The Reception of Wisdom (2/2) By Kenton Hall

(1/2), (2/2).

It's all about received wisdom. We are inundated with media information - so much so that we have learned not to form our own opinions. Go to any party at which the beer has flowed like Deirdre and listen to people spout off about music. You'd need a two-volume bibliography to contain the references and quotations they pass off as their own.

The magazines tell us Coldplay are great, so we believe they are great, buy their records and send Apple Martin to a liberal arts college of her choice. Or, worse still, you believe they're shit because I, or someone else, told you so. See where I'm going with this? Here's another piece of received wisdom. "Music is best made by the young." The obsession with youth in today's culture, and yesterday's culture and the day before that's culture, is immense. Youth is vibrancy. Youth is urgency. Youth is passion.

Youth is stupid. At best, it's a time of learning, of coming to terms with the world in which we live.

Don't get me wrong, there are great young songwriters - but most of the ones who are truly any good get better as they get older. If you try to trot out the Rolling Stones as an example, I will punch you in the throat. Why, because they decided that money and fame were more important than art - and I'd argue that a decimation of faculties has also played its part - does that mean their age is to blame. Received wisdom, again. I started my professional career at 23. I know I'm a better songwriter now, and I'll be a better songwriter in 20 years time. Why? Because I work at it, I learn from others, I expand both my ability and my life experience and I play one off against the other.

Elvis Costello is a good example. Received wisdom would have you believe that he is only ever good when he returns to rock and roll.

All this pitiful experimentation in classical and jazz. Who is he trying to kid? What they actually mean is - "I need a quick fix. I don't want music I actually have to listen to, or think about." Laziness reigns supreme, and we're all sucked into it. So, received wisdom guides you down a path wherein stretching yourself as an artist, following your muse and loving ALL music, not just a particular strain, is a BAD thing.

Received wisdom is insidious. It tells us this artist is COOL, that artist is UNCOOL, as though those distinctions had any bearing on the quality of music being produced. It tells us which windows into our pasts we ought to open. THE TOP 100 ALBUMS YOU MUST OWN! It's superfluous piffle. The 100 albums you must own are the 100 albums that mean something to you. I, personally, believe that the best popular music is art - and that some music regularly as art is not. I can hear craft, passion, melody, lyricism and individuality in every realm of music and I will continue to do my best to investigate and appreciate as much as my limited lifespan will allow.

I think you ought to listen to lyrics more carefully. I think you ought question what's in the charts when it all sounds like the same skinny tie being passed from horny adolescent to horny adolescent, or the same soul cover bastardised beyond recognition, and more importantly, beyond its original grit and gut. I think people in their 20's, 30's, 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's, and onwards should demand music that speaks to their experience - to their successes, losses, dreams and fears. If we are to have a truly free artistic arena, all must be represented.

Tell me I'm wrong about what I like and do not like, for God's sake. Show me that you care enough to disagree. But do it in your own words. Don't read it in a magazine and regurgitate it ad infinitum. LISTEN! LISTEN! LISTEN! www.myspace.com/ist

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