A couple years ago, I reached a point where I completely lost all interest in music. Whether it was the Beatles, Beastie Boys or Beethoven, nothing seemed to have any entertainment value for me. When it first came around, I'd just brush it off as "Hmmph. Nothing's on." But as time went on, I began to dwell on it, searching for deeper reasons for it.
Having just read Daniel Levitin's "This is Your Brain on Music," a scholarly thesis on music's role in the brain's physiology, I came up with a small handful of theories as to why my tastes in music simply vanished.
1) The music that was new and popular at the time was hardly to my liking. I "got" much of it, but I really didn't like it. So that, along with various setbacks in my life, had made me feel disconnected from the times. Adding to that, listening to "old" stuff just made me feel outdated, further out of touch.
2) Levitin's book showed how music assists with the brain's physiological development, I figured that my brain - for the time - had just developed to its fullest.
3) His book also ruminated on why different types of people liked different types of tunes, so maybe I was more fascinated with understanding what music tastes said about the people around me. Maybe it gave me insight to their personalities and characters that were either unnoticed or underappreciated.
4) At the time, I was in a place of very comprehensive contentment with my life's situation. If you think about it, music is a way to customize your surroundings to your taste. Given I was happy with the way things were, I had no problem with simply leaving them they way they were.
In the end, I concluded that the correct answer was 5) All of the Above, but in a manner where each reason's proportion would be changing.
Recently, I was looking at an issue of Entertainment Weekly. I realized that not only has this phenomenon re-occurred, but also became further reaching. Now, it seems as if I really have in current music, television or movies.
Since boy bands took over radio and forced the schism that split rock music into hip-hop/R&B and the southern pop that now passes for country, I still have little interest in music. Sure, I rebuilt a YouTube playlist that now includes almost 200 songs on it. But little of it ends up on the radio, some of it never released as a single.
TV has been taken over by unscripted "reality" shows, either about wealthy young sexy people being simply social with each other, or jobs that I respect, but don't necessarily envy or sympathize for. And whatever isn't "reality" show has pretty much been quarantined to medical and crime dramas. In the past four years, only three shows - "Mad Men," "Sons of Anarchy," and "Hung" have really become must-see in my mind, while shows like "House M.D." are simply starting their final descents.
However, if there is to be found a lack of original ideas, its within mainstream movies. Everything I see is either a raunchy comedy or a translation of a comic book or other story designed for children. I know this is not always the case. Plus, I'm not unaware that books are always made into movies ("Gone with the Wind" and "Wizard of Oz" are examples.) But I always thought there was a greater artistic variety to what came into my local cinemaplex than this onslaught of movies that just seem to further the stereotype of the genre they're in.
Of course, there's exceptions. But usually when I flip on any broadcast medium, it spits out something at me that instinctively inspires me to curl up my nose and change the channel, or at least search for something else.
What have I been paying attention to? Well, mainly it's been news and sports. Now, when I say "news," that means stories that don't involve celebrities, manufactured or not. Stories/news about those people pretty much represent a cancerous growth of "reality" TV into our true "reality." No, I'm talking stuff that would only make the cut prior to the O.J. Simpson trial.
Right now, this whole "Tea Party" phenomenon is fascinating me, seeing how an entire faction of this party that was lulled into a groupthink is now seeing their own Kool-Aid finally start taking affect on them. It's gonna get uglier before it gets easier, but I think for drama that hits home, there's nothing better on the air right now. However, the episode guide is a little tricky.
Well, that and sports. All of them. Happy the Mavs bet the Heat. I was going to be happy no matter who won the Women's World Cup final. Baseball is kind of interesting now that the Indians are possibly in a post-season chase. And I'm looking forward to the NFL pulling their collectives heads out of their collected asses and getting back to work.
In a way, the same four reasons I surmised a couple years ago are still pretty much relevant today. I do not like them, while many of my peers do, so I am out of touch. Watching the old stuff just makes me just as out of date as it did then. As for my brain being developed, well...can't really say anything. That, and I don't really take someone's pop cultural tastes and try to read their thinking patterns that much anymore. However, I am more interested in the moment I'm in rather than the moment I wish I was in via entertainment. I don't have time for songs, dances and theater anymore. Or patience either.
I want Life to be the greatest story ever told. I want love stories happening to those around me. I don't want to see the people I know have to be sick or in legal trouble, but I do want justice and health for those who deserve it. I don't care to hear idle gossip about people who accomplish nothing, nor do I want to laugh at the characteristic shortcomings of people. I want to do my best to unleash their better angels so they can be enjoyed by all. I want my heroes here. I want my comedy, drama, horror and recreation here. I want art to imitate life, not the other way around. And I want to be there when it happens.
So, in a society that virtually defines itself via cultural means, I am gradually becoming more and more difficult to define within that scope. I have morals, feelings, thoughts, beliefs, opinions and judgments, but I don't really pattern myself too much after anyone in particular. Maybe I just want to be my own hero. I don't know.
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