Moving Beyond The Music

We resort to all kinds of means and ways just to get to know our favourite artists better. We join fanclubs and buy decals, we copy his hairstyle or her make-up, we follow them on twitter. We also receive them at the airport, forgo sleep for an autograph or two and hold up the rest of the line for a photograph. Yet, there is a dire sense in which so many people are missing the point.

To authentically know the heart of the singer or band you admire, you need only to look at their art in entirety. This you will never find on a fansite, nor on a sticker, nor with a felt-tip pen. Musicians are not gods. They are like us, except with a gift to think their thoughts more beautifully, vernacularise their vicissitudes more elegantly and sing their struggles more passionately.

Each song is a painting of its writer's psychological landscape. Each lyric is a fragment of his consciousness. Each note adds colour to it, and is meant to bring your eyes closer to his than your imagination could ever afford. Unfortunately, most of us pay more attention to the colouring than to that which is being coloured. Which is why we don't really know these singers even though we know so much about them.

You see, musicians echo the world. They echo you and me. Some of them are on the search. "Trapped in God's program / Oh I can't escape / Who are we?" - Muse in Exogenesis: Symphony Part 1 from The Resistance. Some of them get by with scarred souls. "So for those of you falling in love / Keep it kind, keep it good, keep it right / Throw yourself in the midst of danger / But keep one eye open at night." - Rachael Yamagata in Elephants from Elephants...Teeth Sinking Into Heart. Some of them believe that they have found hope. "I've got a plan to lose it all / I've got a contract pending on eternity." - Switchfoot in Loser from The Beautiful Letdown.

Perhaps, when we learn to appreciate this, we will realise that a particular singer or band is in fact too naïve or shallow for our liking. Perhaps we will realise that a particular singer or band actually had so much to tell us about the world and about themselves, but we just never bothered to move beyond the music.

So when we finally bring ourselves to see the connection between sound and substance, the fourth wall of showbiz and plastic covers will truly be demolished. And then we can start to experience genuine eargasms.