...[things that make you go AAAAAAARRRRRGGHHHtwat]...

last night i had a moment of despair. it was brief and self-indulgent, but it was there alright. [i was ill, i felt like crap, it happens.] in an attempt to escape from it, i grabbed the nearest sheet of paper and scrawled everything i was thinking. i'd never show anyone what i wrote, but it felt great writing it, and looking over it, what i'd written wasn't a total pile of crap, so i guess something came from my hour of feeling like absolute shite. if aaron of buddyhead.com's analysis is right, this would be wonderful news if i were a musician.


i can see his point - his point being that music that comes from nothing, no real, experienced emotion, is vacuous and pointless. in his words, roughly, too many musicians are too comfortable to create - music comes from passion and despair, and britain's best bands [he cites the smiths, joy division, oasis] came from manchester, in his opinion a veritable pit of despair. and kurt cobain - another icon born of this same emotion - and unable to escape from it, making him all the more compelling, but causing his eventual demise.


but that got me thinking. if the only worthwhile music comes from people who are in the pit of despair/grief/self-loathing, someone's gotta be the unfortunate sap doing the grieving/despairing in the first place...anyone fancy the job? it seems like yet another confirmation of humanity's appetite for self-destruction - that art isn't considered worthy unless someone emotionally [or physically] bled for it. ian curtis, kurt cobain, both dead because of the very weaknesses that made their art "real". both "icons". if artists write lyrics that throb with desperate emotion, for every positive response they get, there'll be two people on hand to dismiss their work as "pretentious"/"overblown"/"fake"/"cynical". [courtney love, come on down.] but if they write said lyrics, then combust from the very pain that inspired such outpourings, they become tragic heroes. misery + music + death = a platinum disc. so... what? are all musicians supposed to put themselves through hell in order to write a great record? i certainly agree with the notion that making music should not be about making a shitload of money, getting 6000 groupies lined up outside your dressing room and becoming untouchable, but is it fair that artists should be dismissed if they don't automatically turn down every reward that comes their way? and, if they find that they can't live a happy life AND write the music they're truly capable of, should they be condemned for abandoning music for a happy existence?


i guess my point is, why does misery and/or death have to be proof of someone's authenticity? why does every unhappy teenager's familiar, perhaps incoherent, but nonetheless honest expression of emotions get dismissed as "teen angst"? [i know i'm guilty of it myself - see the front page of this site.] why is the world in general so cynical about other people's unhappiness and their expression of it, yet so quick to hold it up as artistic genius when that unhappiness becomes too much to live with? perhaps it really is simply that we as a species are self-destructive, cynical and prejudiced, and this naturally seeps into music and music criticism. i know that a lot of people will read this and dismiss it as melodramatic and sentimental. how predictable.

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