Music: Why We Like What We Do

From: Rebecca Ferraro

To: Matt Kasznel

Re: Music

So, I just walked 3.5 miles to Starbucks so I could get an internet connection and write this email to you. I was left with two realizations when I arrived. 

1) It is absurd that my household is still without internet in mid-late 2014. 

2) There are A LOT of hills in Pittsburgh. A fair portion of my journey was uphill, and these hills are steep. Like, it took me between 10 and 12 minutes to crest the top of one. 

Thank goodness for Coheed singing me through my journey. 

Anyway. So we talked about music, and our need to compare everything we hear to other bands. You mentioned the new Gaslight album only being a comparison in your mind to other artists-- I can empathize with this, as every time I hear them I think of Bruce Springsteen. 

Your question to me was then "Is this the fault of the artist for only putting out derivative stuff, or the limitations of people who listen, since we can only compare it to stuff we already know?" 

I have a question to throw back at you: Why do we bother compare music to anything at all? Why can't we just listen to it and appreciate it as is? 

But honestly, when was the last time you heard anything NEW and truly original-sounding? 

We discussed the Madden Brothers tune "We Are Done" being an oldies, "Age of Aquarius"-esque bit of music, you mentioned the potential originality of the latest Arctic Monkeys album, and how Enter Shikari is original to some degree only in that the band combines two distinct genres that have been done but meshes them together. 

The Beatles = revolutionary. 

You said Van Halen's lead guitar was amazing but not groundbreaking. Paul Simon and Nirvana were tossed around-- Nirvana definitely world-shattering for the time (see the book "Love is a Mix Tape") and that Foo Fighters essentially rode the wave of emo-tending modern rock (although good Lord, does anyone do this better than Dave Grohl?). 

In response to my offering of Lana del Rey, you determined that she owes Florence Welsh an apology. I brought up Green Day, who potentially did the punk-pop-rock thing before anyone else, but you determined that it had a lot to do with the Sex Pistols and the Ramones. And even dear Florence isn't alone because she brings in the orchestral sound that bands of the '90s already did ("Bittersweet Symphony", anyone?), although after hearing "Heavy in Your Arms" when it first came out, before Flo was even a big deal, I thought "This chick has one hell of a voice" and I stand by that opinion.

I said I had relevant things to contribute to this discussion. I was sitting at the table reading "The New Yorker" this morning and eating my Raisin Bran (how OLD am I?!?!) and I stumbled across an article called "Cross Country: Nashville expands its range" with a caricature of Luke Bryan and Eric Church. I was JUST in Nashville a week ago and I enjoy the musical talents of both of these artists, so I perused the article.

It at least reassured me that the "our" in "our need to compare music" is a general one and not limited to us and our group. The article was discussing how general and relatable country music is and how it has these overarching themes, such as "finger-picked guitar arpeggios that sound more like Dire Straits'" and that Church's song "Outsiders" off of the album of the same name "feels more like 'We Will Rock You' than like Johnny Cash." There are references to instrumental breaks sounding like Yes, and a crescendo/bridge adhering to a style Metallica would gladly claim (although isn't the idea of Metallica doing anything gladly kind of amusing? I got a chuckle out of this mental image).

The entire album is likened to Pink Floyd. Meanwhile, Luke Bryan is compared to the beachy feel of Kenny Chesney and one of his newer tunes, "Roller Coaster", is apparently diverse enough to be a pop hit for the likes of One Direction, Pink!, or Bruno Mars. 

The moral of the story is that it seems to be the norm for us to compare our musical tastes against one another and try to find the common ground, the reason that we are so drawn to it. The music you listen to is essentially an audible definition of who we are as individuals-- it represents us and what we like to listen to at varying phases of our lives. Finding the thread among them that ties them all together is a way of discovering ourselves.

From: Matt Kasznel

To: Rebecca Ferraro

First off, I think I had to have been drunk if I said Van Halen wasn’t groundbreaking. I mean, Christ.

Second, to answer your question: the comparisons are less for us than for other people.

