Music Is the Best
Confession time: Cool as it might seem to be, full-time
audio reviewing is no way for a grown-up (well, sort of) to make a living. Trust me,
I’ve tried. So I’m forced to take other jobs to keep my kitties in kibble --
among them, copyediting a popular audio magazine’s website. Said website has a weekly
question that asks for audiophile feedback, and it’s one of the sections I most look
forward to reading -- by and large, audiophiles are a perceptive, witty lot.
However, if there’s one subject that seems to create a
lot more heat than light, it’s music. This always catches me unaware, because I tend
to think of music as one of the boons that, like beer and sex, make life bearable. In
fact, I feel pretty much the same about all three pleasures: when they’re good,
they’re fantastic; when they’re bad, they’re still better than most other
things.
Okay, perhaps I’m a tad more discriminating than that.
There’s Bach’s B-Minor Mass and there’s "A Horse With No
Name"; there’s Samuel Smith’s Nut Brown Ale and there’s Miller (tastes
like skunk!); there’s my wife and there’s everyone else (that’s my story
and I’m sticking to it). In other words, I believe there’s good and bad, real
and phony, and that’s about it.
So I’m always blindsided by folks who think
there’s only one worthwhile kind of music. I know classical bores who think that any
classical work, no matter how hackneyed, is superior to anything by a [gasp] rock
musician. Fortunately, I can summon Pierre Boulez to comment on that: "A Beatles
record is shorter and cleverer than a Henze opera."
But there are rock snobs, too -- people who assume that
anyone who listens to the classical canon just doesn’t "get" modern music.
It doesn’t stop there, of course -- R&B fans don’t think techno is
"real music" (and vice versa), folkies despise emo, and punks hate just about
everything (some things never change).
I know a passionate music lover who assures me that he
likes "everything except for country." Really? Of course, I could indulge in my
own categorization and say that’s because he hasn’t heard real country
music, but that would imply that I have a more compelling moral right to make such
judgments than he does.
Which is my whole point. There’s music I like and
there’s music I don’t, but I don’t happen to believe that my taste
should determine what you listen to. And I’d appreciate it if you’d grant
me the same consideration.
My friend who doesn’t listen to country is depriving
himself of the honesty of Billy Joe Shaver and the sly wit of Hank Williams and the bleak,
bleary beauty of Townes Van Zandt, but I reckon that’s his loss. I find it impossible
to imagine going through life without the intensity of Beethoven’s late string
quartets -- and just as unthinkable to ignore Big T Williams’ deliriously silly
"King Kong."
Note that I’m not saying that the two are artistically
equivalent. I love "King Kong," but it’s a silly trifle, while
Beethoven’s Op.132 quartet is one of the crowning achievements of human endeavor. I
don’t think that saying that demeans "King Kong." After all, Big T Williams
took next to nothing -- a few chords, a lot of attitude, and a movie about a big ape --
and crafted something that still gives pleasure 50 years after he created it. That is not
an insignificant accomplishment.
Nor am I saying that we music fans should stop indulging in
vigorous artistic debates. Just because I don’t believe that all classical music is
automatically superior to pop music doesn’t mean that I think that all classical or
pop music is created equal. I admire "King Kong" while detesting Bobby
Goldsboro’s "Honey." Part of the fun of being a fan is making precisely
such distinctions.
Debating the merits (or lacks thereof) within a genre is a
completely different kettle of fish from dismissing an entire musical category, however.
I suspect that this Balkanization of taste is one of the
hurdles that prevent high-end audio from entering the mainstream. If there’s one
thing that you’d think that all audiophiles would agree on, it’s the
proposition that music is important enough to care about. If we start arguing over what
constitutes real music -- classical, rock, folk, jazz, or what have you -- we just
slice the pie thinner and thinner.
And we don’t just do it with music; we make the same
mistakes about audio equipment. I was stunned at all the static I got when I wrote about
car audio for Stereophile. "Car audio is real hi-fi," many letter
writers trumpeted. A lot of it isn’t, but some of it was and is -- and because car
audio is everywhere, surely it behooves those of us who care about the quality of music
reproduction to discover whether or not it’s possible to enjoy music in our cars as
well as in our homes.
Not according to most of the letter writers. Yet, my
experience with auto sound indicated that improving the poor quality of the standard car
hi-fi made a huge improvement in my enjoyment of music. It never made me want to retire to
my car when I could listen to my primary listening system, but it did let me hear some
great -- and great-sounding -- music, which, in my opinion, made the whole experiment
worthwhile.
As usual, Frank Zappa said it better than I ever will be
able to. Here’s his take on the whole subject from Joe’s Garage, Act III:
"Information is not knowledge,
Knowledge is not wisdom,
Wisdom is not truth,
Truth is not beauty,
Beauty is not love,
Love is not music,
Music is the best."
...Wes Phillips
wes@onhifi.com
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