Cosmo-consumption: liking “everything” and meaning It

You will have noticed how counterproductive it has become to ask, “So, what kind of music are you into?” Invariably the respondent – as sick with this question as you are – answers, “You know, like, everything.” And they’re ingenuously and more or less correctly representing their preferences. There’s nothing wrong with this answer; the inanity is in the query itself.

Allow me to approach this question of “everything” from an analysis of “a little less than everything.” Despite my claim above, sometimes the respondent feels like reducing the field. Thus, to “everything” they might add, “… except country and/or rap and/or electronic and/or some other type of music.” By arguing that this sort of categorical reductionism is questionable, I hope to show the utility and veracity of the “everything” answer.

There are two reasons why I think eliminating whole genres of music from one’s repertoire is foolish: (1) ignorance and (2) hybridization.

Clearly, no person can catalog, interrelate, and understand the wealth of music that exists today. Yet, when someone claims that they dislike a certain genre, it is assumed that they know the genre. Consider quantifying “knowledge.” On a rule of thumb basis, how many artists from a genre would you expect somebody to “know,” before you would certify them knowledgeable about that genre? I think a lax lower-bound would be twenty artists.

Now try to list twenty artists belonging to a genre you like. This can be as vague and prodigious a category as Rock, Funk, Hip-Hop, Jazz, or Electronic – the genres I chose. When you have completed this challenge, try the same exercise for your ambivalence or punching-bag genres. For me, completing the first five was less than effortless, but I failed Country (miserably) as well as Soul (which I adore; see results below). Obviously, people  know less about genres they claim to dislike than those they claim to like. But, how can you dislike a genre you don’t even know?

My claim is that when people decide to narrow their field of musical preference with a categorical exception, they almost always do it in a state of ignorance. If the former experiment does not convince you, test the next person that evinces this behavior. Take them to task. Undoubtedly they’ll complain: there’s no incentive to know about a genre that you dislike; they’ve heard the music, they just can’t produce names; and it’s common knowledge, after all. Everybody knows what Hip-Hop, Country, and Electronic music more or less sound like, don’t they?

The answer is a radical “NO!” No, they do not! Even a person cognizant of twenty artists in a genre does not know the genre. Any umbrella category such as the ones discussed here is best characterized as vastly heterogeneous. There may be recognized pioneers, paradigmatic artists, and common technical elements, but there is no representative sound. Knowledge is scarce, and rejecting a musical genre from a state of ignorance is preposterous.

My second reason for rejecting genre reductivism is also illustrated by the exercise above. When you list twenty artists according to genre, you inevitably find boundary-stretchers and outliers. These are more often than not some kind of hybrid. Artists almost always represent more than one genre. Sometimes, they hybridize so weirdly that they do not seem to fit anywhere (this is common: I suggest The Books and Matmos & So Percussion).  In any case, all genres significantly interpenetrate and overlap. There is no purity. One cannot limit the contagion of an unliked genre by will alone.

If you follow my argument thus far, you should be convinced that reducing your field of “liked” music from “everything” to “everything but…” is a dubious and somewhat arbitrary practice. If you’re like most of the people I’ve queried about their musical tastes, you are probably much closer to liking a little bit of everything than you are to responsibly amputating swaths of the spectrum. 

This, I think, is one of many idiosyncratic and positive features of the past couple decades and the modern cosmopolitan, aesthetic outlook. Of course, it’s not without its controversy – it’s caught up in debates about the authentic, cultural imperialism, inequality (because ‘cultural’ range and sophistication are usually predicated on wealth), and a whole host of unmentionable post-isms. In short, lots of stuff to think and write about in the future.

If I am dogmatic about expansive tastes, well, one has to stand up for something. I am a fan of liberal draughts of trying and tolerance. Of course, I concede that one can be rationally picky or dislike something through relative disinterest. Nonetheless, I beg you, be wary. Explore a genre patiently, expansively, and with an open mind before you write it off. You may find that what you thought you knew was just stereotype and caricature and that what you thought you liked can be nourished and grown almost without bound.

See expanded text for "Super fun game!" and my results.

Words to live by

I recently noticed how much of my prosaic philosophy corresponds to innocuous song titles and lyrics (and a Movie quote). Although the implications of this are deep, in this article, I will not expound on how our identities are formed by the constant buffeting of structural variables. Instead, I will lay out a couple examples of this phenomenon for your perusal, and allow you to draw your own conclusions. As always, I invite you to share your own experience and comments.

1.”Todo cambia” – Mercedes Sosa “Todo Cambia”

I begin with a bit of banality. It is well known that everything always changes. Big deal. I agree, but don’t let the banal obscure the profound. It can be enriching, from time to time, to ponder the fact that everything we know is mutable and transient – perpetually shattered and recombined into new forms. The human order slides towards discord. Furthermore, one might note that what we conceive of as precious is invariably fragile, transient. To some degree, love emerges from fear.

