So here I am, musing away merrily reading some news online with varying genres of music banging my eardrums via Spotify shuffle, when I catch a glimpse of a trailer for the new Justin Bieber movie (no, I wasn’t googling Justin Bieber, it was one of those random adverts you get appearing in every corner of your browser as you visit websites). Anyway, the lad’s gone 3D in his new autobiographical film “Never say Never”, joyous! Moreover the film actually has the audacity to include the quote “they said it would never happen.” Insinuating that somehow producing generic music sung by an “attractive” teenage boy targeted at adolescent females wouldn’t make the boy insanely famous, sell millions of singles, gig tickets and now apparently popcorn and DVDs. The movie even gets released on the quintessential day of retail created consumerism, that of Saint Valentines, in an hours time, how very fitting!
But seriously, a boy whose signature was subject to a bidding war between Usher’s production venture and Justin Timberlake, was a manufactured pop star millionaire selling records galore before the age 16, but alas “they said it would never happen!” who, out of curiosity? Believe it or not I actually decided to watch the trailer, and honest to god that was purely down to a one-off moment of inquisitiveness and apparent journalistic curiosity! Granted, the trailer is edited well, as you’d expect, but the lad does have musical talent, when you see the raw “pre-mainstream Justin Bieber” footage it is interesting viewing, there, I said it!
The reason I decided to focus a little of this blog on Justin Bieber rather than any other of the millions of manufactured pop stars that have been churned out isn’t the want to victimise a lad still a teenager! It is merely a combination of chance and the fact he probably creates the most contention in the world of music at the moment. For example his video Baby is currently the most viewed (a staggering 461,557,486 views at time of blogging!) most discussed AND the most disliked (935,302 dislikes) video on YouTube. To be honest by the chance of commercialised spam he seems to have inadvertently become the perfect candidate to pick! (To note, the video also has a total of 488,438 likes.)
The whole sequences of events leading to me listening to Justin Bieber tracks certainly got me thinking (yes it does happen sometimes) maybe I could try to find a definition that could definitively “define” the art of music in some way, to justifiably include even the likes of Justin Bieber. The reason I wanted to do this is somebody like my man JB, who is the current epitome of a manufactured artist, surely he does have a place in the music world even to snobs like myself? I decided to search various dictionaries for said definition and I stumbled across this permutation which really struck me and set my brain into overdrive.
Music: vocal or instrumental sounds (or both) combined in such a way as to produce beauty of form
That sentence seemed incredibly intrinsic, to me epitomising music, it is a generic sentence, can cover all genres, all forms, but most importantly all abilities of the art. And equally significantly it focuses on that which truly should be the sole denominator of music, the beauty of the sound. If you can find some form of beauty in what you’re hearing, then it can justify the label “music”, but most importantly the joy you find in what you’re hearing doesn’t necessarily have to be a joy shared by others.
Like all forms of art, the beauty which you see, hear or feel is entirely in the eye of the beholder.
I’ve made no secret in the past of my detestation towards manufactured music, where a band or singer gets fame, notoriety and recognition not exclusively for musical talent but via some other means. Often said musicians aren’t even the writers of the music they perform, such a massive part of music for me personally. Similar levels of loathing I find myself feeling towards a band or musician that conforms to some form of stereotype away from music, because that is the genre that they have been pigeonholed into somewhere along their musical career or life. The above three sentences is the current mainstream music industry epitomised to me, but that doesn’t mean I don’t entirely hate it and it certainly doesn’t mean that those people aren’t justifiable musicians.
One of the things that hit me recently and almost belies that which I’ve written before in this very same blog, is that music, as a form of art, creativity and as a means of humankind expressing themselves, is so much deeper than that part you hear. Music really does fill a void in so many people’s lives. I have no idea what I’d do if it weren’t for my love of music, listening to bands and musicians from all walks of life, from all over the world, a centuries old backcatalogue of creativity. There is never a moment when I can’t find a song that doesn’t twang an emotional cord so entirely perfectly that it feels like it was written just for me. Granted to date I’ve not found this solace in anything Justin Bieber has performed, but you never know!
