I have a long and chequered history of listening to music that my parents and other assorted 'old folk' quite often referred to as 'bloody noise'. It started from the humble beginnings of quite liking the guitar sound on Status Quo's 'Down Down' when I was about 6, and from there grew slowly but surely into enjoying the serious hard rock (?) of Bon Jovi, before hearing Metallica perform 'Sad But True' at the Freddie Mercury Tribute show and forever becoming a convert to all things loud and Metal.
This love of the loud stuff wasn't always appreciated by those around me. I vividly recall borrowing the latest Testament CD from one of my friends, banging it on the stereo in the living room, only to be politely asked about a song and a half in to 'turn that bloody racket off, you can't even hear what he's shouting about!', which was frankly a bit mean, as I could clearly hear the lyrics hailing the coming armageddon, and besides, who needs to know what he's on about when the damn drums are that good and the guitars are shredding with abandon.
It didn't get any better when I discovered such classic Thrash recordings as Slayer's 'Reign in Blood', and the awesome 'Arise' by Sepultura. The vocals on that recording (which I had on a tape cassette, by the way) made the Testament record sound positively melodic. And as one, the 'Old Folk' rose up and said 'Neil, this isn't music. It's noise. You can't hear the words, and it's all too loud. In our day, the records actually had people who could play their instruments. These bands you like are just idiots with guitars'. That was the cue for the young Neil to retire to his bedroom, gather his tapes and walkman, plug in and seethe quietly at the lack of grown-up understanding of real music, probably whilst listening to the latest from Napalm Death.
I'm now the wrong side of 30. Well, the wrong side if you're under 30. I can still quite happily mosh my head off in a thrash pit, and the last gig I went to was Slipknot, supported by Machine Head. My only slight worry is that sometimes when I hear a new band come out now, I can quite often hear their influences and feel I've heard it before, and it was probably done better, but I don't think I'm tired or bored of music that was always considered 'noise'. Except that I have recently been exposed to a record of such alarming vulgarity that my previous impervious attitude towards 'noise' has been forever altered. John Travolta, he of the Bee-Gee pointy-dance fame, released a record with one Miley Cyrus, daughter of Country singer Billy Ray Cyrus (the subject of a Bill Hicks tv pitch to some executives - 'Let's Hunt and Kill Billy Ray Cyrus') that is so horrifically screamed, it makes Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickinson sound like a school choirboy. It's not so much sung with power as sung like someone has skewered both their feet with rusty nails and you can hear the gangrene creeping up their bodies there and then. Crikey, its not music, its noise, and I'm saying that as someone who's typing whilst Metallica's 'The End Of The Line' is playing.
This sad tale leaves me with a couple of options. Either I myself have finally succumbed to that which is inevitable, that being the fact that at some point, you will become like your parents and be out of touch with 'yoof' and at a stroke, become old and not cerebrally able to understand what 'The Kids' are trying to transmit. Or, alternatively, Miley Fricken' Cyrus really is as godawfully rubbish as she sounds, and I just happen to have called it correctly that she sucks. Given that her Dad was responsible for 'Achy Breaky Heart', I'm going to play the 'hereditary sucking' card, but I'll have to ultimately leave it up to you to decide if it's just me that's past it.
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