Something that's really been getting on my nerves is all the negativity surrounding musicians on the Internet. It seems that all people want to do is bitch and moan about things that they don't like rather than talk about things they enjoy and I don't understand it.
Recently, a fairly controversial and polarising figure in the UK punk scene released a new album and my Twitter feed became full of hate and negativity towards them. Before going any further, I feel like I should point out the person in question has not done anything illegal to earn the ire of the punk community nor have they, as far as I'm aware, done anything to hurt anyone associated with it. Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. As far as I'm aware, all they've done to offend folk is have political views that others don't agree with and come from a privileged background (something that's not their fault). I find it very interesting that a lot of people are getting annoyed by these things now that the artist in question is quite popular in the mainstream rather than when they were making music that fit in more with the punks. That's just an opinion though and not actually what the point of this column actually is.
I used to love the artist in question and some of their earlier albums were among my favourite releases of the time. Then they started to expand their sound and I slowly but surely began to fall off the wagon. But do you know what I did? It wasn't take to the Internet to complain that someone I liked is now making music that I don't with some kind of egotistical view that people should make music specifically for my tastes. What I did was go find a bunch more artists and bands that I do love that I didn't before and I moved on. I evolved.
We are lucky enough to live in a time when it has never been easier to get access to new music. Very often for free – and totally legally as well. On the line there are numerous streaming services, music websites and blogs (like the one you are reading right now), most of which have some kind of discover new music section where you can – you guessed it – discover new music! Madness! Not the band, they're old, unless you're just discovering them, then they are new music. I have an app on my phone called Level Up Life where you gain imaginary XP for doing simple tasks in your life that are designed to improve you as a person, one of those things is find a new band you love. So almost every day I set aside five or ten minutes just to find a new band that I love. Then I tell people about it. It's a nice feeling to find a band that you enjoy and then to suggest them to someone else and they then also love it. I find that really rewarding, much more rewarding than telling somebody how rubbish something is.
Social Media is such a big part of our lives now that sometimes it can be quite hard to remember what we did before it? Did we spend out spare time telling people how much we don't like something? I don't remember doing so, it seems a pretty odd concept really. I've noticed from doing CPRW, and from speaking to people, that people seem to be far more interested in reading something that is negative rather than positive. It seems as if a negative headline is more clickbait than a positive one. That's really weird. Almost everyone is guilty of it, myself included – I guess our brains are wired that way. Before social media took over our lives, this was still the case with gossip. We are all guilty of enjoying a bit of gossip now and again. Gossip was, and still is, a way of talking about news that tends to detail someones misfortune. If it was talking about something nice that's happened to someone, that's just good news and it doesn't seem to spread anywhere as quickly as gossip does.
I know there is a counter argument that people like to have a good moan or whatever else about things they don't like because it makes them feel better. I get that, getting out your frustrations about something is a great form of catharsis. I love a good rant about something. Emma loves it when I come home from work and just destroy everything that's got on my nerves or even made me angry during that day. It happens far too frequently, perhaps I need a new job? For me though, I have my rant and move on and focus on something that I like. When I have a bad day, I like to come home and focus on something I like, not something that I hate. I assume that's not just me?
In my ideal world, we would only ever talk about the music we love and champion that rather than spend time moaning about something we don't like. I know it's a very idealistic and probably quite naïve vision but it would be lovely. Surely the music scene in general, not just punk rock, would be a much better place in a community sense as well as a commercial one if everyone just focussed on what they like. My favourite conversations with people are talking about music we like – even if I don't always enjoy what the other person does, it's great to hear people talking passionately about something they love. It's also got to be better for a person's mental health. I learnt from doing some cognitive behaviour therapy a few years ago that I will feel much happier when I'm thinking about things I enjoy rather than getting annoyed by things I don't. It's common sense really!
In closing this probably quite disjointed column/article/essay/maybe-hypocritical-rant I have a small request: Next time you hear something you don't enjoy, instead of taking to the world wide web and telling everybody that something is rubbish; stop yourself, find something you like and post about that instead. I think you'll feel better about it and you'll be sharing cool music, as well as helping out one of your favourite bands.
This column was written by Colin Clark.
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