A careful response

Apparently someone out there is not happy with me(not that THAT is an unusual situation! lol).

From just down the street(so to speak)at SGBlogNews, I am being taken to task for "lamenting" the passing of the so-called "good ol' days". I am further being advised to "wake up and smell the roses", evidently inferring that I am missing out on a lot of great gospel music being made today, merely because my own tastes tend to gravitate more toward the gospel music made in years past.

Perhaps I am...but I simply don't think so. To the rest of those contentions, I simply say "hogwash"!

One thing I am very careful about doing(here and on gospel music message boards)is not attacking the musical tastes of others. Even though I may personally question the musical tastes of those who don't enjoy a lot of the quartet music of yesteryear in favor of what I consider to be the relatively lyrically challenged, derivative, sterile, and shallow music of today, you will not see or hear me ever attack the likes and dislikes of those whose tastes differ from mine.

Still less will you ever see or hear me infer that those whose tastes differ from mine OUGHT to stop listening to what they like, and listen instead to what I like, because they NEED to hear what they're missing.

I'm sorry that this particular individual feels that I go on too much about the music I like in my own blog, which people are free to read or not read, and agree or disagree with the conclusions drawn. Perhaps in the future I'll start discussing music I'm not as familiar with(out of choice), and concluding every such observation with a hearty recommendation, regardless of whether I enjoy the music within or not.

I am very aware that times change, sometimes for the better, sometimes not. For example, in terms of technology, science, and medicine(among three)there have been innumerable ways in which our lives are richer and of higher quality and convenience than they've ever been. I am personally a beneficiary of such progress, and I hail it.

On the other hand, I have also noticed changes in schools, personal morality, and social and fashion customs. I don't see quite the same kinds of progress in those areas...in fact, I see a great deal of regression in such aspects of our lives. Clearly then, the mere passing of time does not alone guarantee "progress" in any given area.

I won't even BEGIN to discuss where televison and radio fit in to this particluar line of thinking, IMO.

And I won't go into a detailed musical analysis, either, of why I prefer the gospel music of the 1950s and 1960s to the gospel music of today, in general. You don't care, for one thing, and for the purposes of this entry it is merely sufficient to say that I prefer the music of those older eras to that of today.

And for this, I'm criticized? Well, at least I'm guilty of THAT criticism...other types of criticism, I'm not nearly as guilty of.

And with that, my rebuttal ends. All I can say here for now is that I like what I like, and I know why I like it! And for those who like something different, I'm glad you enjoy it. I will never tell you not to enjoy a lot of the gospel music made today, regardless of how uninspired, uncreative, and uninspiring I think it might be.

For contrary to the assertions of some observers, music is NOT an empirical science, where good and bad can be objectively measured to an absolute standard. It is, and always will be, ultimately a matter of personal taste.

And my personal tastes are firmly based in the gospel music of the 1950s and 1960s, because that was the gospel music that first made a noteworthy impression upon me, and continues to to this day...thus, in a sense, it's still MY contemporary music.

And a fella can do a LOT worse than be stuck in the social, musical, and moral standards of those days.

So those of you who care to read the musings of this "inquiring mind", I'll continue to share them here with you...and I truly hope you'll get something positive out of reading them.

And if you don't, that's OK, too...you can share yours with me, and I'll go on just the same.

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