What's cool?

I don’t know who’s gonna follow me on this one, but I’m gonna go off for a minute because I am torn about this. The NME Cool List got me thinking and it brings up a constant battle that goes on in my head.

Let me give you a little background on where I’m coming from. I was raised on Michael Jackson, The Beatles, Bob Marley, Motown, The Dead, Jimmy Cliff and other undeniably great music. When I reached the point at which I was too cool to listen to the same music as my parents I moved on to almost exclusively Nirvana and music that was Kurt Cobain approved like The Pixies and Leadbelly. Soon after, I discovered my love for hip hop and it was all 2Pac, Biggie, and Eminem. Up to this point, music was fed to me and I gobbled it up, but I wasn’t seeking it out.

I didn’t consider myself a real music fanatic until I got into the underground hip hop scene and started digging deep in order to discover a new gem. It started with Atmosphere, which was like my gateway drug, and I quickly became addicted to artists like Aesop Rock, Cage, Madlib, MF DOOM, Typical Cats, Eyedea, Cannibal Ox, Mr. Lif, etc. This is where I got lost in the world of music elitism. If it was on MTV, it was shit as far as I was concerned. I realized that the equivalent to underground hip hop in the rock world was the indie scene, so I latched on to this as well.

My theory was that the mainstream record industry was constructed in such a way that the only music that was successful on a large scale was shallow, instantly gratifying bullshit that hit the radio and disappeared a couple months later. I’m still not totally convinced that this isn’t true, but today I’m pretty open to all music, and I’m just as excited by a fresh Kanye West joint as I am by a new Crystal Castles song. I can definitely identify with the heads that listen to nothing but mainstream rappers just as much as I can with the hipsters that take pride in enjoying some great music that the masses haven’t even heard of.

So when NME comes out with a list of “cool”, I don’t know what to think. Initially, my reaction is “fuck them for telling us who’s cool”, but I also look at the list and I appreciate that it isn’t a toilet bowl filled with MTV’s most played artists, because a lot of those artists don’t even write their own music, and they only blew up because they were willing to sacrifice so much of their personal individuality in order to appeal to the masses. And let’s face it, within mainstream music, whether it be radio, television, or printed, there are plenty of sources influencing our idea of cool.

I guess the only honest way to really appreciate music is to just take it one song at a time as a final product. If an artist can “sell out” and still put out good music, fuck yeah. If they keep it independent and exclusive, and still put out good music, then fuck yeah to that too. Both cool. There’s plenty of mainstream music that is bullshit, and there’s plenty of independent music that is bullshit. But there’s an abundance of music from both extremes that is incredible. So keep it moving, listen to what you like, and decide for your self what’s cool. Hopefully Pigeons and Planes can present a little of both.