Music on a personal level

I read Nick Hornby’s latest novel “Juliet, Naked” this weekend and like most of Nick’s work it is an absolute masterpiece. To be honest if there is any writer that I would like to be like it would be Nick Hornby as his books center around music, relationships and literature and how they all interact. His latest is no exception as one of its central themes is that of being a music fan and the connection that one can create to music.

Of all the art forms, music may be the one that creates the most intensely personal reaction between the artist and the consumer. I think that it is because at its core music is mainly consumed on a very personal level. When you put on your headphones music becomes an entirely solo experience. Only you are hearing that song at precisely that moment and no one around you can even tell what you are listening to. The act of listening alone changes the facets of a song, which is why listening to a band live is so much different than listening to an album. It is not just the fact that the slick production is missing; listening with others changes the way a song sounds.

Compare this to other media. Movies are meant to be viewed with other people, which is why a comedy is never quite as funny at home as in the theater. Laughter is contagious or so say the people who put laugh tracks on television shows. Television is also more of a group experience and most other performance arts require a crowd. But music is pretty unique in that it can really be an intimate experience with mass produced content.

(Yes, I know I should put books in the same category as music here especially given there is no concert analogue for literature. No one is going, “Dude, did you listen to that Tom Wolfe book reading bootleg I sent you?” A lot of these arguments would fit for books as well. Just go with me for a moment. I mean, what is a good song other than a poem with a good beat.)

What the intimacy of music allows for is a connection between the fan and the artist that no other media can match. A song can speak to you, can be used to inspire you, can become the soundtrack for your life. It can be an enigma in which you spend hours trying to decipher every last meaning. Certain artists become parallels for your own life with their records seeming to tie to every moment you encounter. For me I can say things like “The only thing that kept me going in 1998 were Kelly Willis CDs” or “Every time I listen to Josh Rouse something good happens” and mean every word of it. There is a connection there that can’t be denied and that I have never felt from a movie or a TV show.

The strange thing though is that most, if not all, of that connection comes from the fans themselves. When Kelly Willis recorded “What I Deserve” she did not do so in order to provide me personally with music that made my life worthwhile. She created great songs, songs that she felt had meaning and heart, and hoped that someone out there would listen to them. But the meaning and importance that I put into them are all my own. Same as people do with Bon Jovi songs or Bruce Springsteen tracks or god forbid the latest Creed album. Music creates fans who feel an incredibly personal connection to the music even though it may be one the musician never intended.

Nick Hornby understands that nature of being a fan of music. Yes, sometimes it is very geeky to spend all of your life centered around little discs or computer files that you use to define who you are as a person. But to be honest, I’ll still listen to Kelly after a hard day at the office. At times, music is all you need.