I was a Radiohead fan in high school. I guess I could say that I liked them because of their post-rock synths, their anti-technology message, or their instrumentation, but the truth is that I liked them because they were critically acclaimed and everyone said that theirs was the best album of all time and I wanted to be a fan of the smartest band of the decade.
I wanted to be a fan, but I never really was a fan. Radiohead's music is cold and detached. There's not much life to it. It's all just depressing stuff about not leaving your room because everything and everyone is awful. But pessimism is taken as seriousness by too many people. There's always some form of class snobbishness in the kind of music people listen to, and because school really is all about class in society, music is just another front.
I later learned that just because someone speaks in a faint British accent, it doesn't mean they're worth listening to. I later figured that a lot of the great thinkers from the past simply spent too much time staring at parchment and so came up with overly complicated thoughts which were simply elaborations of the base feelings they felt. For instance, Ayn Rand of Atlas Shrugged fame was also an amphetamine addict. The prophet of radical individualism was fueled by a drug known to cause paranoia and aggressive behavior.
I've been listening to Limp Bizkit lately.
And I really enjoy it.
The sound is monstrous, the vocals are distinctive, and there are weird sounds in the atmospherics. It is innovative. It is a fusion of rap and metal. Art is all about combining things together. Rap/metal is art. At the same time, they're not annoying. They don't take themselves too seriously like Linkin Park, the Deftones, or Rage Against the Machine. They don't try to tackle serious topics. The lyrics are about day-to-day problems in life. A lot of the rhymes are really stupid, but you know, it's more fun listening to these stupid rhymes than trying to like The Roots or Common because they are *serious* bands that you must be *serious* while listening.
Which takes the fun out of music.
Listening to the music, I get the impression that Fred Durst is *not* the huge jerk that everyone made him out to be. That he really was misunderstood on a colossal level. People tend to take things at face value and so they'll point at the misogyny on "Nookie," but you know, it's honest, it's base, and everyone has relationship problems.
But if you pay attention to the songs themselves, well, it takes a sensitive artist to get the nuances of the songs and what makes them work. A knucklehead simply wouldn't be able to manage to write a catchy hook in the first place. To write that catchy hook, one has be able to step back and away from the complexity in playing the songs, to get a sense of the impression that the song makes on someone else.
Durst isn't the band of course, though he's frequently the whipping boy of the group. If you watch videos of them in rehearsal space, he makes up for his lack of musical ability by communicating with the rest of the band and working with them in getting the song across. Like a director.
Which brings me to The Education of Charlie Banks.
The Education of Charlie Banks is a coming of age story set on a leafy Ivy League campus (presumably Cornell), where young minds wrestle with big questions and do battle with the great philosophers. The setting is more Radiohead than Limp Bizkit.
But it is directed by Fred Durst.
Charlie and Danny are best friends. Charlie comes from a humble liberal background. Dad's a bookstore owner with a strong conscious that he tries to instill in his son. Danny comes from a family of two college professors who live in an opulent townhouse. He wants to be a cool guy, a guy of the streets.
They both know Mick. Mick comes from the rougher part of town. He's good with his fists and he's quick to anger. Their friendship with Mick is strained when he shows up one day at their leafy college, and to the surprise of Charlie, proceeds to take the social scene by storm.
Mick doesn't have the education of Charlie or Danny. But he has an animal instinct and a way of getting right to people. He quickly insinuates himself with the richest guy on campus and the prettiest girl. He starts auditing the classes and it turns out that he has the raw ability to understand the topics being discussed.
But he still has the street in him. He is quick to anger and he is violent. Things don't work out.
It works. The story-telling is focused and to the point, without being shallow, but without meandering either. It simply works. Like a good pop song.
I noticed this first in Jonathan Franzen's book The Corrections, but authors often will split aspects of themselves among different characters. And while Durst didn't write the movie, he was at least chosen to be director and worked closely with the writer of the movie in creating it. Mick is clearly the one closest to Durst's heart. Someone from the rough part of town who doesn't really belong there but is able to take his place among the rich and connected.
Yet, in Durst I do sense that a lot of the tough guy stuff is a facade. He isn't as hard as Mick. Not by a long shot. He is deep down inside the sensitive Charlie. The movie ends with a confrontation. Mick vs Charlie. Charlie is clearly outmatched and doesn't stand a chance. Mick lets him get his shots in, but he takes Charlie out. Charlie is lying on the ground, and Mick is geared up to deliver the final blow.
Sometimes people can change, but they can only change so much. You can't become someone else, but you can at least stop doing the things that you know cause harm.
It's a great movie. Check it out.
