(For the years 2012 through 2015 an NCS supporter from India who went by the name deckard cain contributed some interesting year-end lists that we posted as part of our annual Listmania series, and he reviewed songs and albums for us too during that same interval. Then he drifted away, but he has returned after a six-year absence with a new YE list that’s worth your investigation.)
Ever come across that often ludicrous brand of idiot who will tell you without any scruples “Oh metal! Yes! I had a phase when I listened to Metallica when I was younger”? Suggesting perhaps that it was a phase that normal humans just wean out of? An affront to our sensibilities yes, but we reply with a modicum of decency, “Oh cool! That’s good to know”. Most of us that follow this brand of music, more often than not, respect all other genres in its variedness. But then there is this guy.
When a world is as mangled as it is today, it’s been our vaccine against the virus of life. It’s been that soothing salve. It’s been our choice of anodyne. It’s been our muse. It’s always been everything to us all.
Of course! Most of us listen to it as leisure as well and for that pure sense of enjoyment that is often our wont. Nolan Gasser, a musicologist, suggests in his book Why you like it: The Science and Culture of Musical Taste that one tends to have a particular affiliation for music we lend an ear to in our formative years (think late teens/early adulthood). To that end, I feel that while musical tastes may vary, that anger and fire we looked to in early stages of our lives is always with us to the grave. Some of us stuck onto metal and some of us found it in our later years to clearly resonate with the fire that was lit ages ago. Coloured as they are by our different social, economic, and cultural backgrounds.
I think then, it’s important to harken back to our good times and yet hold that familiar pain, that slice of reality, that these last two years have bequeathed to us….close… Holding them tight…. So tight that we may hope for a better future or be swallowed by it! Lending us, at the least, some sense of perseverance (success be damned!).
So, let’s get started shall we? Tune our channels to dread 666 and find solace within it! Continue reading »
