Why Classify?

I remember when I ran the magazine; I made a point of taking myself out of the material. Everything was so formal and if the interviews weren’t fun no one would have wanted to be written about, let alone read it. And this time around I want to make it more fun. Anyone who reads this is going to know how I really feel about the music scene. This is not fiction, I’m not going to pull my punches, and I’m going to talk about who I want and what I want. So let’s get started.

Today I want to talk about the way people seem to want to shove everything into a neat little box. Let me tell you something! Music isn’t neat and clean. There is not a single show I go to when every single person in the room leaves with every hair on their head in its exact place. Even if you go to a classical concert, the performers are so impassioned by what they are doing that they leave the stage covered in a thin layer of sweat and with their hair at least a little bit frizzy if not a hot mess. So why do we try to force bands to put themselves in a genre? Why do people ask “what kind of music is it?” before listening to something their friend has sent them? Why does it matter? I bet you anything that you can find at least one song from any genre that makes you feel something. And that is what matters. With music, its not about knowing every word to every song. It’s not about who can throw down the hardest. It’s about hearing something in a song that makes you feel that little something. When I find a song I absolutely love I get a tingly feeling at the base of my spine. It travels up and my whole chest gets warm. Every hair on my head seems to stand up and I know that this is a song that I was lucky to have found.


That is what music is about. People today seem to think if you like My Chemical Romance that it is impossible for you to also get down to The Grateful Dead. Its complete nonsense. The notion that you can’t like bands from opposite ends of the spectrum is like the silly little girls running around screaming Team Edward vs Team Jacob. In the end it doesn’t matter. I have a mixed CD in my CD player right now that is a testament to what I am saying. Its has Panic at the Disco, The Beatles, Taylor Swift, August Burns Red, 3OH!3, and Lynard Skynard on it. And if I played that CD for half of the people I know they would look at me and ask what in the world I was on when I put together the playlist. But why should they care. Each of those songs produces a chemical reaction in my brain that releases endorphins while I listen to them. They make me feel good. And that is what matters.


I like popular music. I enjoy classic rock and rap and even opera. People need to stop caring so much about why someone likes what they like and maybe just listen. They might find that they feel that same tingle from an unexpected artist. It’s about learning something you didn’t know about yourself. Try something new and for the love of God stop putting things into their neat little boxes. No one wins when you do that.