| Which purpose as a
possible end of art has always caused me to raise my fists and shake
them at the firmament, insisting that music’s sole motive should
be to incite, & to provoke, & to generally rile up the listener
so severely that he can’t relax at all while it’s playing,
and so that he feels moved to somehow act once it finally stops.
Plenty of people have agreed with me on this point, too, or else why
would Billie Holiday be so popular? She alone among jazz singers combines
approach & iconography in such a way that even the most soothing
song becomes a complicated matrix of seduction and pain. So: I am
sympathetic to the heavy metal urge to reject any and all music that
threatens to lull the listener into a state of easy, heavy-lidded
contemplation. But then again, and then again... |
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