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Music

Things in Music That People Need to Stop Complaining About

Here is everything in music that people need to get over.
Ryan Bassil
London, GB

The internet was built for complaining and if you don’t believe me, then you’re clearly following all the wrong people on Twitter. The assonance of a rogue citizen vacuuming Potsu into their face; the lack of supermarkets that stock Lilt; legislated nostalgia; the world has required information on all sorts of atrocities since the advent of its web.

However, and anyone with a landlord will tell you this, moaning is completely pointless. This is especially true of music. Complain about Billy Corgan, and he will perform an eight-hour freeform synth interpretation of Siddhartha. Tweet Rick Ross telling him his new record is a piece of shit, and he’ll blank you. Musicians don’t have time to read everything on the internet, they’re too busy being philanthropists, actors, brand-associates, part time quad-bike riders - what’s the difference? Despite this, people who like music will complain about the same thing over and over again, thinking that if they do it enough, something will change.

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Change, of course, will not occur. Some things are here to stay and sorry, like that non-consensual relationship you’re entering with the cute little patch of damp above the bed, you’re just going to have to get used to it. Here is everything in music that people need to get over.

CAMERA PHONES AT A SHOW

It’s usually old people that moan about this one mostly because they never had a social media presence to uphold. When they die, nothing will be left but a gravestone and a family squabbling over who receives the prescription meds. But when millenials finally hit the hay, future offspring will be able to relieve their parent’s tumultuous lifestyle through migraine-inducing videos of Kanye West rants and Instagram’s filled with Drake stickers. Jack Black, She and Him and Prince have all tried to ban phones from shows but do they not realise that technology will never go away? That one-day we will be able to live-stream direct from our eyes? That we’re not hurting anyone but simply recording everything so it lasts forever? Complaining about people not enjoying a show because they’re holding an iPhone is a nice sentiment; it shows that you care about the enjoyment of others more than your own. But suck it up, nice boy, we’re all old enough to make our own decisions and pay for them using our own overdraft. Be selfish, ignore the cultural documenters, and concentrate on having your own fun. Or go ahead and film everything like it deserves to be captured and stored for watching while engaging in a post-gig, pre-bed dump. Just, please, stop talking about it.

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THE X FACTOR

A young demi-god about to enter puberty, the X Factor has been omnipresent for ten years. Currently extended to 2016 and clearly not evaporating soon, music fans love to question its immortality, pondering why a show that makes millions of pounds and is the biggest television contest in Europe exists. Is the X-Factor bad for music? No. It’s a television show that your Mum watches, content designed not for someone that enjoys deconstructing the semantics of Pitchfork’s albums of the year, but a demographic that believe the perfect Saturday night is a bottle of medium-range wine and ITV. Like a long-term engagement, pretend that all the bad parts don’t exist, think of the parents, and everything will be peachy.

THE CONCEPT OF SELLING OUT

Despite the fact it’s now virtually impossible to make a living off the back of one vaguely successful EP, lots of people still get annoyed when an indie band realises that, actually, they don’t want to spend weekday evenings foraging in the reduced section at Tesco and actually, they will accept a $400,000 pay cheque from Chipotle, please. The haters are living in the old world, where integrity had a different meaning, and a song would lose all quality once backed by a montage of happy couples or the visuals from the new Martin Scorsese epic. Of course, this isn’t true. Even if something does soundtrack the five-second skippable advert before a YouTube video, who cares? A good song is still a good song and if you think otherwise sorry, but you’re an idiot with fickle tendencies. We’ve all got to eat and WAIT remind me again, what company do you work for?*

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*If you chop down Christmas trees to sell on the side of the A30 and therefore work for yourself, then you are excused.

PEOPLE WHO WILL COMPLAIN THAT THIS ARTICLE IS COMPLAINING ABOUT THINGS PEOPLE NEED TO STOP COMPLAINING ABOUT AND WILL COMPLAIN ABOUT THIS IN THE COMMENT SECTION

Well done, numb-nuts. Do you want a job?

FANS COMPLAINING ABOUT [INSERT BAND NAME HERE] NOT BEING ON SPOTIFY

Humans are a greedy species. Give us a free-bar, we’ll complain that the queue is five-people deep. Hand us a compliment, we’ll stay glued to your back for a week begging for affection. And give us a free music service that contains almost every song ever, and we’ll complain that it doesn’t contain EVERY song ever.

