On Saturday I went to a house party in Reading for my friend Andy's 22nd birthday. It was a normal Uni House kind of affair: punch, strangers, vomit, nudity etc. I had a great time but at one point, when the party hit its peak, an old social question re-emerged. The front room was packed with revellers and the centrepiece was the stereo, into which people were plugging their iPods and selecting well-known songs for everyone to dance around to. As I said, I was having a wonderful time, but I couldn't face getting up to dance. It's not that I don't do it - I've been to plenty of allnighters, festivals and dingy raves where I've danced idiotically for hours - it's just that no matter how drunk I get, terrible music is still terrible. I may be having the time of my life, but that won't make me like a shit song.
The music in question was stylistically varied, and although it spent most of the time well within the boundaries of Radio Friendly Rock Music it did occasionally stretch out to some Hip-Hop and Dance Classics from the 90s. Two songs that particularly irked me (as well as coincidentally receiving the most enthusiasm) were Feeder's "All By Myself" and that euphoric electrowank "Ecuador" song from when I was in middle school. For the unfamiliar, Feeder's track is exemplary of their inoffensive and polished take on US Pop Punk, where the "Ecuador" song is a tedious and overplayed rehash of the Euphoric Trance* formula. In my opinion both are pure unadulterated chaff of the highest order, and I won't go into the reasons why.
My body would simply refuse to dance to either of these songs, much like it would refuse to jump from a plane or step off a railway platform. But my question is whether this is wrong, whether this is a pathetically over-earnest and pretentious display of pure artistic obstinacy on my part. I had already played Sly & The Family Stone's There's a Riot Goin' On, which lasted two and a half songs, and though I've long preached the message that one person's opinion is no more valid than another's, despite how much or little deliberation and research has gone into the forming of that opinion, I cannot think anything other than "Do you seriously prefer Feeder to Sly & The Family Stone... are you insane???" And so while everyone danced and sang the Pop Hits, I sat on the vacated leather sofa, contented, comfortable and without a sour thought towards anybody in the room, yet people kept asking me "Are you alright Dave?", and "Are you sure? You seem a bit off." (It's a good job no one actually used the words "lighten up", which is a phrase that's guaranteed to rile me immediately.) I wasn't "a bit off" at that point, but maybe I am now. I've confronted myself with the possibility that I am a cantankerous elitist, and I don't like it one bit.
But in reality there was no harm done. I didn't like the music, I didn't dance to it, and I didn't bitch and moan about it because I had an awesome night. And besides, would Greil Marcus dance to The Sweet at his niece's Wedding Reception? I fucking doubt it - I'll count myself as one of his followers, and follow him in respectfully sitting out.
Here's Sly & The Family Stone to sing us out (from The Dick Cavett Show in 1970.)
*Further research has revealed that Sash!'s music is in fact Progressive House/Eurodance. I'm fucking sorry I mislabeled it, okay?
No comments:
Post a Comment