Why We Love Bad Music

On March 25th 1436, composer Guillaume Dufay performed nuper rosarum flores for the consecration of the monumental Florence cathedral, capped with the now famous Brunelleschi's Dome. Filippo Brunelleschi pulled off a true architectural masterpiece from the long-lost art of constructing a dome. I was once taught that the structure of Dufay's composition mirrored the proportions of Brunelleschi's Dome. It turns out that is not correct, however, the composition does mirror the proportions of the Old Testament temple as described in 1 Kings. If all this seems foreign to you, you are not alone. However, how foreign this story seems may be a great insight into the state of music today.

The task of diagnosing the state of music as such is not only insurmountable in scope, but I am also not qualified to do so! I shall appeal to the music industry analyst for their insight, when necessary. However, one does not have to look far to see the meta-trends in the world music industry, and these trends in turn reveal two seismic 'shifts' in both the availability & function of music in our world. When I asked my friend Anthony what he meant by this prompt, he described an experience common to music lovers. "This dude is playing in bars and he's amazing, but this other dude is making millions because of his genetics and slight ability for singing." The average person I know acknowledges that Nickelback & Nicki Minaj fall short compared to the likes of Bach & Mozart. But the average person still doesn't listen to Bach or Anthony's friend at the bar.

On my Spotify app, I receive a new daily mix each morning for multiple categories of genres & artists. To be honest, sharing an account with my wife complicates my more subtle music preferences! Yet there was a time before daily mix algorithms; there was a time before 'unlimited' music remained only one sponsored-ad away. Two primary revolutions have occurred to make music available in a way unlike our predecessors: (1) availability of instruments, recording materials, & free lessons, & (2) streaming services.

When my dad taught himself to play guitar in the 60's, his only resources were my grandmother's genetics & a Beatles songbook. He saved up & paid $300 for a Gibson Dove acoustic guitar. My first electric guitar cost $199, amplifier included. In high school, my friend group pooled our resources to record music. The one with a Mac bought the recording software. A couple of us bought microphones. Myspace was free. I never took music lessons, but Youtube taught me enough to get off the ground (and more). In short, both technology & manufacturing radically extended music training & production to our world, adding to those who participate in making music.

Dufay's audience in 1436 did not have the music access that we have. Cathedral services were their primary context for music. For me, I still remember burning CD's from local bands in Augusta who passed out poorly-recorded demos while we waited around for the main act. I still have many of their demos in my iTunes library. What I didn't have was nearly unlimited access to every major recording artist & (nearly) all the bands SceneSC follows. At one point, I believed Pandora was a joke. It was too good to be true. Now, I pay for Spotify premium so I don't even have to suffer commercials! But for all this availability, why does the bulk of music 'consumption', a detestable phrase, derive from an elite class of artists? To begin to answer this question, we must turn to the revolution in the function of music in our world.

Dufay's nuper rosarum flores served as the opening procession for the consecration of a new cathedral, and as I mentioned before, the composition mirrored the dimensions of Solomon's Temple. Dufay integrated this composition into a grander framework of liturgical use for the Roman church. In the early Enlightenment era, various Roman Popes & patrons commissioned the works of some of the worlds most renowned artists & musicians. To our predecessors music functioned in a communal use, whether liturgical or story-telling the distinct cultural ideals, persons, & features of their culture. The idea of personal music 'consumption', that detestable phrase, would appear wholly foreign to a 1436 Florentine audience.

Fast forward over six-hundred & fifty years. I can perfectly recall the words to Chris Brown's "Forever" adapted to a doublemint gum commercial. A few decades prior, Crosby, Stills, & Nash performed "Ohio" as a standing protest to the events of the Ohio State massacre. Today, the subversive heart of Tupac, N.W.A. & early hip-hop artists still beats in contemporary artists like Kendrick Lamar & Sho Baraka. Kendrick also wrote the soundtrack to Marvel's latest film. Just in the examples listed above, the functions of music continue to grow by decade. Music continues to be commercialized. Music continues to represent certain brands. It sill subverts the status-quo & expresses disdain for the system from the marginalized & oppressed. Music still retains its communal & liturgical uses too. But we have largely become music 'consumers', as damnable as the word is.

With the seismic shifts to radically new availability & functions of music in mind, we may begin to consider the concern Anthony raised. Our communal context for music is now one of consumption. You may appropriate a Green Day song to express yourself or write, produce, & record a wholly original & intricate song, but if it's not marketable, it will only ever be personal expression. Of course, one must also consider the reality that what we hear on the radio repeatedly conditions us to associate what is readily available with 'good' music. But this still does not begin to explain why many still love One Direction, Migos, Katy Perry, Justin Timberlake, Nickelback, Nicki Minaj & not Bach.

I do not want to equate any contemporary artist I mentioned previously with 'bad' music, and I also apologize for how click-baity the title to this essay is. But I think it is important nonetheless to ask this question. Despite all the changes of availability & function in music and the general agreement that most of what is readily available cannot compare to the richness of more exceptional musicians, I still jam along to "Dark Horse" by Katy Perry. Because the reality is, music, insofar as it is music, is good. A four-year-old with a recorder still makes music just as Pablo Casals serenaded the world with his cello performances.

To love & appreciate music is deeply human. All music is lovable. But to turn music into mere consumption borders on sacrilege. Anthony's intuition of the injustice accrued on the way we reward & venerate musical skill is also justified. I rejoice to see music growing more radically available & multi-functional in our world. But we must truly consider what it means to love music & not just consume it. Perhaps the only 'bad' music is that which is created merely to be consumed. If I am beginning to articulate something true, then we ought not only consume music, fill our time & spaces with a product rather than appreciating a creation. Let us celebrate the gift music is, not merely what music does. Music doesn't have to do anything other than be music. So, let music celebrate liturgy. Let it subvert. Let it express. Let it accompany films. Let it be.

And start listening to the girls & guys playing at local bars.