June 17, 2004
Music, like all forms of art, allows us to express ourselves to others. Music can convey the full rage of human emotions. Music we love is any that touches us in whatever way we are feeling or want to feel.
It is a given that not all of us feel the same way or enjoy music in the same way.
Some of us love lyrics. We are thrilled by the combination or words and stanzas drawing pictures in our heads like poetry can if done well.
Some of us, like myself, love the music itself. We like the use of instruments and voices into a compact container of sound. I love music with strings, horns, and good percussion.
I can't fathom how anyone could enjoy rap music yet my family shakes their heads at my fondness for female rock singers.
The joy of music is finding that song or album that ripples through your entire being and it seems when we do we have a mission to spread that music to every corner of our world.
I am an evangelist for the band The Corrs. In case you've never heard of them *gasp!* they are 3 sisters and 1 brother from the town of Dundalk Ireland. Since their debut in 1995, they have sold more than 20 million albums around the world.
The problem with being an evangelist is sometimes you can become unbalanced. Rationality leaves you and you can become obsessive, abusive, ignorant, and a general ass. Being an uber fan some how turns off the switch of reason. Nothing your favorite band does is wrong. The newest album is always the GREATEST YET!!!! The members of the band live in your fantasy world where they don't eat, go to the bathroom, or have sex (well maybe there is sex but it is your fantasy so...). You blame President Bush because none of the band waved at you at their last concert.
Lucky for me I am able to control my uber fandom so that I remain balanced. My fantasy world is limited to thoughts of the woman at work that has the same break time I do and the girl at the neighborhood Taco Bell that I would like to date.
Uber Fandom isn't always positive.
There are plenty of fans of singers and bands who never want to see them change and grow as artists. Or they think that any attempt to cash in on their success as a sell out.
The reason they do this is because they want to freeze time at the point they started liking the particular singer or band.
There are plenty of fans of the Ziggy Stardust era of David Bowie who think the "Let's Dance" era is crap and vise versa. How many Beatles fans do you know who hate Yoko Ono and blame her for the band's break up?
I guess some people want to be contrary because they think they are protecting a member of the family.
The biggest thrill I get as a listener and Uber Fan is hearing a new song from a favorite band or singer. At first there is unease, because I'm not sure I will like it, then there is a gush of excitement when I find I do or a crush of disappointment if I don't.
There have been many bands and singers I liked who took a turn in their career and left me by the road pinning for the earlier days. Madonna is one. I loved her work up until she changed into a dominatrix and put out albums about S & M. She then tried singing modern standards and I waited. Finally she came back into my tastes even though she isn't singing the same songs I loved back in 1984.
Time passes. The Uber Fan needs to embrace it. Enjoy the time we have with these artists we like and root for them when they do well and yell at them when we think they screw up but keep on buying their music.