[INSERT BAND NAME HERE] COMPLAINING ABOUT BEING ON SPOTIFY

Then, on the other side of the table, sit the artists who hate being on Spotify - basically Thom Yorke and his book club. To them I say, HI, didn’t you ruin everything in the first place by giving away your album for free?!

DOWNLOADING

And then there's these numbnuts. The people who complain that MP3s are just wrong. They think that even though you can get music at your fingertips for free right this second right now, you should be more like them, buying overpriced physical releases because real art is only limited to nicely packaged things you can hold. Just to let you know guys, it's people like you that ruined the music industry when they failed to adapt to Napster and continued to try to sell double disc albums for £18.99.

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COMPLAINING ABOUT KANYE WEST BEING AN ASSHOLE

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COMPLAINING ABOUT MILEY CYRUS BEING AN ASSHOLE

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COMPLAINING ABOUT EVERYONE ELSE BEING AN ASSHOLE

Basically, assholes will always be assholes.

GUITAR MUSIC BEING DEAD

It’s been approximately five years since guitar music died. Fifteen years if you’ve got a kid. Thirty if you’re getting a pension. Fifty if you’re dead. Yet as long as Fender continue to make guitars and adults continue to make angsty children, then guitar music seems to hang around. The only thing that changes is a generation’s definition and if they’re savvy enough to realise that the entire oyster of music isn’t limited to the same three-bands covered in a mainstream music magazine each week. Basically people who complain about the death of guitar music are really complaining that there are no new guitar bands that share the same limited palate of the first band they went to see when they were 13.

[If desired, apply the base ingredient of the above paragraph to any other genre, rinse, and repeat]

AWARD SHOWS BEING SHIT

Someone is always angry that their favourite band didn’t win the award for Album of the Year because, what’s the point in personal taste if you can’t get it validated by an awarding body of strangers? Most award shows will be terrible forever because the people who run them have interests that lay far beyond picking an album they “really connected with” and made them re-think their whole childhood, so complaining about them is kind of redundant. You guys know that who performs at the Brits or the Grammys is basically decided by which major label is chairing them that year, right? Look, if you’re THAT emotionally invested, invite some friends over, buy some prossecco, book a budget celebrity and do your own awards. Let you do you, sassypants. Or, y’know, just get over it and realise that music isn’t a competition.

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COMPLAINING THAT PEOPLE ARE TWEETING ABOUT A FESTIVAL THAT YOU ARE NOT AT

Basically, the Generation Y equivalent of not getting to sit at the same lunch-table as your friends. Suck it up, it’s called “following” for a reason.

COMPLAINING THAT YOUR FAVOURITE BAND HAS CHANGED THEIR SOUND

It’s well documented that a human is not the same human that they were ten years ago, yet we always exclude celebrities from this rule like they’re a product that should never stray from a perfect formula. How dare Kanye make a record that sounds nothing like The College Dropout?! / Can’t believe Miley Cyrus didn’t want to be a teen with a really fascinating collection of bootleg jeans forever?! / I’m so annoyed Hanson never made another song as good as “Mmmbop”.

It’s not that the complaints aren’t valid, it’s just that, y’know, artists don’t owe us anything. What did you like when you were thirteen? I liked ripping holes in my jumper, navigating my bike through a check-list of recreational locations before finding my friends, and pic’n’mix. But nine years later, the thought of riding a BMX after ingesting approximately 57 pink-and-blue cola bottles is enough to validate nap time. This is the same as any musician. You think Kanye liked pink polos and backpacks ten years ago? Well shut the fuck up, now he’s wearing a skirt. This is called people-can-change-land, it’s great, you’re all invited!

OTHER THINGS THAT ARE ALSO NOT WORTH COMPLAINING ABOUT

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- when Detox is going to be released

- Pitchfork scores

- hip-hop bloggers not "eating tonight"

- EDM

- Pono

- Joey Essex releasing a triple-album of "bangers"

- The Needle Drop

- The UK Top 40

Follow Ryan on Twitter: @RyanBassil

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