The Ceaseless Interplay Between Context and Art

Music is often defined as much by context as by the music itself. Consider the following: a widely known and active white supremacist records an album that is technically brilliant and timelessly poetic. The songs give no indication of the artist’s beliefs. Would you still be comfortable listening to and enjoying the music? Some would, I’m sure, but many others would not. The songwriter’s story is joined to the music and is inextricable from what the listener experiences. A true and loosely analogous scenario involves Charles Manson’s recordings (loosely so because I doubt that his music is brilliant, though I proudly admit to never having heard it). Many don’t realize or recall that one of America’s most infamous serial murderers was once an aspiring musician linked to Dennis Wilson. I once even saw a Charles Manson record listed amongst someone’s all-time favorites. I would guess that most people would be morally repulsed by the music of a killer; on the other hand, fans of the record are doubtlessly drawn by the prospect of violence and perversion spilling out of every word, chord, and pause. Why is Manson the way he is? Might the reason be buried in his music awaiting a careful and empathetic ear?

The story of the creator is important, but so is the context of creation and propagation. Fans of independent and obscuro music are often accused of only appreciating art for the sake of its obscurity, unable to take a more objective approach to what they like and don’t like (which is, of course, an inherently subjective process). I’ve lost count of the times when, after disclosing my distaste for Coldplay or some other radio darling, someone has followed with, “Why, because they’re too commercial?” Well yes, that’s partly it, but that isn’t the only reason I prefer not to listen to Coldplay, Fall-Out Boy, or whatever other band that newly occupies the airwaves and mall shelves. For many, the commodification of music is a growing concern climaxing when Metallica sought to have thousands upon thousands of its fans punished for downloading their music and each time Fergie sets foot in a recording studio. The problem is not that musicians want to earn money, which is a rightful reward for having created something that is desired and consumed. This is a fundamental principle of a market economy and artists justly want to capitalize on the transfer of their music. The problem is that the current commercial environment places a premium on sales rather than art, reducing the industry to the pithy truism of quantity over quality. Music is thus seen—by both artists and labels—as a commodity like any other, to be packaged and moved in an effort to gain the greatest possible returns. When some people listen to some brands of music, this commodification is obvious and the music becomes immediately associated with what many see as a wrong of an exploitative business. Context matters, and it matters no less where commercialism is concerned.

Physical beauty is another important contextual marker that attaches itself to music and alters perceptions of what we hear. Think of the Pussycat Dolls: are these really artists in any real sense? Would people listen to their songs if they weren’t so sexually suggestive, transmitted by sexy women in sexy dress? Remember that Milli Vanilli were selected to front the songs of less marketable singers, and in this summer’s Olympics, Chinese officials decided to have someone they saw as more attractive lip sync the performance of another little girl. Image is important (if not everything), and it helps form the context within which the audience hears the song. The guys from KISS understood this, and that’s probably why they chose to cover their monstrous faces with kitschy make-up.

In the independent and lo-fi communities, some of the most significant contextual markers are defined by who did what, when, and how. Artists that have been the vanguards of a movement or genre are generally well respected by these communities almost apart from what the music actually sounds like. Of course, since these artists help to define movements and genres by anticipating trends and experimenting with existing sounds, they often act as default prototypes against which future creations can be judged. The point is that the context of the music’s production is extremely meaningful. While the Velvet Underground are a great band by nearly any measure, their music is all the more extraordinary given their period of activity. You hear a freshness and revolution in the music that cannot be faked and is as rare as the shifting of musical epochs. On the popular front, Nirvana’s release of Nevermind was a comparable turning point. For my generation, the naked baby of the album cover and the video for “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” signaled a giant leap forward from the hair metal and leftover 80s acts still making the rounds on radio and MTV. Despite being less revolutionary to the independent underground, Nirvana became the face of the alternative movement for the masses, and the music’s place in history is reflective of that. (Kurt Cobain’s larger than life persona and suicide further added to the band’s cache. Again, context.) I even recall seeing the “Teen Spirit” video dominate some short-lived Nickelodeon countdown show.

So context matters. It informs what we hear and how we hear it, and it should be clear that no art is ever consumed apart from circumstances that many argue should be ignored or condemned as inconsequential. Perhaps most importantly, the circumstances contribute something meaningful to the consumer and should be welcomed and understood rather than shunned and disconnected.