I know, for example, that the Hold Steady is an awesome band. Musical preferences are generally opinions, but I can say unequivocally, and without fear of contradiction, that they are a fantastic band, and your tastes are clearly warped and unreliable if you disagree. (He says tongue planted firmly in cheek)

It may be a challenge to explain to you exactly why they are awesome, though, without finding, as you said, that common thread. I could say, for example, that they play classic rock, but my God, that opens up a silo full of cans of worms. Blues rock, like Aerosmith or the Stones? Theatrical prog rock like Styx or Zeppelin? Arena rock? Punk rock? And if it’s blues rock, then what kind? Boogie? Garage rock? Southern garage rock with a touch of the psychedelic? THE COLORS DUKE, THE COLORS

So just saying “classic rock” is not a goo representation of the band, nor does it let you know what you’re getting into if you pick up their CD, as your definition of “classic rock” could be miles from mine. Or, I could say, “Oh, they’re a lot heavier on licks than groove, but still reliant on the 12 bar boogie with a hint of…” and watch your eyes roll into the back of your head. Nobody knows what any of that means, nor do they give a shit. It’s nonsense.

But if I tell you, “They’re like George Thorogood and Bruce Springsteen with a super literary singer,” that’s a pretty clear picture right there. “Hey, I like Bruce. I’m okay with George Thorogood. This could be interesting.” Or, “Hey, I hate Bruce and I’m terrified by George Thorogood’s teeth. ABANDON SHIP.” Either way, you know what to expect now.

I think that’s why Pandora Radio is so popular. “Based on your previous selections…” is the music genome version of “Hey, I saw you had the new Big D and the Kids Table CD in your car. You should check out…”

So I guess my answer is, it definitely says more about us than the artists. Sure, every time a band or singer wants to re-brand themselves, they start pumping out names of famous “influences” in press releases and interviews. (Remember when Brandon Flowers suddenly become a HUGE Bruce fan just a year or so after the Killers were still trying to be Duran Duran?) But it’s only because they know we’ll respond to it.

From: Rebecca

To: Matt

I completely agree with everything you said. I mean, maybe except the Van Halen part. I don't think the band is untalented or anything, I just don't like them as much as...lots of other bands. 

Anyway. I feel like this is a good time to bring up the fact that we are talking about actual music versus, say, some of the nonsense that's pumped to the masses these days via Top 40 radio. Could I continue this thread by comparing Ke$ha to slaughtered cats? Justin Beiber? "He sounds like your 8 year old niece... with better jewelry" and you could hear that, right?

One question though: You said they start spewing other names because they know we'll respond to it. HOW do they know? And WHY do we respond to it? What is it that makes us go through these radical changes in what types of music we find preferential to others?

From: Matt

To: Rebecca

Don't be so mean to slaughtered cats...or your eight-year-old niece.

Maybe they describe their own music in terms of other bands because that's what they used to do before they became "serious musicians" and starting defining music by modes and time signatures instead of "yo dude, get a load of that SICK breakdown, bro!" It's a populist view.

I think I've also figured out what causes our changes in music over time. You know, besides maturity and trends and the whole "our generation's music was better than this generation's music" thing (South Park did a whole episode on it). I think it's time.

Yesterday, I was listening to the first two episodes of this new radio show Serial, a This American Life spinoff that's taking a deeper dive into a 15-year-old murder case over the course of 10 episodes (at least this season). The case revolves around two high school students who dated for a few months before splitting up. The girl was found dead a few months after the breakup, and the ex-boyfriend, correctly or not, was found guilty of the killing.

While the show's host and retroactive investigative reporter, Sarah Koenig, put together the story of the two young lovers, she came across diary entries reflecting not only how intensely the two felt for each other, but also the dark, angst-ridden side of adolescence. As the school's English teacher said, it was difficult to determine whether the boy, Anand, had a legitimately concerning "dark side" because "all teenagers had that sort of side to them."

I remember that part of it myself - sure, I liked some poppy, joyful tunes, but it was way more satisfying listening to brooding, morose alternative rock. If I was born in the later 60s or early 70s, I guarantee you I'd have grown up with at least three Robert Smith posters in my room.

Is it because teenagers lack perspective of the physical and emotional changes they're experiencing? Sure. But I think it's also related to how much time you have to stew inside your own head. As I've grown older, I've had far less time to toss and turn over "feelings" with the added responsibilities of college, employment, bills, etc. If I have too much time to myself, though, I'll occasionally gravitate back to the real-life simulators that are my subconscious, endocrine, and exocrine systems.

