Rock Me Amadeus!

A common response to my blog reviews on humor-blogs.com is that "humor is subjective." As the whole point of writing a review of something is to provide an objective appraisal, I take this as a nice way of saying, "What you're trying to do here is stupid."

I'm not sure why people who have a philosophical difference with the concept of reviews bother to read the reviews in the first place. I suspect that if the review were more in line with their own opinion, the commenter wouldn't be so quick to resort to the "humor is subjective" line. My favorite comments are the ones where the reader tells me that humor is subjective, and then goes on to tell me why the negative review of a blog is full of crap. It's like, "Nobody's opinion is better than anyone else's, and besides, you're wrong and here's why."

Obviously there is a large subjective element to humor. But it's simply not true that humor is completely subjective. Original is better than unoriginal. Pithy is better than wordy. Unpredictable is better than predictable. Topical is better than dated. John Belushi is better than Jim Belushi. You get the idea.

I think the same is true of TV shows, movies, music, etc. You might like dramas and I might like comedies, but we can all agree that wooden acting and cliched dialog are to be avoided. You might like classical and I might like rock, but we can all agree that Billy Ray Cyrus is a black spot in the history of music.


Best. Song. Ever.

All this thinking about subjectivity and objectivity got started when Mrs. Diesel and I were waiting for a movie to start the other day. A countrified version of a Kelly Clarkson song was wafting through the theater speakers. My wife said, "Man, they can make a country song out of anything, can't they?"

And I realized that the answer to that was, "Pretty much, yeah."

To me, this is an objective indication of how much country music sucks. They make rock songs into country songs all the time, but you can't make a country song into a rock song. Why not? I'll tell you why not: Because it's easy to slow down a song and add some twangy guitars and overpronounced R's to the vocals, but if you speed up a country song and take out the twang, you don't end up with rock. You probably end up with something that sounds like Gin Blossoms B-sides, and not even people who knew the Gin Blossoms in high school want to hear that.

Rap music is even worse. Most rap songs are just a beat and some sound samples stolen from a rock song. And I'm no expert on music, but I know that you're supposed to have a melody, and you can't have one if you speak the lyrics in a monotone. You understand that's what "rap" means, right? It means "talking." You're talking over a background of drum machine beat and some looped bits of a Van Halen song. I don't think that even technically qualifies as music. Think of it this way: How many rock songs can you name that sample rap songs?

The answer is none, because they don't. Sampling a rap song would be like stealing food that a homeless person stole from another homeless person who picked it out of the dumpster behind Arby's. Sure, it might still be edible, but nobody wants a Big Beef and Cheddar that a wino has licked the cheese off.

As far as I can tell, the music hierarchy goes like this:

• Classical
• Rock
• Pop
• Country
• That surprisingly pleasant squeaking noise that the paper towel makes when you clean the windows
• Rap

Now just so you don't think that I'm a snob, I'll fully admit that I'm not sophisticated enough to "get" classical music. Classical music is just way too subtle for me to appreciate it. I need a thumping beat in my music so that I know what to do with my head. I need the occasional squealing guitar so that I can air guitar and pretend I'm onstage with Gun's 'n' Roses back before Axl got fat. And most of all, I need a clear auditory queue to indicate when I should commence lip-biting.

When I hear classical music, I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing or feeling. And I don't even know how to do air violin. When I'm listening to classical music, I feel like a precocious ten year old watching a Bergman film, who just knows he's missing something but can't put his finger on what it is. Maybe when I'm older I'll get it, I think.



That's why classical music is great for movies. When I see choppers hurtling over the jungle in Apocalypse Now, I think, "Oh, so THAT's what this song is about." And then there are classics like The John MacClaine Symphony, Thus Spake the Giant Black Monolith, and the Lone Ranger Overture. Once I'm instructed by a movie that I'm supposed to be feeling awe or excitement or boredom, I can react accordingly.

Now take a song like Tears for Fears' "Sowing the Seeds of Love", in contrast. There's a ton of crazy stuff going on in that song, and I can listen to it over and over and keep noticing new stuff that I hadn't noticed before. And yet, it's also catchy enough that the first time I heard it I thought, "Wow, that's a pretty cool song," and not, "Wow, I wonder if I would be happier listening to myself chewing?"

But at the extreme of simplicity, you have crap like The Black Eyed Peas' song "My Humps." Now I can imagine that if I were at the apex of an absinthe bender, I might enjoy listening to that song one time. But after a single listening in a highly impaired state, I would have absorbed all the complexity that song has to offer. It's like reading a Dr. Seuss book. Everybody loves Dr. Seuss, but trust me, if you've had to read Horton Hears a Hoo every night for three weeks, you know why old Ted Geisel had to change his name. He was afraid of being hunted down and having his Thing One and Thing Two shoved down his throat.

So I know that I should like classical music more than I do, and I should like rap even less than I do, but I'm a simple man and I can listen to just about anything with a decent beat.



And like everyone, I have to admit to having some guilty pleasures. There are some songs that I know suck, and yet I get a ridiculous amount of enjoyment out of them. Why do I own a copy of Asia's greatest hits? The songs are, without exception, overwrought and insipid. Yet I get an inexplicable thrill when they pop up in my iTunes playlist. Huey Lewis, Damn Yankees, Phil Collins.... I can't explain or defend it, but I love them all. I once had A-Ha's "Take on Me" as a ringtone, because it made getting phone calls fun. Try getting THAT song out of your head when you hear it every time the phone rings.

So what's my point? Hell if I know. I guess it's that there is something to be said for trying to objectively evaluate music, or movies, or blogs, or whatever else. But occasionally you just have to give yourself license to say, "Screw it. I don't know why I like it, but I do. Now CRANK IT!"


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