Growing up, my parents warned me strongly never to open the medicine cabinet in the houses which we were guests. No indicators of problems that people keep above their bathroom sinks are any business of mine. Similarly, I got a smack on my hand from my dad when searching through my mom’s purse for some gum. “Never look through a woman’s purse” is a rule I follow to this day. I’m not joking – a girl who asks me for something out of her purse will receive her whole purse. She can fish the item out herself.
Upon the advent of the iPod generation, I observed with a little bit of shock the same kind of privacy reservations that people have for their playlists. People don’t jump in embarrassment to hide web pages or photos on their iPhones. They jump to cover their playlist if you ever open their iTunes. This almost universal fear of judgment means one thing… I’m being judged on my tastes, and I didn’t realize how pervasive the judgment is.
Well, maybe I did. The large black man in his early 30s on the subway last weekend who was blasting Miley Cyrus’ Party in the U.S.A. got baffled looks from me. That’s just the thing about music… There is absolutely no accounting for taste. Don’t even try.
My last assignment of the year from distinguished editor Iman Lababedi was to write about something embarrassing that I have on my playlist. The answer may surprise you.
Usually, when the entire critical world gets into an album, I can identify its musical merits, even if I fail to really enjoy the package. Tha Carter III, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, or anything by Bruce Springsteen… All examples of music I hate, and that I think are stupid. However, when fans explain to me the merits of these hits, I can see WHY they’re liked.
I have heard nothing but unbridled, masturbatory praise for my “embarrassing album” though. In fact, almost everyone is calling it the album of the year. On no fewer than five attempts, I’ve attempted to sit down with this album and “get it” in some way. The critical music world is throwing a constant ticker tape parade for this album… and my embarrassment… is that I just don’t fucking get it.
Dirty Projectors’ “Bitte Orca” is the dumbest fucking … thing… I’ve ever listened to. I’m going to purposefully put myself out on a limb here. Either this is the most outrageous “Emperor’s New Clothes” situation I’ve ever been fed, or I have absolutely zero musical taste. You’re all just messing with me, right? Someone decided to pick out the silliest experimental album they could find, and declare it album of the year just to see if their clout would let them get away with it. Everyone is falling in line, afraid to face the judgment of not “getting” this album. Well, fuck you. Bitte Orca is dumb as hell. Why is the album called “Please Killer Whale”? Because the up-his-own-ass band leader thought those words sounded pretty together. Fine… but then he added that it’s like “Please Please Me”, calling it pretty-sounding nonsense. Please Please Me is a clever, catchy phrase that makes complete sense. Imploring something of Free Willy in German doesn’t.
From start to finish, the album has not a single thing to grab onto. Yes the music is complicated, and yes the voices are pretty… but like Beethoven taking a shit, I’ve nothing to take away from the occasion. Good musicians just did something, and you’ll all just feel embarrassed if you don’t pretend that you saw deep meaning in it. Nothing builds, nothing sways, nothing years for any emotion whatsoever.
Now now now… you can call me a rube or a Philistine or a poop in just a minute. Right now, I have the floor.
Music is beyond language. Music truly is the language of the soul. However, if you are utterly unable to talk about your music without sounding like Robert Frost channeling Malcom Gladwell, then shut the fuck up. For instance, Pitchfork asked lead man Dave Longstreth why the lyrics were frequently interrupted with the whole band simply singing “AHHH”, he replied, “I think of it kind of as some sort of excess of feeling, too much joy, or whatever. I like music that is larger than life, and can overwhelm as it beguiles. I mean, you know, if you had to describe it in words. Of course the great advantage of music is that you don’t have to.”
No, asshole, you do. Even the most esoteric of abstract artists can tell you why their “Erect Horse Cock & Virgin Mary Number @” carries meaning. If the only reason was, “I think it sounds pretty”, then fucking leave it at that. Don’t fool yourself and everyone else into thinking you’re a creative genius and the arbiter of taste descended from the clouds. You haven’t created a new sound. You have your friends and your laptop, and your psychology degrees which emancipated your minds from making any goddamned sense.
When Pitchfork asked how he gained “African influences”, this bag of greenhouse gas replied, “To me it started with being into just sort of like, Motown shit, and into some of the earlier James Brown shit.” From there he says he moved onto “more like ethnomusicological folk musics.”
Like, sure you did. I mean, like, no, totally. It’s fuckin’ Ethnomusicological!
So, Iman. I’m embarrassed to have Dirty Projectors on my iPhone. I’m sorry. Throw me out of music fan club if you deem it necessary… but I tried many times this year, and I still don’t get it.
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