“Classical” Music

What a load of stuffy crap classical music is. It belongs to an earlier era. It is largely the preserve of the pompous and pretentious. You only have to look at the stuffy academics, the rich fat upper-class and the dangerously old who go to classical concerts in order to get an idea of what it’s like. Given the other, more popular and more prevalent forms of music out there, why bother with it? Classical music takes a long time to get into, while you can get as much as you want straight away from pop music. Where’s the fun in having to try hard studying music, when all you want to do is listen to it? It defeats the object.

Of course, there are those that point to new forms of classical music, such as film music. It isn’t dead, they say, it’s still going strong. This supposedly proves that classical music still has a place in the world, and that it must service its purpose well, otherwise other forms of music would by now have taken its place. But to these people, I say this: Film music is designed to augment films, not to be listened to in its own right. This hardly lends support towards the music itself.

They say that classical music has more depth, can convey stories with greater emotion and is written by geniuses who know more about musical forms than is the case with pop music.

Perhaps so. But most music that you will ever buy will be listened to once. By that, I mean that the first time is when you really listen to it. After that, it’s just played in the background while you go and do something else. If music is listened to in this way – as it usually is – then why do you need music that has any more depth? You just want it to sound good. This way, it serves its purpose of relaxing and entertaining on the first listen and being good background music to half-listen to thereafter. As for “stories with greater emotion”: anything that can be said in classical music can be said in the form of words – namely, lyrics. Besides, there is plenty of good pop music that conveys a good story; it just takes time to experiment with music a bit and filter out the crap. It doesn’t matter how genial someone is, if it fulfils the above objectives then it does its job.

Pop music even gives us additional benefits that “classical” music doesn’t have. It is classified into genres that are meaningful to us, which help us to choose our own musical tastes. There are those who prefer R&B, those who prefer dance and electronica. If you stick to albums and artists under these specific headings, then you generally know what to expect and you probably won’t be disappointed. Similarly, music is an art, and as such it cannot be described nor quantified in terms of being better or worse. Instead, it should be judged on how it makes you feel.