesn’t
appreciate their fabulousness. Ever heard of feminism girls?
As someone who grew up listening to
tough girls like Chrissie Hynde, Exene and Patti Smith, these girls and their followers break my
heart. They really are better than this. At least I hope so.
Hence, stage 4: depression.
But as much as I deny it, some of these
songs are really catchy. And “Confident” is awful, but at least Demi is trying
to say something empowering. Right?
At this point it's really important to me that I explain exactly why I know these terrible songs.
Recently I had to drive a long distance at night. This is not part of my skill set. I get
sleepy. Which is dangerous. Somehow I discovered that if KIIS-FM was
playing (this was during a free tryout for Sirius and they only provided a few
stations, and KIIS was one) it made me angry enough to stay awake.
After a lot
of time with Ryan Seacrest I discovered a few things. One is that KIIS has a
playlist of about eight songs. The other is that I am immune to whatever charms
Mr. Seacrest holds.
I digress.
The good news is that I’ve figured
out a way to make this okay. Enter stage 4: bargaining.
Now, if I accidently hear a pop song and
find myself singing along, I play some Courtney Barnett for a while. It makes me feel
better. Not only do I love her, but it works
as a cleansing mechanism. She clears all that nasty saccharine and
auto-tuning out of my brain. Thank goodness.
It’s taken a while but I’m almost through
stage 5, acceptance.
I acknowledge that every era of music has its
crap. When I was younger there were people who adored Donny and Marie
Osmond. There was that whole era of
disco. And hair bands. I could go on but my tummy hurts thinking about it.
But, and this is important, in
those days there was no such thing as auto-tuning. Bad singers were just bad.
And good singers didn’t all sound weirdly alike.
I guess I’m not completely though
the acceptance stage yet.
PS. I kinda really love The Weeknd.
Except for the spelling. That annoys me.
