The Menu May Stop With Adele, But The Buck Doesn't

The music industry today is decline. Or is it? Really? Let’s consider:

A few weeks ago, the Grammy and Brit awards were held. Now, the Brits (as in the ceremony) especially are known for being a little bit tacky and when you have acts like Adele and One Direction winning awards for their music you start to understand why. When you learn that the painfully unfunny James Corden is presenting, you suddenly understand totally why. What some people fail to understand is that the Brit awards fundamentally award pop artists; people who are played on the radio, on music channels or in shopping centres. It may not especially be right, but it’s the way it is. I myself do not like this style of music and outwardly voice my opinion on it; again, people may not agree, but an opinion is an opinion and everybody else has the right to voice theirs just as much as I do. They are not however, and will never be, representative of the music industry as a whole.

One thing I refuse to complain about is the state of music today. The reason being is that music today, as an entity, is not – and cannot – be condensed into a few radio-fodding, pop musicians. That is not the state of music in the time we live in; music is whatever you make of it. All over the world people are creating music; funk, country and western, heavy metal, thrash metal, punk, electronic, ska, reggae, jazz, blues: you name it, people are creating it. The key is to find what you like, rather than complaining about what you’ve been given. Don’t like dubstep? That’s fine, go and find something you do like rather than complaining about it.

If you suspect there is a void in the middle of anything: music, art, photography, whatever – create something. One of the most brilliant things about life is that everybody has the ability to create things. Create the thing you wish somebody else had created. In short, don’t complain about problems you do nothing to solve.

Nowadays, hearing twelve year old kids saying “music isn’t what was in the sixties.” No it’s not. But neither were you, your parents, or anything else for that matter. Music is everybody’s possession, and it is an ever-growing and evolving thing. Everybody has the power to change it, to mould and to enhance it. You don’t have to be famous to do that. If you like funk music, seek out funk bands that play local to you. Nothing local? Trawl the internet, or travel. With the internet so readily available, there is essentially no excuse.

Without an attempt to mould music to you or without an attempt to solve the problems you encounter, your opinion becomes void. 

Love Thy Neighbour

Let me assure you that my intention this evening was not to write a blog. I had no concrete plans for tonight but nevertheless, the idea of staying in and reading whilst listening to some classic funk always sounds good. Or rather, it would sound good if you didn’t have the same people living upstairs that I did. Now, more often than not I am a patient person (okay I can’t quite plead to have the patience of a saint, but I don’t particularly take after the Incredible Hulk). There are some people and things that get on my nerves; people who continue to claim that Lady Gaga is an inspiration for example, or people who try and make you do things you really don’t want to do, like dance in public, and claim that not doing so would somehow brandish you a “spoil sport.” The people who do that are generally recognised as being “the life and soul of the party” when we all know that that is just a polite way of saying “loud, obnoxious, unsavoury, busy-body cretin.” There, I said it.

Enough of my mental deviation however. I live on the third floor of four in my accommodation block, which is a reasonable position because I’d hate the thought of living on the bottom floor. It’s a happy medium. The only problem however is my overhead neighbours. The walls at my accommodation granted are paper-thin - I can hear my flatmates flick switches as well as open and close drawers, and that’s fine. Now, that’s not obtrusive and to be honest, at a push, it’s the very least you’d expect if you lived in the next room wherever you were. I do have a problem however when the ceilings are so thin that you can hear the people above you literally slamming doors shut. I also have a problem with the fact that I can audibly hear all manner of toilet-based japery; toilet lid and seat noises, flush mechanisms and, the sound that haunts me in my sleep, the sound of, and there’s really no other way to say it, the sound of someone weeing reverberating around your room at all manner of day and night. Now of course, I can’t expect them to not do these things, but a little more respect for us little ones below them wouldn’t go amiss.

At the moment, there is all manner of terrible pop music being blasted through the ceiling as people urinate and slam doors to their hearts content. At my accommodation we have an eleven o’clock cap on excess noise. Now I agree, this is perhaps a bit Victorian, especially on a Friday night, but at the end of the day, Leeds City Centre is twenty minutes away on a bus and surely that’s better than sitting around a student kitchen surrounded by dishes if you want some excitement on a Friday night. Me, I want no excitement. I want to stay in, be a nerd and read. Not even for my course believe it or not, but to read for pleasure. 

And that’s where I come full circle. Not ten minutes ago, I shifted my pillows up and reached for my reading, fully intending a good forty-five minutes. And now here I am, sat slouched at my computer screen and wincing at someone actually moving furniture about above me and shouting at no one out of the window. Some of you may be shouting for me to wear ear plugs or something, but we all know that’s not the point.  Christ, I sound like a teacher.

Anyway, got to go - I’ve just heard the toilet lid open.