Did it start back in the 60′s, this peculiar phenomenon of wearing music, rather than listening to it? For so many, music genre and style are really a function of peer association and identity crisis, which is all well and good until you ponder what sort of identity is being derived by following fashion.

Like the time traveling guy in H.G. Wells ‘The Time Machine,’ once you get a bead on a slice of history larger than this week’s news, you get to watch the hemlines rise and fall repeatedly. And this is a fair cop on social progress in the west for things do swing like a pendulum from conservative to liberal.

I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed but pendulums actually don’t make much forward progress. Each swing in one direction tends to cancel out the last swing and they don’t end up going much of anywhere.

It makes it all the more difficult when each swing is presented and perceived as something completely new. Let me site a few historical examples to try and put this all into a better perspective;

There was a faction in Vienna that didn’t approve of Beethoven. They thought he was crude and low. These people were your parents.

When was the last ‘free love’ movement before the one in the 60′s?  It was just prior to Hitler taking over Germany. Opps! Another one of those nasty swings of the pendulum!

What other musical period is most similar to jazz?  The Baroque period of the 1600′s. The musical practice of the Baroque involved improvisation from chord charts and ‘swinging’ the rhythm, which came to be known as ‘jazzing it up,’ in the ‘modern’ era.

Were rappers the first ones to start writing dirty songs? Don’t make me laugh! The French have been at it for centuries.

Stop wearing music and start listening to it and you’ll have so much more good music to pick and choose from. You’ll find out that you’re not the first person in the world who’s had lots of pervy thoughts or who’s hated your folks or yourself.  That’s because people haven’t changed at all in the last thousand years or so.  You’ll also find out about the guys in suits who’ve been pushing your buttons to make their money.