2. “Everything In Its Right Place” – Radiohead

In stark contrast to the first quote, this lyric is about my personal quest for order. In my petite studio apartment, I obsess over tidiness and harmony, not in a feng shui way, but in a Stalin way. It’s not about energy flow, it’s about control: I’m a totalitarian about my body and environment. On occasion, jeans slip down to one or the other side of the hanger; anarchic socks and shirts scatter across the floor; food sours in the fridge; fingernails rebel intrinsically. In short, everything needs to be put in its place – it’s right place. And I go on organizing, battling fruitlessly as the dust accumulates with ambivalence, sure of its inevitable glory.

3. “I Need a Woman!” – Federico Fellini’s Amarcord

I know I’m not the only one who, when single, feels like roosting in a tree and yelling out an impassioned but fruitless, “I need a companion!” (VOGLIO UNA DONNA!) This is at least what the “mad” Uncle Teo does in Fellini’s slow-moving, autobiographical memory flick. I find his words appearing on my lips from time to time.

4. “Get it Together” – Tm Juke feat. Bread & Water from Maps from the Wilderness

TM Juke is a UK-based producer of hip-hop, soul, and electronica music. Bread & Water is ostensibly a rapper or hip-hop group about whom I have no information. The track speaks, to me, about the failure and insecurity that stalk all of us at one time or another – about times of despair when you feel  you just “need to get it together.” The song conjectures that we’re all prone to such moments on occasion, and counsels modesty, detached self-appraisal, and eradicating sources of negativity. Without abandoning hope for advancement , Bread & Water recommends being cool with the status quo. Although this is obviously easier said than done, this song helps soothe the demoralized ego.

5. “I Feel it All” – Feist

Far from a Buddha-like detachment, I routinely find myself walking on affective embers. At such times of emotional super-sensitivity, I may yearn for an emotional tranquilizer or an effective distraction. Of course, I would never actually dope away my sensitivity. I’d rather “feel it all” than “feel nothing.” Which leaves us with one of those ubiquitous Goldilocks conundrums: Not too hot, not too cold… just right! But that facile formula doesn’t take away the pain during the down-in-the-dumps days. Neither does Feist, but her message does contextualize emotional stress and control in the locus of sensitivity.

Acts of stupidity

Those who know me will agree that I am quite frequently full of tomfoolery. I'm late for engagements, I forget about commitments, I misplace precious belongings, and perpetrate an ever changing assortment of blunders. As much as I've actively and self-consciously pursued higher levels of focus and efficiency, acts of stupidity continue to be my M.O.

For your entertainment, here are some of my recent snafus and idiocies:

-Because I have deficient kitchen counter space, I do not own a microwave. Because I prefer to make my coffee in a French press, I regularly have cold half-pots of coffee sitting around that I'm too poor to allow to go to waste. Because I happen to have an aluminum camping mug from Ecuador, I heat up my coffee in the cup on the stove. It is a recurrent blunder of mine to leave the mug toasting on the stove until and after the coffee starts to boil violently. This truly stupid mistake was once compounded when I outright left my apartment, stove on, coffee cooking away to sludge. Luckily, before I had gone more than four blocks down the street, I ran into my buddy Don Everhart. During our courteous exchange of palaver, I recalled the mug, and ran back to extinguish the burner. By that point, I was appreciably late for class.

-Keys are like little parasites that have you by the balls (or ovaries, depending on the physiology) - you just cannot do without them. Unless, of course, you are willing to be robbed while never being able to access your mail. Despite how often I carry and use my keys, I am strangely little inclined to losing them. Instead, I leave them in the lock of my apartment, on the outside, for any random predator to purloin. This only happened once, but c'mon, for the love of god.

-The other day I ran to "the bean" - the "Cloud Gate" sculpture in Millennium Park, the Loop. Although it might have been 10 degrees out and snowing, that's neither here nor there. The asinine aspect of the trip was that I hadn't bothered to bring either transit card, credit card, or cash. I could have run back, but I wasn't planning on it, plus I was meeting with a friend for lunch (Harold's fried chicken, obviously). Luckily my running companions were more prepared than I was, and they paid for my one-way on the bus.

-In Santiago, Chile, I used to have a habit of getting on the wrong trains, going the wrong directions on the right trains, or missing stops. In Chicago, I've had limited reappearance of this phenomenon, but today I was heading uptown, and I needed to make a transfer. Two stops ahead of time, I galumph out of the train and then peer all about shortsightedly searching for the transfer tunnel. Of course, by the time I realize I'm on the wrong platform, the doors have shut forever, and I'm stuck, in the cold, waiting for 10 minutes. The kicker is that the reason, the sole reason, I was dumb enough to emerge so early was music. I was so getting jiggy with Yin Yang by Jarabe de Palo that I was exited out of over-excitement. Clearly, I'm a buffoon.

The eternal oscillation

From Jeffrey Gerres