When bad "music" is better than none

What would the world be like now if Hitler had become a successful “artist,” under the patronage of the Viennese Jews he would later blame for his failure? Besides 50 million fewer people dead, there would likely be no nuclear weapons or “superpowers,” and the U.S. would have a much different economic and trade structure. What would have happened if Charles Manson had been given the recording contract he tried to extort from some players in the 1960s music scene? Some more bad music no doubt, but also at least ten known lives that were taken would have been saved. What would the world be like if Mel Gibson or Charlie Sheen had not become successful actors? Probably no different, but “who knows?”

Anyways, for some time now people who spend time at Sea-Tac Airport have been inundated by reminders of the personages and “music” of the local music scene. One wonders what the world would be like without the “music” some of them concoct; to some of us “old school” types who actually enjoy music, the world would not necessarily be worse off. Some of the artists I actually heard of, like Quincy Jones and one of the sisters of Heart. The rest mean nothing to me. Was I supposed to know who Allen Stone is? Alright, he claims that his influences are various “old school” soul artists that I like; it would be nice, of course, if his “sound” actually resembled theirs. Maybe some snappy string arrangements would help? Has he ever actually listened to Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On and Let’s Get It On albums? But then again, you’d have to have something called “melody.” 

But at least Stone has some use for foreign objects called musical instruments. These days, you don’t even have to have any musical acumen at all to be a successful artist in the “music” business; all you need is an “attitude” and sing into an auto tune device. You can spend all day listening to a contemporary “hits” station and never hear anything resembling actual music—unless it is something recorded decades ago inserted for “sampling” purposes. The Internet has allowed anyone with a cheap recording device to become a “star,” if enough people are taken in by their (often vulgar) shtick.

One of the “artists” who has been seen fit to be a “prize” of the local scene is someone named Mary Lambert; her EP Letters Don’t Talk contains “songs” that are supposed to be “heartbreaking.” I call it boring, self-pitying self-obsession—when they are not the lesbian version of  pornography. In today’s politicized world, some people can get away with anything, if they are the political flavor of the month, or year. Lambert is a weight-challenged, sexually “alternative” individual whose songs testify to the “power” of in-your-face offensiveness “excused” by sexual and gender politics, with alleged sexual abuse as a child and having self-image (i.e. unattractiveness) issues thrown in for "good measure." Here are some “samples” of her lyrics:

What are you doing in these chambers?

And why are you sleeping in my ventricles?

What are you doing in these chambers?

And why are you sleeping in my ventricles?

I give up, I give in

To the whole of your skin

I give up, I give in

Am I doing this again?

And I give up

I give in

Is she talking about "non-consensual" sex here? Lambert says she “outed” herself when she was 17, so you might wonder who is the subject of these rather explicit musings. Donna Summer raised eyebrows with the long version of “Love to Love You Baby,” but she would never have gotten away with singing stuff like this in the Seventies; they’d be burning records in the Bible Belt and feminists would be “outraged.” Here are some other thoughts going through Lambert’s tortured mind:

I know girls that wonder if they're disaster and sexy enough to fit in

I know girls who are fleeing bombs from the mosques of their skin

Playing Russian roulette with death; it's never easy to accept

That our bodies are fallible and flawed

But when do we draw the line?

When the knife hits the skin?

Isn't it the same thing as purging

Because we're so obsessed with death

Some women just have more guts than others

The funny thing is women like us don't shoot

We swallow pills, still wanting to be beautiful at the morgue

Still proceeding to put on make-up

Still hoping that the mortician finds us fuckable and attractive

We might as well be buried with our shoes

And handbags and scarves, girls

We flirt with death every time we etch a new tally mark

Into our skin

I know how to split my wrists like a battlefield too

But the time has come for us to

Reclaim our bodies

Our bodies deserve more than to be war-torn and collateral

Offering this fuckdom as a pathetic means to say

"I only know how to exist when I'm wanted"

You have to ask yourself “Who ‘gets off’ on this kind of self-pitying bullshit?” I mean, get a life why don’t you? Why would anyone want to listen to that? I wouldn’t even want to be around people who talk like that, let alone those who listen to that and believe it is “meaningful.” People who “like” this are the kind who sit alone at night moping about their hateful lives, or the kind of sob-sister like the one I heard years ago while I was waiting for someone to give me a ride from work; she thought she was alone in the building and carried on like this on the telephone for at least an hour. I never realized people could be so consumed by such delusional nihilism.

Yet I wonder what Lambert would be if she didn’t have an “outlet” to let as many people as possible know how "bad" she feels. Is the world better off knowing it? I suppose it could be a whole lot worse.