So I have been wanting to get this started for a long time. I love writing and though I can write and inform about my own views on popular and not so popular music using a blog. This is brand spanking new and I plan on keeping it updated as much as time permits.
Mu musical taste span almost all genre's of music. One exception is crap that is super pop bubblegum garbage that is formulated to infiltrate the music charts and generate revenue for large music corporations. Lately it has become harder and harder for record companies to make money selling albums. With peer to peer sharing and streaming tools abundant record companies are forced to go to the extreme to turn a profit. This means they select music that they know will appeal to the masses in such a way that 12 year old kids will ask their parents to buy them a CD. In this digital age CD's are all but obsolete and digital formats have taken over. Record companies were not smart enough out of the gate to capture money in the digital age. A few years ago Radiohead offered their new album solely online in a digital format and asked for a donation from the downloader. They did not set a price for the download, you could donate $1 dollar or $100 and get the same downloadable content. They made more money cutting the record company out completely than they did with the backing of a huge record company and distribution. this was a risky move but for a band that had already reached a high level of success worldwide it was an experiment they could afford to tinker with. The successful monetary gain for the band was alleged by Thom Yorke, the front man for Radiohead.
At this point music is a free medium. You can download anything you want including what used to be rare bootleg, live versions of your favorite bands without any cost. Bands make the bulk of their income solely from touring which still leaves them in great shape but not making the kind of money they did in the past when having Platinum albums equaled a huge payday. These days a Gold record is a feat in itself.
My reason for starting this blog is simple. As people around me discuss music of every genre I find myself contributing to the conversation with quite a bit of knowledge. People are often times shocked that I can sit and discuss genre's ranging from underground and more mainstream hip hop and then turn around and have a conversation about the Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd or Phish. From what would be called Classic Rock to Urban Beats and Hip hop to Bluegrass to Speed metal to Reggae to me...it's all just music. Some of it is good. Some of it is great and it is that part of it I attach myself to.
My diversity in musical taste comes from my diversity racially. I am a mix of African American and for lack of a better term, white. I explore whatever music moves me and that is the only criteria I require. I don't care if people look at me funny for digging something that society would assume I wouldn't. I have always refused to restrict myself based on what is considered "cool" or what a person with pigment in his skin is "supposed" to like and listen to. I keep an open mind and try to understand where the artist is coming from and if the music does it's job and moves me both with it's arrangements instrumentally and lyrically then it makes my cut so to speak. I often feel these restrictions placed more on the African half of me are a shame. I know plenty of black folks that like all kinds of music but it seems like there a less open minded approach based on what the expectation is. Rock music is based on Blues so in many instances when you look at those influences it's a group of young white men that listen to old African American blues men and latch on, much of the time stealing the essence of the old blues and making it their own. It's what they make of it that determines whether it makes my play list.
If someone wants to argue with me the genius of a man like Jerry Garcia and his fusion of bluegrass and blues (for Allah) the gloves come off because his music moves me so much and that's all that matters to me. If a black friend hears me listening to it in my car they're like "why are you listening to this country hick music" I find myself trying to explain what it is we're listening to and it falls on deaf ears. It is sometimes frustrating and impossible to penetrate certain boundaries so I let it go and assume that what I am hearing in the music will never be heard by other people so why bother trying to force it. Everyone has their tastes and I have to respect that. This happens with almost every type of music I listen to from time to time.
This can also happen if I'm with a white friend and I try and force De La Soul, a commercial group or maybe Hieroglyphics, a less commercial but hardly underground at this point group that spit lyrics that have some sort of conscience message. My white friend which is usually a little more open minded to the hip hop or beats and lyrics style will want to listen to Jay-Z or whatever garbage(in my opinion) they play at the club and I can't listen to a dude talk about his ho's and Crystal and making it rain etc. It just bores me to hear dudes brag about what they have, especially when many of these dude will probably file for bankruptcy if they continue to live the way their lyrics claim. It's a farce and never appeals to me...that's just my opinion. I understand that many times these are a reflection of where they come from and the fact that they went from less to more, sometimes overnight. But I can't pretend that's where I came from or relate so it's lost on me.
In the end I am ALWAYS looking for new music....it's like that robot Johnny 5 from Short Circuit that constantly needs more learning material. I feed on music in a similar way. I search for that music that can move me and make me feel something. This blog will articulate that journey to find new music and also introduce to some people music that I know has a chance to move them, even change their lives. I feel I have something to offer anyone that reads this blog. People will often time disagree with me or perhaps feel the music I like stinks. This can be a place, a tool to find what moves you and turn me onto it and share ideas about music, review new music from old artists or just post something that moves me and I think may do the same for certain people.
There is no denying the power of music. It's almost like it is it's own emotion. It can make me dance in bed when I was trying to listen to something while I fell asleep. It can change how I feel about something politically. Moreover it has the power to make the sad happy and the happy sad. That's movement and nothing comes close in my opinion.
Thank you~ Joshua West ~1/23/13