(I differentiate "feelings" from actual feelings. "Feelings" are what happens when an otherwise ordinary individual starts jumping to conclusions the way Pat Soltano does in Silver Linings Playbook)

I think that's why we start to enjoy more straightforward lyrics and tunes as we grow older. We don't have the time to parse a Nirvana song six ways to Sunday anymore. Just let Bruce or Paul Westerberg tell you what you want to hear.

From: Rebecca

To: Matt

SO TRUE.

I was actually thinking of that the other day, apropos of nothing. I know my musical tastes have changed. Not like I listened to garbage before and now I'm listening to the GOOD stuff, man. But I definitely went from really dark grungy stuff and a lot of whining emo to more upbeat, Belle & Sebastian type stuff or more straight-forward Gaslight stuff. 

I am a busy person, as is almost anyone over the age of 18. I have memories of being an OLSHer, wrapping myself up in a hoodie, and lying outside at night either in the grass, on the porch swing, or on the hood of my mum's '98 Sunfire and listening to a new album in my portable CD player. I would focus on nothing else, letting the music wash over me and dissecting the lyrics while I stared at the stars. "Hamburg Song" by Keane was so lonely and broken it made me cry. Seriously. I listened to angry girl music a la Paramore and applied the lyrics to my current situations.

Now I listen to music while studying for the GRE or while I'm running or driving or drying my hair (the only comfortable time to sing along (at least SOME things don't change)). There's not a lot of time to dissect or even learn lyrics when your mind is mostly somewhere else. Very few songs these days do I know every word to. I feel like I'm missing out on something elemental though. The music was made to be listened to, and I feel like now we're kind of just hearing it.

I sort of wonder if Romeo and Juliet would have been so quick to act if 1) they weren't teenagers and 2) they had some grunge to mellow out to. "Un Giorgno per Noi" isn't exactly emo.

The Slow, Melancholy Deterioration of the Human Mind - A Love Story

In twelve days, I’ll be playing my first full set of individual music for a live crowd.

I’ve been playing guitar for about eight or nine years and been writing songs for about seven years. I’ve played shows with a band, and I’ve played open mic nights by myself. I have not yet, however, put together a full set of songs on my own, to play for about 45 minutes by myself.

Very rarely do I come up with a full song on guitar – chord progression, riffs, bridge/chorus, etc. – in one sitting, and even more infrequently is that full song generally good. At 2:15 this morning, as I walked up to bed, I saw I’d left my guitar sitting out from earlier in the day and decided to fiddle around with it. By 2:45, I had the music down.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a goddamn word to put with it.

In college, I wrote columns, blogs and other articles far more often than I wrote songs, which is odd considering how much free time I usually allotted myself. Granted, writing columns and articles was kind of my major, but still.

Now in my post-university life, I’ve found that despite my desire to re-enter the journalism/media field, I’ve written songs and lyrics far more than I’ve written blogs like this. I’m not sure if this can be attributed more to how short and simple my songs are (because don’t get me wrong, I’m not a very good musician), or how I sometimes aspire to be some sort of deep-thinking, artistically-inclined string-strummer.

Which is interesting, because often, whether it be a blog entry or a song, I find I don’t have much to say.

Not everyone is destined to spew their thoughts for the masses to see. But if you were to graph out my “inspiration to write” on a chronological chart, you would see a nice, steady decline from the day I graduated college to April 28, 2013, nearly two full years after I walked the stage, grabbed my diplo…I mean, my invitation to the Duquesne University Alumni Association, and high-tailed it out of Pittsburgh before the administration could reconsider their fateful decision.

Since that time, here are my accomplishments:

--Earned a job outside of my area of study and worked my way through to a slightly better paying job outside of my area of study at the same company.

--Moved out of my mom’s house.

--Squadoooooooooosh.