I’ve always listened to, and been opinionated, about music right throughout my life, I’ve seen bands come and go, musicians likewise. My personal tastes change over time, sometimes from one day to the next, but one thing that always holds true not only to me but to billions of people around the world, is as soon as these performers get heard, and their music produces a moment of beauty in the eye of anybody who experienced it, then their art is suddenly elevated to levels of immortality. The same kind of everlasting glory that is bestowed upon any artist that gets their creation published in any form.
To emphasise this notion it’s interesting to point out that being a lad on the verge of turning 28 (somewhat mockingly the same day Justin Bieber releases his movie on the day of Saint Valentines), I never had the privilege of being in a crowd listening to The Beatles live, but my father introduced me to the joys of their recorded sound as a child. I have an opinion on this creativity that occurred decades earlier based solely on what I hear, and I compare the sound to what is about now when I surmise those opinions. But unlike my father the entire Beatles “image” wasn’t something I experienced, and I judged merely on the music I heard. Much the same way I can have a view on a band I hear live today merging image, sound and presence, or have a view on them based solely on their recordings. One thing I always do when airing my opinions on a musician, is ensure that if I have heard them live, I will include areas of that which impressed, and the same way when hearing recordings, things standout, both of these facets of music are equally real and both can produce entirely differing forms of beauty and without question both can be opinionated on by anybody.
Taking this thought process even further, there are bands I’ve seen progress locally, and nationally after hearing them at festivals or gigs, and you see the evolution of their sound and compare recordings to live performances. One of the very few things that differs music from other mediums of creativity is a song, first sung 5years ago, can conjure entirely differing emotions by the way it’s performed at any given occasion, by the same musicians, many years later. The sound develops; it changes, it’s performed many different ways and is a song producing varying forms of beauty each time you hear it. It can cause you to reminisce, ease pain, make you feel joy, empathy, an entire plethora of emotions which can contrast greatly.
A painting is always the same; once the paint dries it doesn’t change. A person’s perception of it might, but the painting remains the same. Words, like the ones I write now, once I hit publish, never change. Once they are there, that is the creativeness of that medium of art set in stone. Music is one of the very few art forms where the piece created can develop yet at the same time be preserved in a moment of immortality by a recording.
Going back to my views on music and in particular the person who will buy a record because it’s a certain artist, regardless of its sound. The band who sell millions of records because they are 4 attractive men with Irish accents that sing, in my opinion, a song with the same content over and over with varying lyrics but mostly telling exactly the same message. The 16year-old Canadian boy that released a debut single which went platinum in the US and Canada because of their image just as much, if not infinity more, than the sound. I’m sure even those people, the facet of the music industry I’ve always frowned upon, produce beauty in the eye of the beholder somewhere out there. Just because it’s not something I appreciate, doesn’t mean it’s not also a just form of music.
Over the last three weeks alone I’ve seen many bands and musicians live, all from differing genres, yet each one has had something innately beautiful about them. I can come back and enjoy bands from decades ago, find some comfort in what I hear, then on a weekend enjoy a cider or two and appreciate another dimension of the music industry.
I’m fortunate that one of the joys I get from life has such a wide scope, a vastness I’ll never ever be able to fully appreciate. Live, recorded, hummed, whistled, sung incredibly badly and out of tune? Music is a form of artistic beauty that does suffer from narrow-minded elitism, it’s opinionated, but as long as somebody finds joy in what they hear then one song is just as viable as another, one musician just as appreciated as the next, because each individual person has their view and opinion. Yes the combined voice of the masses is often heard loudest, but there are always lone voices that can grab a megaphone and rise above that of the million screaming Justin Bieber teenettes!
Just listened to: Justin Bieber, One Time (purely for research purposes!)
Currently listening to: The Debut – Fools Gold (video released 13/2/2011)
