From the earliest days of man’s first forays into the musical arts (around 1961 or ‘62, as is my understanding), he has found that music can have an almost magical hold over him, sending him to heights never imagined. It has allowed him to walk on sunshine, bone in the boneyard, and wang chung tonight. We here at The Enclave also have felt music’s sway in our lives. In my life, music has managed to transport me to times and places I’ve never been before. Bruce Springsteen let me feel like I was a working class stiff in New Jersey. Crosby, Stills, Nash and sometimes Young sent me to Vietnam War protests. Sting’s solo work taught me what it is like to be a pretentious douche.
Remember when this man was actually cool?
Music has also had a lot of practical benefits in my everyday life. I know for a fact that working out would not be near as fun were it not for the cheesetastic encouragement of Survivor and the other contributors to the Rocky soundtrack. Additionally, unwinding after work is much easier for me when I can put on some Jewel or Sarah McLachlan Pantera or Megadeth. I know Bucket feels music’s benefits as well. For instance, he probably would never have been able to touch a breast had he not had the ability to give to potential lady friends his mix tapes featuring the dulcet crooning of All 4 One.
The greatest aphrodisiac known to man
So music has greatly affected the both of us for the better. But that’s not to say that we don’t think that music can use a little bit of improvement now and then. For one thing, music is lacking a proper amount of competition. Unlike sports, music does not keep score, so there are no clear winners or losers (excepting of course, Scott Stapp). How can this be? How does rock and roll, that most American of art forms, eschew the most basic tenant of American life: the maxim “Just win, baby?” Frankly, an art form without winners or losers belongs not in America, but in some place like the Soviet Union.
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In Soviet Russia, machine rages against you
Without clear wins and losses, the only way we are able to follow the American practice of praising winners and denouncing losers is for two guys to argue with each other. This blog isn’t the first and certainly won’t be the last to partake in that argument. Where it will be different, hopefully, will be in its focus. Everybody loves debating about the upper echelons of music: arguments over the Beatles vs. the Rolling Stones, or Zeppelin vs. the Who, or Nirvana vs. Pearl Jam are a dime a dozen. But who’s arguing over everyone else? There are plenty of other acts out there who did not achieve greatness in any way; are they to be left out there as an unranked mass? Do we really want to live in a society that leaves such burning questions such as “Who’s better: Edwyn Collins or Edwin McCain?” unanswered?
Hi, I’m Edwin McCain. Can I give you my autograph? Please? Wait, where are you going? Well we here at The Enclave answer that question with a resounding no, and in the coming weeks we hope to answer these types of questions. Each week we will have two different music acts to discuss. Bucket will choose one side, I’ll choose the other, and we will spend the week debating the merits of each act. Oh, and we’ll probably make a lot of crude jokes and hurl insults at each other. Maybe we’ll achieve a consensus on which act is the superior one; maybe we won’t. At the least, we hope to entertain you. And fear not: if these debates don’t manage to hold anyone’s attention, we always reserve to the right to completely change the format to something entirely different, like a debate over which is the superior Pop-Tart. And if you’re still not entertained (goddammit, internet people, are you ever hard to please), we’re definitely not above just posting random funny shit we find on the web.
Funny monkey pictures: the last-ditch efforts of the creatively bankrupt So sit tight, because in the next couple of days we’ll be bringing you the first of the debates.
