May 15ths
5/15/1997 As a songwriter, I find it to be immensely important to write compelling music--music that is exciting. I will admit that controversy is indeed exciting. To be on the cutting edge of art is exciting--this is where the music industry wants to be (and needs to be--the music industry is in a serious slump). But is it really "music", and is it really "art"? I got into a serious discussion a few days ago with a friend, and I was giving him my thoughts about music and art. I had come to some tentative conclusions that "good music" is not necessarily "good art", and was trying to articulate' my hypothesis. A piece of music can be well crafted, but in the context of current musical tastes, can be deemed "bad art" because it fails to consider what the current American cultural psyche is. As an exercise, I threw out some words that I think describe our current pop psyche: trash, kill, rape, rip-off, blood, worthless, death, dec...