Okay, so I’ve done some other stuff. (Those dishes don’t clean themselves, thankyaverymuch). In terms of my intellectual development, though, you could say that I was humming along in a Lamorghini…

Okay, in a Ford Fiesta…

Okay, on a rusted-over Huffy bicycle…

Alright, anyway, so I was moving along quite well, and then gradually, coasted to a stop. I’ve acquired several books as gifts or as personal purchases in that time and can distinctly remember reading 1 2/3 of them: “Year of the Black Rainbow” (a book based on a Coheed and Cambria CD, which was basically the equivalent of reading a video game), and 2/3 of “Hearts inAtlantis,” which I read during jury duty. And to be honest, I had already read the first half one time before, four years ago, and decided to start again. That is an alarming lack of mental stimulation. At least I've supplemented it with plenty of other....well...yeah.

In college, though, I was force-fed great writing. .Kurt Vonnegut! T.S. Eliot! Hunter S. Thompson! E.L. James! (Okay, I’m joking…I never read T.S Eliot. That puss J. Alfred Prufrock can go right to hell)

I was forced to think because otherwise I’d fail. My economics classes taught me how to think and how to apply it to everyday life, and my writing classes taught me how to communicate what I knew effectively and, when I stumbled upon a joke or two by accident, in an entertaining manner.

I realize that last paragraph sounds like something I’d put on a resume. It sounds an awful lot like something I’d tell someone in a job interview. Thing is, I’d be outright lying if I told somebody that in an interview. Two years ago, that might have been true. Not today.

In college, “life” was studying and bettering yourself. Today, “life” for me is taking home enough money so I can pay my bills, buy food, and maybe have enough left over to hang out with my friends or go out on a date (sometimes both in the same month, if I’m lucky). My leisure time is spent eating, going to the gym, sleeping, and plucking half-heartedly at my guitar, hoping the next time I strum the strings, they’ll emit words instead of notes.

I’ll be 24 in a few months. I cannot become a hopeless nostalgic. If I want to be a better writer, a better songwriter, or for God’s sake, just a more interesting person who can talk about more than last night’s game or that hi-LAR-ious video on YouTube, it has to begin with me, and now.

Starting in May, I am resolving myself to read two books a month – one fiction and one non-fiction. It’s extremely modest, but it’s something I believe I can manage between work and social life.

I’m well aware that actions speak louder blah de blah de blah. I’m putting this here as a modification on Drew Magary’s “Public Humiliation Diet.” The premise is, you’ll be more inclined to work towards your goals if you publicize them, because that relative publicity will push you not to fail. If you keep it to yourself, the only person who knows is you. For some of us, that isn’t enough.

So I’m asking for suggestions. I’ve got a big bookshelf of potential selections, but I’d love to hear what you guys have read recently and liked. They don’t necessarily have to be the most intellectual pieces ever written, but I’d prefer they don’t involve vampires, or middle-aged mistresses, or both.

Thanks, everyone.

-Matt

And as one last shameless plug, my set at Chaplin’s in Spring City is on May 10^th. I’m playing with No Stranger and my brother Alex Kasznel from the band The BlueRoom, and it’s going to be a great time. Yes, I’ll be playing the original songs I’ve spent this post diminishing, but I’ll also mix in enough Kelly Clarkson covers to make up for it. (See, now you’ll have to show up to see if I’m kidding about the Kelly Clarkson covers)

In Defense of Listening To Video Game Music While Not Playing Video Games

This is not going to be a blog exclusively devoted to music, but a conversation I had with the co-writer of this blog earlier tonight inspired this post...

About two months before I started college, I received a Facebook message/friend request from someone that said, “Sup? I guess we’re roommates.” He’d apparently received his letter a day or two before me. Intrigued, I accepted and scoped out his profile like a good little high school kid headed to a college 300 miles away from home should.

Several aspects of his profile stood out. First was the white “pimp” suit he wore in one of his prom photos. The next was the motorcycle he rode in several other pictures. The third was his list of “likes and interests:” video games (awesome), anime (an obsession I’d fallen out of love with a year or two prior), hip-hop (an obsession I’d fallen out of pretty much upon my conception between the whitest pair of parents in mankind’s history) and trance music.

Admittedly, I had no clue what trance music was. At all. I imagined a tripped-out alternative to techno, a genre I loved around the age of 11, when I believed every single electronica song sounded like the stuff on ESPN Jock Jams. In short, 18-year old Matt considered trance music to be frightening and stayed away from it.

