adamsfriendjoe

This isn’t necessarily, as the title may imply, about whether you can fall in love with, date, marry and eventually spend your wrinkly days with a musician, however interesting such an article may be. Instead, this is about the idea of really loving, bordering on being obsessed with, the music of any particular artist. Is there one artist or band that you just love: they can do no wrong, the majority of their songs are masterpieces and you know you always love them, a belief so strong you are willing to tattoo it across you chest? I for one cannot.

Now this isn’t going to be an article ridiculing or criticising people who do ‘worship’ a particular artist or band. Frankly, there is absolutely nothing wrong with it and I really like the idea of loving an artist that much. However, I just have never experienced that passion. I certainly like a lot of bands across a lot of genres. A few of the artists and bands I particularly like at the moment are (not all necessarily new bands, but ones I’m still fond of listening to) The Research, Neon Plastix, We Are Scientists, Sufjan Stevens, The Teenagers, Final Fantasy, Late of the Pier and the remixes of Chewy Chocolate Cookies. I would not say though, that I love any of these bands intently. Even artists that I have listened to from an early age, such as Glassjaw, Mars Volta, Thursday and funk greats like Funkadelic, Gap Band, Average White Band, and who I still really like listening to, I would not say I am obsessed with.

I find there is always some little thing about them I don’t quite like, or I think that they do really good music but am not always in the mood to listen to that type of music, or they are too new and I want to see what their next album is like etc. There is always something to prevent me from declaring that I love that band without question and always will, that they are inspired, moving, sum me up perfectly, and so on.

However, after talking to my friend, an eternal Morrissey fan, about this briefly, I do not think that people who ‘love’ a particular artist are that different. She doesn’t like some of Morrissey’s songs anywhere near to others and listens to a vast array of other genres, some that are quite significantly different to the likes of Morrissey. So, arguably, she views Morrissey in a similar way to how I view the artists I really like. The difference, though, is that she will defend Morrissey to the end and has a passion to be envied when discussing anything to do with him. And when she meets others with this same passion for Morrissey (and there are many, even in the quite town of Egham), an instant bond is created. Loving Morrissey like this can actually be enough foundation for an entire friendship.

And Morrissey is just one example. I know plenty of other people who love a certain artist or band in the same way as my friend, which makes me question: why not me? Why do I not feel that passion for a particular artist? I believe I feel that passion about music in general, as you may notice by the general musical focus of my posts, but I have never really experienced that passion about one artist in particular.

So what do you think about this passion and why is it so elusive? Is there an artist you love? Perhaps it is a matter of dedication and I am just too lazy. Or perhaps my time is yet to come. Sometime in the future I will shout down anyone who says something against a particular artist and realise that I too have become one of the worshippers.