The Ultimate Rule of Music

Flying defiant to the very title of this blog, as is the contradictory nature of music, is the number one truth about music. Possibly the only truth. One which we all deny, and we all break. Me included. But it helps to remember it.

If at least one person likes a piece of music, then it is good music.

Thus, there is no such thing as bad music.
 Think about it. Nothing can define "good music". Music journalists (scum of the earth, but thats another topic) claim to know what is good and what isn't. People endlessly make top ten lists of popular music or popular songs, simply replacing the word "popular" with "best".

But everyone consistently forgets that music is a subjective art. You like some music. Someone else likes other music. Between everybody on the planet, everybody likes everything and simultaneously everyone hates everything. There isn't a single song, band, artist or album where you can't find just as many haters as well as rabid fans.

Sometimes the haters outnumber the fans disproportionately, as is the case with a lot of music I listen to and love. Society would have us think that, like school, music is a popularity contest, so that if more people hate something rather than like it, then it is awful trite and should be labelled as such.

This is not the case.

I've said this in a previous post; When music plays, the speakers vibrate the air, and when these oscillations reach my ears they move my eardrums which my nervous system then converts into electrical signals and my brain interprets this as music. This is the only way in which music should ever be judged. When those vibrations reach my ears, if I like it then I like it. If I don't, then I don't. Someone else probably does.

So never forget. If literally everyone in the world says that your new favourite band X absolutely sucks and makes awful music, remember the rule. You like them, right? That means they're good at what they're doing. And you can continue listening, safe and smug in the knowledge that you're listening to music that they're all missing out on.

And that's perfectly ok.

Keep loving music,
Vinnie