When It Comes To Music, Try Harder

Your taste in music needs work - even if its already very good. You need to buy more new music, and explore new horizons. Im not saying that to any one person who reads this blog, Im saying it to everyone, because its true - and it applies to me as well.



Listening to music is extremely difficult. Anyone who tells you otherwise isnt really listening. Sure they may "hear" the music thats playing in the background, but they arent listening to it.



Truly listening to music, as an activity, has pretty much died off. Nowadays, people just throw on some MP3s while they surf the web, play some games, do work around the house, or exercise.



But how many of us really dedicate time not only to truly listening to music, but listening to new music or music which we dont think we like?



The answer is very very few. What was once an activity for the whole family in the 1960s, 70s and 80s has morphed into a pursuit for elitists and freaks - musicologists and audiophiles.



How many of us have an exhaustive collection of punk, rockabilly, jazz, hip hop, trance, dub, metal, funk, classic rock, bubblegum pop, classical, avante garde, blues, modern rock, reggae, world music, classic rap, and country - let alone the dozens of other genres I didnt list? None of us - and its shameful, and its simply because we are lazy.



You think music type X sucks? No, you suck, because you are too lazy and too closeminded to open your brain to trying something which is radically different.


You dont want to put in the effort to retrain your brain to like country music, or rap, or bubblegum pop, or whatever it is that you find unlistenable.



Im not saying that everything ever recorded is great. Im simply saying that for each genre, there are great artists and great albums, and if you cant appreciate them, its simply because you are either genetically defective, or you arent trying hard enough.



So stop making excuses and stop listening to the same thing over and over. To paraphrase the great George Clinton, Free your mind, And Your Ears Will Follow.