Exercise, Music, and Principles

Posted by cliff on July 30th, 2007 filed in Audiophile, Healthnut, Philosopher

I’m at my usual gym, Fitness First Eastwood, listening to Delerium on my iPod.

Like most gyms, this one plays a mix of high-energy trance, house, and hip hop to keep gym-goers pumped up for whatever exercise they have lined up. And like most standardized playlists, in an attempt to cater to as many people as possible, only one to three songs in any given hour really provide the oomph necessary to keep your spirits up, depending on how close to the corporate-defined median your tastes in music are.

Many people instinctively know this, which is why the personal music player has constantly been popular since the introduction of the Sony Walkman two decades ago. See, we associate certain songs with certain states of mind.

Speaking of which, my iPod, which is on shuffle, has suddenly switched to New Blues by Joe Satriani. I’m finding it difficult to write. One moment.

Better.

I’ll admit it. I used to be a music snob. Since I basically grew up in the 90s with heavy metal and grunge, essentially the ‘Hip-hap-must-die era’, I hated hip hop and R&B as a matter of principle. Not because it was bad, just because it wasn’t me.

Let’s repeat that for emphasis. I hated an entire genre of music because I decided that it wasn’t me. So stupid

Now see, music provides listeners with metaphors to translate their day to day existence with. Everyone has a favorite song, sometimes because of the lyrics, sometimes because of the melody, sometimes because other people like it, but mostly because certain songs make us feel certain things. Most couples have one particular song, usually termed ‘Our Song’ because it carries a particular meaning.

(We have two. I Was Brought to My Senses by Sting and Teardrop by Massive Attack. I leave it as an exercise to the reader to figure out why.)

I seem to like J-rock, instrumentals and OSTs a lot more than your average person. Something that is said every now and then by passengers in my car is “Do you have anything with words?”

Another is “Do you have anything in English?”

I use music as a springboard to achieve certain states of mind — high energy music to pump me up; slow, thoughtful pieces for when I’m in a pensive mood, and so on.

Back to hip hop.

I used to think that, with very few exceptions, hip hop was sorely lacking in the necessary refinements in metaphor that other genres have, even country music. I would facetiously lump hiphop into four major themes — Fuck the Police, Let’s Have Sex/Make Love (depending on the target of the song), Lookie I Got Money And I’m Spending It Lavishly, and I’m Sorry I Done You Wrong Girl/Boy.

So hip hop left me cold. Even Snoop Dogg left me cold. What kind of person doesn’t like Gin and Juice? At the time, me, apparently. I shut myself out of an entire vocabulary of experience just because it wasn’t ME.

Well, as I’m known to say, “What the hell is so great about being you?” Especially if being you keeps you from doing things you would otherwise enjoy? Besides, there’s a word for dismissing an entire subculture and then scoffing dismissively. It’s called pretension.

Fast forward to now. I basically like all genres of music. Heck, I love anything from Gackt to Bob Marley to Bach to Konono No. 1, which is essentially Congo-based rock/electronica with a strong tribal influence. This means that my iPod, just like me, has multiple personalities.

Don’t worry. We’re arriving at my point shortly.

Think of the music we listen to and like as the soundtrack to the daily episodes of the TV show that is our lives. Yes, it’s an overused metaphor but bear with me. What music we leave out of our lives is just as important as the music we choose to listen to. If, like me, you refuse a certain style of music because it’s not you, well, then your show isn’t that kind of show and will never have the scenes associated with that genre of music. If you hate classical, then you won’t have classical music scenes in your show. If you don’t like rock, you won’t have a show that rocks out every now and then. It’s that simple.

I still have to undo years of atrophy because of my snobbery against hiphop. I still dance like a middle-class white dude every now and then. Horrible.