Thread: So... Music.  (Slight rant and some discussion.)

I have a live and let live attitude towards most things, and am only bothered by things that are pushed on me. I work two restaurant jobs, and music is played all day at them both. I can't stand any of it. Occasionally, some good music--music that suits my taste--will come on but that's the exception, not the rule. What I can't stand is that the radio station we have to play is decided by the CEO, who, of course is never in the restaurant. He's gotten too many complaints from customers about the radio station we used to play aka, the same inoffensive, generic music you hear at just about any restaurantretail spot. I also have issues with overly entitled customers who feel like they have a right to complain about the music when aye they only have to endure it for the the five minuets a song last the duration of their visit, and bee if the music is REALLY THAT BAD, they can always leave. They can put their headphones on and play their own music. They have options that I just don't have because I work there. Notice that I didn't explicitly say the kind of music I like, the kind of music they play at my job, or anything like that. I dated an emotionally abusive hipster who made me feel like shit for a lot of different reasons, and the music I liked to listen to was just as good of a reason to pick on me as any other. That made me kind of secretive about what I like to listen to, but the REAL reason that I'm omitting those details is because my disgust at the elitist attitude that people have sometimes about what was good music and what music suxz0rs. The kind of music you like doesn't make you any better or any worse than anyone else. Just because you don't like something doesn't mean it sucks. It's just music. It doesn't even really matter. Like I said, live and let live. Keep in mind, our parent's and grand parent's generation and great-grand parents felt the same way about music as we do now. it's going to shit! It's too sexual! It's corrupting the kids! Jazz had floozies, rock n' roll had groupies, rappers had hos, etc. I personally don't think music has gotten any better or worse1, but as people get older and have kids, they want to 'protect' their kids in every way they can. It can be all to easy to use music as a scapegoat for bigger issues2. Pop culture also keep evolving. Eventually, people will get sick of the glitz and glam of today's music and start looking for more 'meaningful' songs. It's happened before. After the 80's disco and Madonna! grunge broke through to the mainstream. After the non stop partying was over and all the coke was gone, we were, as a culture, hung over. 1Overall, explicit content in music doesn't make it worse because the as a whole, our culture is getting a lot more explicit. I remember back when they never said words like bitch or ass on TV, but now it's the norm. And they're just wordsit's the way words are used that give them power. We're exposed to more graphic sex and violence at younger ages than any generation before, but we can also connect with people on other sides of the planet much easier than our parents could. We sometimes know more about what's going on in far away places than in our own back yards. 2Marilyn Manson famously said when asked what he would tell the kids who committed the Columbine shooting that he wouldn't tell them anything. He'd listen. Because that's what no one else did for them. He was a shock rocker, an easy target to lay blame on, when really, society is the problem. rant I took your slight rant and kind of ran with it. I didn't realize I had so much to say until I started writing, haha.