THE HERETIC
I used to know a girl who wanted to be a museum curator. Her name was Jane and back when I owned a video shop in the early 90s, she worked in a petrol station that also rented videos on the other side of town. We knew each other because we used to scope out each other’s stock and played nice so that we were both winners. She knew that we did horror better than them and I knew that they had way more comedies than I could cope with. Working together, we kept Blockbuster out of town and made the store that was in the middle of us look weak. If there was something we didn’t have, we weren’t averse to calling each other up either, so a valued customer could get what they wanted somewhere else.
I always thought that was the greatest thing ever. Imagine knowing exactly what you wanted to do with your life so much, that you could say it out loud and even though it’s maybe a bit ‘off kilter’, she was 100% all in, so even if you thought it was a dumb idea, you had nowhere to go with your thoughts because she could have cared less.
I hope she made it, I really do because the video rental market is dead and buried my friends and maybe petrol is not so far behind either.
The thing about curators is they care. They look at a selection of items and with their expertise, decide what most people would like to see. Sure, I’m in the minority that would like to rummage through the boxes you stashed in the basement, but for most people, the curated items will do just fine.
And then the future happened. Now a digital algorithm decides what you want to see and that’s not the same thing at all. See a curator has taste and expertise, if they’re good at their job, they’ll even show you something you didn’t know you needed to see along the way. They don’t always work in museums, they can edit your favourite magazine or work in a record shop that doesn’t play by the rules, but it’s still curation.
An algorithm will say; “Based on your past behaviour and what millions of others did after clicking this, we think you’ll probably like this too”. It has data, not taste. It doesn’t care about meaning, it cares about engagement. And it sure doesn’t know why something works, its only concern is that it *seems to*.
Algorithms want you to keep scrolling. Curators want you to stop and look. One wants your attention. The other wants your admiration. Different things altogether.
I’d forgotten all about her until I made an unscheduled turn in the road this morning and fired up Songs About Jane. I’d also forgotten just how much of a killer this Maroon 5 album really is. If you ever have trouble moving your body because you’re too highly strung or an inner city sweat-hog - other reasons are available - Songs About Jane and the subsequent It Won’t Be Soon Before Long and Hands All Over, will cure you instantly.
I sometimes wish I was brave enough to pull off a John Travolta in public and who knows, maybe I am. It’s more a case of there not being a franchise of Jack Rabbit Slim nearby.
I think I’ve worked out how this works too. It’s like when a detective asks you a question and you answer a little bit but then they don’t say anything back to you... according to the books I read, you, as the interrogated feel the need to fill the space. Thus, what makes me want to get a groove on is that empty space. Martin 5 do not make albums brimming over at the seams with guitars (which is my usual M.O.) and I feel a need to fill it with some movement.
Sounds plausible right?
(According to the internet, the space creates tension, and the tension pulls you into the pocket, which lines up nicely with the old ‘nature abhors a vacuum’ saying. That Earth mother always knows what she’s doing...).
Let me try and dig into this a little deeper. Most of the time, the soundtrack to my life is dirty rock n roll performed by people you’ve never even heard of. Dave Kusworth, Dustin Kensrue... and some you probably have: Butch Walker, Chris Cornell, Neil Young - all of them are lone gunmen with one guitar and a story to tell. It wasn’t always this way but it sure is now and because of that, sometimes I need the exact opposite to put it all in perspective. Off the scale production, mainstream as you can get because that’s the other thing Mother Nature loves. Balance.
You can’t ignore music that resonates with your soul. If what’s coming from your speakers vibrates the atoms that make up your body, you must embrace it. Who cares what anybody else thinks. Other people don’t know shit about you. They don’t know that you crush on Kelly Clarkson. They don’t know your first album before you got tribal was a Bee Gees soundtrack album. Don’t know that your folks love George Benson and you got infected too.
I have no time for haters. People are just getting by in a world that’s hard enough without that kind of shit. I know some people who genuinely despise Nickelback because “that’s what you do”, but they ain’t no different to Bon Jovi, AC/DC or Journey. If you’re in that camp, let me ask you when was the last time you wrote a chorus that 20,000 people can sing along to with tears in their eyes?
I’m going to go with never.
