Music from the Big Ten

How important is music to you? Very? I know plenty of people who love music. They couldn't imagine a day that goes by where they don't listen to some music. For those that love it, they are passionate about their music. The lyrics or tunes say something to them that books or films don't.

Now, the quality of the music varies from person to person. I have friends that enjoy the big-hair glam rock of the eighties, where songs had an edge, but couldn't be taken so seriously. They were simply fun. Some like the raw passion of U2. Some like the angst of grunge rock from the early 90s. Or the speak-sing of rap and hip-hop.

While I was peripherally aware of such music, I didn't own my first CD until 1998 or so. Imagine that. I was 30 years of age and hadn't owned a CD. I had a few tapes of music when I went to college, but you could hardly call me an avid listener. It consisted of Billy Joel and I can't even remember who else. Not exactly college music.

Even so, the people in my suite were listening to a broader class of music than my pop 80s stylings. My roommate, born and raised in Malaysia, who spent a few years in England, then did his high school at a prep school in Massachsetts listened to contemporary Christian rock as well as some progressive rock from the 70s (mostly, Genesis).

One of my other suitemates listened to the remainder of the 70s that wasn't disco. This was Boston, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Yes. He grew up in the research triangle of North Carolina. His roommate, who grew up in the City (New York City, that is), of Latino background listened to nothing of the kind, favoring such groups as The Smiths, The Cure. No Lisa, Lisa, and the Cult Jam, thank you.

Another suitemate who spent his youth in New York City's Chinatown listened to the pop Chinese singers of the 80s. When I first listened to that music, it was awful, awful, awful, like some second-rate pop musician. They'd cover American songs, redoing the lyrics in Cantonese. You haven't lived until you've heard Pet Shop Boys sung in Cantonese. Or, you'll at least vastly consider not living after hearing it.

My first CD of the modern era was the soundtrack to The Phantom Menace. As a kid, I had soundtracks to all of the Star Wars films. Well, two of three. I had The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, as well as Raiders of the Lost Ark and Superman. Basically, John Williams greatest hits.

The second one I picked up from listening to NPR. The segment was about a Norwegian singer who met up with some West African musicians, and decided to combine their talents, in a cross-cultural combination of music. The album was titled From Senegal to Setestal, which I assume is some Norwegian city. That lead me to a collection of world music that included plenty of Afropop music. Among the notables were Mali's Ali Farka Toure, as well as Cape Verder's Cesaria Evora.

However, I wanted to listen to today's hits. Well, not today's per se. If radio stations had their druthers, they'd make you listen to the pop charts all day long. Once upon a time, pop charts really were just that. They were the most popular songs of the day. The eighties were big with pop tunes, from Madonna to Aha! to Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson.

Soon enough, music began to splinter. Glam metal, grunge, ska, Britpop, R&B, hip-hop, and on and on. Each of those musical genres had its chance at the top ten, but you found that the musical tastes would fall into a genre more than a generic pop sound.

For all the pop music out there, there's a humongous number of lesser known bands, which can range from just under the radar (say, a group like Guster) to those that play only regionally, in certain big cities, to the college or high school band that forms but doesn't stay together longer than a year.

Right in that range of just under pop-stardom are the indie bands, and this is what a lot of college music is all about. I wanted to start listening to college music, but I needed a guide. I didn't know one group from the next.

Fortunately, I had a teaching assistant who avidly loves this kind of music. He's constantly listening to a full range of music, though mostly he avoids hip-hop, and occasionally some music ventures on a bit sappy. Still, his listening tastes are suitably eclectic, and I've learned to ask him for advice when it comes to songs.

His first few groups were bands like Tortoise, Low, Godspeed You Black Emperor. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure you've heard of few of these bands, unless you, too, are musically inclined.

You know, the other thing that helped was Amazon. Amazon creates links from one CD to the next, and they have Listmania, where customers can create lists that others can reference. Maybe if I subscribed to Rolling Stone or one of these music magazines, I could find out what the next great thing is. For example, right now, I'm listening to Radiohead. Most people who follow music tend to acknowledge how great Radiohead is, but really, they've never achieved even half the fame that the Beatles did. It's great stuff, IMO, but only those who care about music know them. If you stopped listening to music in 1980, you probably know very little of them.

All that leadup to get to what I wanted to get to. I've been listening to a fair bit of Sufjan Stevens. He's kinda folky, and really a bit hard to peg down. I bought Bring on the Illinoise. He has an ambitious project where he intends to write music about each of the fifty states. Bring on the Illinoise is number two.

I can only mildly compare his music to Polyphonic Spree, but their music is much more grandiose. Since my music vocabulary is tiny, I can't begin to tell you why Stevens works for me.

Even though I've been listening to a lot of music lately, I don't listen to it like real fans do. In particular, I can block out lyrics rather easily. Unlike my housemate Jaime who has an insane memory for lyrics, I can't remember two words from any song. I've never tried, which is probably why I don't. I find it has its advantages. I can code and write blog entries to music with words because I'm not singing along in my head to the song. I'm simply listening.

I recently told a friend that Elliott Smith has some charming songs that I like to listen to. I have a few of his albums. Just that description alone tells you I'm not paying attention to Elliott's lyrics. Apparently, he's relentlessly downbeat and suicidal in most of his music. But if you're not listening, it doesn't come across that way.

I often enjoy Afropop music even though I understand none of the words. It could be a religious song, or a plea to riot the next town over. I wouldn't know the difference. The vocals provide a kind of instrumentation of its own. Thus, while I understand no Portuguese, I appreciate the deep vocals of Cesaria Evora.

The Icelandic band, Sigur Ros, has gone so far as to have a pidgin version of Icelandic called Hopelandic, which they sing when they're not in Iceland. Since no one can much understand what's being said, they figure it doesn't matter that they're not singing authentic Icelandic, which probably matters little except to the one or two Icelanders who want to hear their native tongue.

I have two more CDs on order from Sufjan. His first album about the fifty states, which is about Michigan, and Seven Swans. All of his music seems to have some religious import, but unlike most contemporary Christian songs, it isn't unbearably preachy, and frankly, it sounds nothing like most contemporary Christian music which often attempts to be uplifting. The first lesson of music making is, make good music. Don't infect the lyrics with preachiness, because there's a large segment of the population that will tune you out.

Of course, I end up tuning the lyrics out anyway. I suppose lyrics have some kind of poetic quality that I must be missing when I fail to sing along to them. But really, if you read lyrics, they make little sense. Sognwriters, I'm sure, just like the sounds of certain words as it's played to music. It doesn't have to make a great deal of sense. Music relies on a great deal of repetition and a hook to get people singing along.

I have no idea if Sufjan's other two albums are as good as Bring on the Illinoise. I hope so. Alas, I'm a complete neophyte when it comes to getting this music. I've done the silly thing and purchased the music from Amazon, at an outrageous price, I'm sure. It's these prices that drive some to find other outlets like Napster or BitTorrent or even more legitimate sites like ITunes. In the meanwhile, I'll await my music the old-fashioned way. UPS delivery.