We human beings are tribal. We haven’t evolved very long. We form allegiances easily and get ourselves bogged down in them so that we find it hard to adapt and change.
I listen to programmes where someone chooses songs that they identify with and it is inevitably choices from the era in which they were young and forming their identity.
I am a child of the sixties. My likes and preferences still reverberate around the idealism, positive attitudes, political involvement, social improvement, and sensitivities of that era. I have great distrust of the establishment and authorities. I have seen the bad decisions, lies and prevarication. I do not like being manipulated.
My choice in music tends to be the rebellious anti-establishment music. I like music that says something or represents something. I am not happy with a ‘product’ or a ‘pop song’. Rock Music to me is rebellion.
It was not until I ran my History of Rock Music classes and wrote my books on Rock Music that I realised how partisan I had been about different genres. There were whole areas that I had written off because they did not square with my ‘tribe’. When I came to teach about them and had to listen I found there were lots of good things in there.
I am less partisan now but am still a victim of my era to a great extent though I do my best to keep an open mind. I hate the sanitised, over-produced ‘product’ being put out by the major labels at the moment. I miss the unified rebellion of the sixties underground and punk movement.
Music isn’t just entertainment for me; it’s reinforcement of my idealism. It is the glue of the tribe I align myself with. It’s an identity thing. It is a passion.