The Good, The Bad, and Jessica Simpson

I have two celebrities as neighbors. They both live right across the street and have become my friends. One is an elderly man named Danny Glover. Actually, he prefers 'Dan', but I refer to him as 'Danny' when he's not around. Sometimes I call him Roger Murtaugh, but that's one of the many hilarious references that no one around me gets. Next to Roger is my good friend Dave Penny. He harks from Zimbabwe and happens to look and sound exactly like Rod "Forever Young" Stewart. This brings me to the topic at hand: Rod Stewart sucks. People's taste in music is the mystery of the universe.

The question is: Is music taste really subjective, or is it simply inversely related to a person's ignorance? The ignorance argument definitely has a strong case, and the only one with real evidence. Boy bands, Jessica Simpson (whose face, when she sings, is like that Nazi's face at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark), Aaron Carter, and any of the songs used in shows on the WB - all are targeted to tweens and teens. Going one step further - lullabies. I have a 9 month old son named Sam, so I know about these songs. They suck. They're targeted to people who crap their pants.

But what about the other music out there? Let's use me as an example. There was a time when I thought Radiohead was a loser band with only one good song, Creep. Then I was enlightened and now I own all of their albums and a fair amount of B-sides. What about contemporary Christian music? There is some stuff that I think is awesome, but its mostly on the same tier as the music of some teenage youth group guys who write a song for the last night of youth camp. Lots of generics in the music and the lyrics. Luckily, there are some bands out there that really know what they're doing.

That brings us to the subjective argument: people like what they want to like. Even to the point, I believe, of being blind to the inherent quality of the music. If Christian music was really awesome, wouldn't non-Christians listen to it, regardless of their beliefs? I mean, many Christians like music by druggies who only sing about sleeping with someone they hardly know or about partyin'. Many Christians listen to Christian music like a mother listens to her son's music - they like it before they hear it and fully support it. I think that's fine. But what of the musician? Shouldn't the music be a means of getting non-believers to embrace the message? I think many of the Christian musicians live in the bubble of Believers and don't feel the burden of producing quality. For many of the songs, take God out of the lyrics and you've got Journey's long, lost B-side crap.

I'm too tired of talking about this to delve into the world of Country music. Some of it is awesome and timeless. Most of it is a contrived Hallmark card sung by some guy who's proud to be an uneducated hick.

Of course, I love Tom Jones, so what do I know?