Last March, I spent ten dollars for an album hoping that it would suck.
That album was Different Gear, Still Speeding by Beady Eye, the band formed by the remaining members of Oasis when Noel Gallagher quit the band. And I, like many, had always followed the belief that Noel Gallagher was the brilliant and talented songwriter who guided a ragtag bunch to musical greatness while the other members, particularly his brother Liam, rode his coattails and selfishly grabbed unwarranted attention. And given my belief, I wanted to listen to this album and just absolutely fucking hate it. I wanted to find it a collection of godawful, tuneless mess of songs clumsily attempted by the arrogant, spoiled guys who surely were the ones to blame for the downfall of the greatest band of my lifetime (yeah, I said it).
What I heard, rather, was the best album I'd heard since, conservatively, the Black Keys album Brothers. But rather than rave about how Beady Eye wildly surpassed my expectations, I'm going to talk about why I'm an idiot.
Whether or not the Beady Eye album was good is beside the point. I think so, and you all should check it out, but why would I want the album to fail? Unless you have some kind of personal vendetta against a musician (I don't against Beady Eye; I questioned their collective talents but it's not like Gem Archer punched my mother or something), why would I want Beady Eye to fail? To substantiate my own bullshit theories that 1. Nobody cares about, and 2. I don't have any sort of stake upon being correct?
There's a big difference between music and sports. If somebody does well in sports, it means somebody else does poorly, and vice versa. So if I root against the Yankees, it's also partially because I want to see the underdog (even if relatively so) succeed. But in music, success (as defined not by record sales but by making good music) benefits the world as a whole. The fact that The Beatles were changing the world musically in the 1960s didn't in turn make The Kinks worse--if anything it made them better, but certainly there is no good reason to root against the Beatles to make good music.
But this doesn't even just apply to bands you like. Take Journey, a band that, if you've read this blog, you know that I completely fucking despise. I hate everything about Journey--their pretension, their sycophantic lyrics, their masquerading as a great band. But should I root against them? If Journey, with their stupid little karaoke singer, records the modern day White Album, should I get mad? Or should I be happy that I can now listen to a wonderful piece of music? Well, I should be happy, but maybe I'm just an inconsolable douchebag. And thus it's entirely possible I'd be mad. Not bad at their success as much as mad that I was wrong.
The absurd Schadenfreude extends well beyond music though. Look at movies. For instance, this Friday will mark the release of the new Adam Sandler movie Jack and Jill, which will probably be terrible. Probably. But what if I watch the movie and enjoy it? Maybe I will find it hilarious. Maybe I'll find it life-altering and worthy of Oscar buzz. Again, probably won't happen, but why should I go into a movie expecting that the next hour and a half plus of my life are going to be a complete waste of time? Would my life not be better if I watched it and thought it was good? It's not like I'm in some kind of pool where I'm betting for Jack and Jill to suck. If Jack and Jill is the best movie I've seen since Fargo, then that is a good thing. It doesn't matter who makes it.
So why root against Beady Eye or Adam Sandler or any performer? Would the world be better if we'd instantly dismissed The Godfather as another of Marlon Brando's underdeveloped vanity pieces or if we deemed Led Zeppelin IV as pretentious garbage by the bunch of stoned hippies who couldn't tell if they were metal or folk because they were too stoned to tell the goddamned difference? I personally think not. And if you disagree, than you, sir or ma'am, are worse than Hitler.
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