Sound Theory

I am back at it with why I like old things, but from a different, less functional and possibly even a poor standpoint to some. I did not grow up in the 80s, nor am I particularly fond of that music, but a man from that era will argue to the grave why it was the best thing to ever grace the earth. I found myself in a similar less confrontational scenario at work about a week ago, scrolling through a thousand suggestions, podcasts, new songs my favorite artists were putting out, WW2 history channels, and I just couldn’t pick from all of the options. I set my phone down and “Animal I Have Become” wrung into my ears through my old ear buds, in its old crackly glory.

New music is fantastic of course, it has the same heart, the same drive behind it that we have put into storytelling and expression for thousands of years, but that song and the dozen more 20 year old songs itched something in my brain that had been neglected. The audio is subpar, the visuals look ok with their awful lighting, but it’s what I wanted in that moment. It woke something up in me and made everything feel simple and easy, I wasn’t overloaded with a perfect song that has perfect instrumentals, and a perfect, well lit, music video, with a dozen well dressed backups dancing around the lead.

It was just raw, it spoke to me in a way that most new songs do not, no different from watching an old movie that doesn’t look that great, but you love it. I don’t think it’s purely nostalgia, there’s more to it, it’s the feedback of imperfection that keeps you listening, it keeps you watching. You can watch an old movie now, such as “No Country for Old Men” when the dog gets shot on the riverbank, it’s obviously a fake, stuffed dog. That’s the feedback I miss, when you could pick something apart, when someone’s voice cracks and they fall out of character, or they mess up shooting a video and have to play it off instead of washing it out with CGI.

That all being said nostalgia does play into all this, or maybe the trauma, whatever one goes through in life. For example, I listened to a lot of Linkin Park growing up, and to this day I remember leaning my head up against a frosty school bus window with my knock off iPod next to my ear. My broken corded headphones laying in a small pocket in my backpack, I never needed perfect sound, I just needed the sound in my ears.

This all goes to live music even, why do we like that? It doesn’t sound as good as what you can get through any streaming service, not even close, but it’s real and you’re there, surrounded by people that are all there with you for the same reason. The same as a drive in movie theater, how we don’t have more of those is beyond me, yes it is a lot more comfortable to sit on your couch covered in blankets and watch one at home, but there’s something engaging about planning to go park in a grass lot, whether it be to watch the movie or spend time with someone.

Trying to be a perfect society has robbed us of something, we do not engage life like we once did, we sit in our homes with our perfect instrumentals and perfect movie scenes, and it has began to bore me, it’s depressing in a way. There is something gorgeous about the imperfections of life that transcends into every aspect of it, and I think we would all be a lot happier exploring the imperfections of life, from live music that will never sounds as good as it did in the studio, to a low budget film that doesn’t look great but did everything else right.