My roommate and I got along very well, though, and thoroughly enjoyed freshman year (perhaps a little too much). Sometime afterwards, after learning about my fondness for so-called old-school games such as Sonic the Hedgehog, Shining Force, Sonic the Hedgehog, Street Fighter, Sonic the Hedgehog and, of course, Sonic the Hedgehog, he pointed me to OCRemix.org, a site for those who worship at the twin alters of music composition and classic gaming to both produce and download remixes of video game music, ranging from the most well-known games of all time to "they only made a dozen copies of this game and six of them are sitting at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean" levels of obscurity.

It started innocently enough. A few techno Sonic remixes here, a heavy metal Mega Man tune there, and my fix would be satisfied. But soon after I graduated college, for whatever reason, I became insatiable. Instead of cranking my usual selection of dude rock, my mornings of cleaning/running errands would be backed by a soundtrack of Metroid and Legend of Legaia (a game that I have still not played to this day – but the background music from the Village of Jeremi is so good!). I’d stagger to work some days after downloading .zip files of menu music until the wee hours of the morning. 

Rock remixes, pulsating trance remixes, piano ballad rewrites; it didn’t matter. It even turned me onto electronica and trance music as a whole - I downloaded a ton of free trance music online and threw it on the video game mix because it sounded similar, and I played the bridge from Enter Shikari's "Gap in the Fence" on repeat enough to drive the average human insane, simply because it reminded me of a racing game I used to play.

I’d purchased licensed music I’d heard on video games before (my first “real” CD was Andrew W.K.’s “I Get Wet,” which I’d heard first on a Madden game), but this was a whole ‘nother animal. I wasn’t proud of what I was turning into. I’d try to hide my obsession – nay, addiction – from my friends and family. Occasionally, my roommate (not the one above, but my roommate after college) would come home and ask, “Is that Legend of Zelda music playing on your laptop?” to which I’d respond, “NO NOT AT ALL LOOK AT HOW CLEAN THESE DISHES ARE THAT I’VE WASHED AND NOT MY COMPUTER.”

It was too difficult for me to stop. You know how it is. Sometimes, you’re at a party with a few friends, you’re enjoying a few drinks when someone takes you up to the coat room upstairs where everyone’s…you know…listening to video game music.

"That f***ing horse is gonna come NOW." (pic from this site)

Now, while I have a number of idiosyncrasies like anyone else, I consider myself to be a relatively normal guy. I enjoy watching/playing sports, cracking open a cold beer, sinking my teeth into well-made burger, good-looking women, and hanging out with friends. Why, then, am I drawn to the bleeps and bloops of OCRemix and other sites like Greek ships to the sirens? (HISTORY)

Two reasons:

•  They give you space to think. Because most of the remixes are derived from what essentially amounts to background music, seldom do they include singing that goes beyond choral overtones or “sha ba doo wops,” and even more infrequently are there lyrics (because when video game nerds try to write original lyrics, they often turn into stuff like this and this). I love turning on my video game playlist when I’m working or have a lot on my mind because it provides…well, background music; but souped-up, super geeky background music. It doesn't encourage me to sing along like most of my favorite songs, so I can relax, and even if the remix is experimental or alternative in nature, the melody itself is familiar and doesn’t knock your train of thought off the rails.
• Speaking of familiarity, that brings me to my next reason: nostalgia. My mother hated the idea of video games in the house, but once a year when I was young (around 5-8 years old), my brother and I were allowed to rent a video game system and a couple games for a week to play at home. It was like teasing us with one single M&M, but then never sniffing another one for months. So when my uncle gave us his Sega Genesis as a gift after he’d purchased a magical mind-melting machine called a “PlayStation,” it was like backing a Brinks truck of M&M’s up the driveway of Chez Kasznel. We played and played until we burned ourselves out on video games. It wasn’t that we were unhealthily addicted to the games – we still did the usual kid stuff like play basketball and let wild animals in the house – but we couldn’t believe we finally had video games for ourselves! (A few years later, I earned us a Nintendo 64 as a Christmas gift by teaching my brother to read a book. INCENTIVES)

The video game remixes remind me of days when my brother and I would both have off from school, but pouring rain kept us inside. We’d take all the blankets from our bedrooms and take them downstairs, pour ourselves a bowl of Cap’n Crunch or two, and alternate between playing derivatives of “Fort” (rules: throw stuffed animals at each other from across the room to wreck the other’s “fort.” No one ever wins and no one ever stops playing because why in the world would you want to???) and advancing as far as we could in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the Power Rangers game, or Sonic the Hedgehog 2.

