A Short Thesis

A moment to discuss just what it is I'm doing here.  Music is subjective.  On every level.  What may register as noisy garbage to one may touch the deepest part of another's subconscious.  What one may deem "cheesy, corporately manufactured tripe" may be the music that kept a socially outcast teenager from jumping off into the proverbial deep end.

I will never rate music here.  I don't even know how to begin to think of music in terms of a scientifically arrived at numerical score.  Not that there is anything wrong with music critics who do such.  Admittedly, often times I will not even read a review if it's been given a bad score.  Shame on me.

All I know is the music that reaches me.  Sometimes it is dissonant.  Crawling under my skin and irritating me until it actually scratches that itch that I did not even know existed.  Sometimes it transports me instantaneously to a realm where everything is absolutely perfect and I would be willing to convert immediately to whatever sonic religion birthed it deep in the psyche of the artist.

There is no universal reason for you, the reader/listener to give my ramblings and personal tastes here any credence; except for those of you who know me personally and (im?)possibly trust my judgment (I hesistate to use the word).  After all, music subtracted from relationship is a sad place.  Potentially beautiful yes, but lonely nonetheless.  (Sidenote: This is why people say things like, "You have to listen to this part, it's amazing!"  Even though you, the listener have no choice in the matter and are only (usually) annoyed at their evangelical zeal over the chorus/verse/etc. in question.  We enjoy best that which we share with others.  See: laughter, sex, food, film, vacations, etc.)

What am I saying here? What am I saying? 

Essentially that the music I enjoy and that touches me on a deep, visceral, and even spiritual level is that which I cover here.  Think of me as the person who says, "Oh my God, you have to listen to this!  It will blow you away."  Except that I won't be sitting there with you in you living room or office or car offering the inevitable, "This is the best part!"  The music offered up here is nothing if not that which I find to be compelling on the deepest level of myself that is easily/daily accessed.  And I cannot help but share it.

If you find something of what I find in it.  If it reaches some inner part of you that transforms you into a child or a zealot or a time traveler or a sage.  If the joy we share reveals a deeper truth we share as humans.  Then it has been worth it. 

As some of my favorite musicians Over the Rhine have said, "Quiet music should be played loud...still waters run deep."