Imaginaaatiiioonnnnn!

There is something gloriously profound about the world of imagination: everyone has access to it, anything can occur, it is purely uncensored (unless you choose to censor it) and it is totally and utterly free. However it can produce awful, awful pieces of tripe like this:

Yes, I drew that. I started drawing the hairline of someone who was preaching and this is what it turned into. While I question what the hell my mind was thinking there is perhaps a deeper and more meaningful idea that this drawing stands for. There is no true aesthetic judgement that can be made. WOW, I'm a freaking genius, I came up with that all by myself. No, of course many people have proposed something similar. That is after all the philosophy of the noise scene:

While some don't like one thing, others love it. Unfortunately you do find certain... snobs... who in their attempt to live out the 'no aesthetic judgement' philosophy end up succumbing to aesthetic judgement themselves. You hear it all the time in metal circles, 'Justin Bieber is crap, metal is real music!', 'That stuff in the charts isn't music, listen to classic rock, that is real music!'

Now while some of these folk are making a personal statement it can often come across as an attempt to make objective something which cannot be. I oppose certain types of music (generally the use of autotuning etc) on bases other than aesthetic which I will address in a future post. This is what is so utterly magnificent about imagination. All of these songs (well,most of them... you can always admire the computers...) are the product of either individual or corporate imagination. Sure, you often also need the technical skill, talent and soul to perform and record those musical ideas but they have first been birthed out of the mind of either one or a group of human beings. 

I refuse to decry anything which has been birthed out of the mind of another human unless it diminishes the development of other humans (which I think autotuning etc does) or unless I make it clear that my opinion is purely subjective. The human mind is an incredible thing...

So I urge you, next time you sit and listen to a piece of music to not think about how technically gifted the musicians are, not to think about what a wonderful voice the singer/artist has but rather to consider this: Everything of meaning that you are hearing on that record was first birthed, conceived, manipulated and formed by and in a human mind. It is only because of a mind that you have the privilege to experience the sounds that you are hearing. I often wondered why I loved music so much and why I refuse to be confined to any stigma, stereotype or genre; I think I have found my reason.

For now I leave you with love,

The Rambler
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