Video game music doesn’t just remind me of strictly video games, though. It reminds me of the den at Township Line Road, the house I lived in for nearly 16 years, where we’d play those games, or have sleepovers and watch home movies. It reminds me of a trip I took to Ocean City, MD with my friend and his family, where I brought a CD with some songs from a computer game I enjoyed to listen to. (My friend countered with his new Limp Bizkit CD, but hey, we all make mistakes). It reminds me of afternoons at an old friend’s house when I was around 10, where we’d spend the whole day in his pool, dry off, and watch movies and play Nintendo 64 on his (at the time) enormous television.

That combination of mind-emptying comfort and wistfulness gets me to flip the radio off from time to time and listen to remixes on car rides to work, while writing/reading or simply mulling over a tough problem or an emotional moment. Some folks are comforted by a meal Mom used to make, a record they danced to at their senior prom, or simply a drive through their old neighborhood. For me, a couple Sonic the Hedgehog tracks by way of artists I know only by names such as GaMeBoX or The Cynic Project will do the trick. And for those of you who put items like this on your wish list, it might work for you, too.

If We Can Stay Here Long Enough...

Like Matt already mentioned, the primary goal of this blog is to still be writing it a few months from now. I used to be an avid writer-- mostly of my own life stories in everything from purple composition books to looseleaf sheets tied together with ribbons (yes, this happened). Bins under my bed filled with old notebooks and picture-stories from before I could write. That sort of thing.

Then college happened.

I decided to write on a blog, assuming it had to be easier to manage since I was always on my computer doing some article or thesis anyway-- and this is after I was adamant about never starting a blog because technology detracts from the beauty and privacy that is pen and paper. Obviously I was desperate. So, I started my personal blog, A More Likely Story. I had all these fantastic ideas I wanted to share with my feeble readership, but as one of the greatest minds of the century said, "Life happens when you're busy making other plans." Regular contributor to Big K Media became...hmm, 4-5 posts? And then I started a blog for my Literature & Pedagogy class that I enjoyed writing so much that I was determined to keep it going. Good one.

Thus here I am, trying to refine my writing skills and do something I'm passionate about but never seem to have nearly enough time for (add that to reading, playing guitar, painting, running...).

I don't want to niche us immediately as "that blog about music" but I got a mix CD for my birthday, and while the whole thing is pretty awesome, I've become slightly obsessed with one in particular: "Bloody Mary" by the Silver Sun Pickups.

Essentially, there's nothing for me to dislike about this song. I saw Silver Sun Pickups live a little over two years ago, and they were absolutely amazing. I always figured that Brian Aubert (the lead singer) used some sort of studio effect to make his voice sound the way it does-- he doesn't. Listening to them live is like listening to them through headphones, except you can see them dancing and twisting across the stage while they play. So that's reason one.

Second, the game "Bloody Mary" holds significance for me because of how frequently I played it as a child. I've always loved ghost stories, haunted houses, scary movies, Halloween. The idea of conjuring old Mary up from the depths of a mirror (freaky objects in and of themselves) was too delightfully scary not to take part in-- or force my sister and cousins to stand in a dark bathroom with me, all squeezing fingernails into one another's palms as we squeamishly chanted "Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary..." and then flipped the lights on and ran out, only to do it again immediately.

Aubert's voice combines with the vocal talents of bassist Nikki Monninger to form this ethereal sound that loans itself perfectly to the quality of a song entitled "Bloody Mary," and the first time I heard it I couldn't help thinking of my childhood. Listening to it as much as I have in the past week brings out the lit geek in me and has me analyzing the lyrics, trying to determine the story behind it. Is he singing to a spouse who was abused as a child? Speaking to Bloody Mary? Is it sexual? Is he talking to his own image in the mirror? No idea.

That's the fun part about music-- there are always multiple ways to decipher lyrics and it ends up depending on how you're feeling at a particular time. Music speaks to everyone and has a way of comforting us when closer human contact falls short. It lets us know that at some point, someone knew how we were feeling enough to write a song about it-- and that meaning is subject to change daily.