How to enjoy every genre, according to Jeff Tweedy
As a teenager, what you hate can be just as defining as what you love. It’s not enough to champion your favourite artists with a fervour bordering on obsessive; there’s an equal need to single out some unfortunate musician and declare them, in the uniquely half-formed but fiercely adamant way that only teenagers can, the absolute worst thing ever. Such is the timeless ritual of youth.
From Colonel Tom Parker selling “I Hate Elvis” badges to Johnny Rotten strutting around London in a homemade “I Hate Pink Floyd” T-shirt to the modern-day flame wars between fandoms stoked by record labels for social media engagement. In a truly charming video for the YouTube channel Topic, Jeff Tweedy puts forth a compelling counterargument to that attitude.
Growing up as a punk in the early 1980s, Tweedy talks about being no stranger to hating things for the sake of hating them. Over a whimsical animated video, Tweedy says, “We made fun of our friends that listened to Neil Young ’cause he was a hippie, and we thought that hippies were the enemy.” Now, it’s easy to believe that this is part of being a teenager. This is just what happens when hormones and a developing taste meet the security that comes from finding your tribe. Tweedy, though, has a different take.
Typically, from one of the most thoughtful songwriters of his generation, Tweedy looks a little deeper. He says, “Rock and roll culture and counter-culture, the ’60s, and the notion of teen rebellion and just the general idea of a generation gap is a bill of goods that was destructive and sold to people as marketing.” Which is basically bang on the money. Never forget that the very idea of a teenager was one created by a marketing firm to capitalise on the fact that kids now had free time and disposable income.
Tweedy goes on to discuss how tribalism traps young people in their own ignorance. He said: “It doesn’t help anybody to seal yourself off from the wisdom of people older than you, who have been through more than you.” To me, this doesn’t necessarily mean ‘shut up and respect your elders’; it means keeping an ear open to those different from you if only to know your enemy.
As if proving that very sentiment, Tweedy puts credit where credit is due, unlike many of his generation. “If there’s something good about the internet,” he says, “It’s that the time periods of culture are all happening, all at once, all the time, and so it’s not as easy to draw borders around high art and low art and valid ideas and invalid ideas.” That’s not to say the death of “accepted wisdom” isn’t one of the things destroying the planet, but when it comes to music, its availability means that ideally, anyone can make their own opinion.
He ends the video by saying: “I listen to a lot of music that I hate all of the time because I always feel like I should go back and give it another chance. I think it’s a healthy, humble place to be to remind yourself that you can be fallible in your initial assessments or your current assessment of something.”
This can only be a good thing for us as music listeners. Minds change, so we should use modern technology to open our minds and discover what our tastes actually are for ourselves. Without resorting to gatekeepers, tastemakers or critics. Wait, shit.
