It's Time For Everyone To Chill
Today's post is from our friend HIM. As weary as I am, I agree with everything he says here. - Allyson
"It's time for everyone to chill." That sentiment is packed with problems. I have no right to say that to anyone (well, in America, I do. But I should expect backlash as a result). Thing is, I want to say it to almost everyone. There are so many first through sixteenth world problems on this marble today. I can hang my head and say, “Damn, it is a sad day for me to hear that Williams is retiring from AC/DC after this tour. I mean, what is left?” Or I can rejoice and state, “Adler got what he wanted!! The world is a slightly better place.” But I wouldn't want to deny anyone the right to vent about the bands they love, regardless of genre. Music is a respite from our normal lives more often than not. It is a salve.
Sadly, one doesn’t need to dig much deeper before they find a wound. Music, it seems to me, pales in comparison to all the death going on around us. What happened in Dallas? What happened in Falcon Heights? What happened in Turkey? Or in Paris? The old man on his porch is want to say: “Enough, I don’t even care about my lawn anymore. Just try to be kind to each other.”And that old man (or woman, or what-have-you), could be listening to Poison, or the Wu-Tang Clan, or Margot Hellwig. You wish you would get the sense that people were winding down and wanting . . . understanding? What you get, instead, are bullets spraying in every direction. A stick, even a backyard bare-knuckle brawl, would be a much better thing these days.
There was a time when people thought music could fix everything, or at least bind us together. Yes, the hippies. But, also, bands like White Lion. There are some that still do. Like Rich Robinson, a person as far away from Glam--and closer to hippies than Mike Tramp--as you can get. But I respect him. And I respect the interview he did at Classic Rock Revisited. That isn’t a plug for another site. What it is is a suggestion that some people want to believe that music has a chance to make friends out of strangers, to change differences into interesting points of discussion, and to make people look up and see other people struggling, caring, and working . . . to make a difference in their lives and in the lives of other people.
Metal, or glam, isn’t likely to bind any of us together that aren’t already bound to each other. Genres can act as encampments, where everyone who knows one thing knows that other people know squat. And those moats serve a function. When you feel like one against all, it is nice to see that you are a group against another group. But, pushed too far, it turns into a divisive battle for space. History is replete with examples of where that has led humanity off the rails.
So I want to offer something. It is an offer that carries no risk to me, save snark or criticism. But, why not at this point? Watch something that I watched, and watched for far longer than I probably would have. If you like David Lee Roth, you will like it. If you don’t, you will turn it off very quickly.
You know what, though? Either choice is time well spent. It is a chance to do something other than ponder all these divides that have recently torn at us. It is a chance to comment on things that make little difference in this world. It is a chance to escape. But therein lies the rub. Once you are done, ask yourself: what do I do next? Because, for all the lists on this site, for all the wonderful digressions that we engage in, we are still shackled to a place where we have to find a way to get along with other people. Hoist the flag for Glam. But recognize that you aren't taking ground from others. You are simply stating what matters to you. And, if so, you have to find a way to understand why all those other flags--and they increasingly dot our horizon--matter to others. We have to make more room, not less, for those who care about their flags.
Arguing about music, about metal, makes us better people if we want to let it do so. It also reminds us of the delicate balance we are forced—and lucky—to live with in our daily lives. So soon after the 4th of July (itself a thing that celebrates the spirit of rebellion, but also carries with it the echoes of sadness), it bears repeating: real life is made out of struggles that music celebrates and criticizes. We would be a much better marble if we could settle our scores on albums (or bit torrents) than with guns and violence. That isn’t a statement of political belief. It is a statement of, to this point, opinion. Yet both deal in the same reality: what do we want for ourselves, and for others?
Metal means that life can be better. At least it does for me. But it also means that I mourn any loss of life that suggests that what I think metal means doesn't count.