Strange music, indeed

How weird does something have to be before I begin to dislike it?

I’m trying to test my limits on strangeness. I’ve always said that if a song is weird enough, I am guaranteed to like it. I’m a fan of quirky acts like They Might be Giants, dancy-pants Freddie and the Dreamers and the ever popular Weird Al. Of course, these artists are all only marginally strange. They might be strange to someone whose tolerance for the unfamiliar is dangerously low. To me, they still fall under the realm of normalcy. But in more recent years, I’ve found myself gravitating toward the absurdness of groups like Danielson Famile and Dan Deacon.

I started listening to Dan Deacon when “Crystal Cat” was getting some attention. “This is just the right amount of weird,” I thought. Despite the craziness, the song maintains a melody, is up tempo and kind of catchy. Seeing this clip of Deacon performing on a local news show really sealed the deal for me. This guy is awesome.

Now Danielson Famile is a band that is really hit-or-miss for most people. A lot of people whose musical taste I thoroughly respect cannot stand Daniel Smith’s falsetto vocals or nursery-rhyme-meets-Jesus lyrics. But I dig it. Again, it’s just the right amount of weird. You can still sing along to it, but there are awkward twists and turns (and nurse uniforms). It has an unpredictable nature that is lacking in most music. Nothing is worse than knowing when the bridge of a song you’ve never heard is coming. Or worse, being able to predict the lyrics. That’s just lazy song writing.

These musings began when I recently heard both the most wanted and the most unwanted song. Dave Soldier, Komar & Melamid’s People’s Choice Music project surveyed people to find what were the most popular characteristics in music. The survey asked about lyrics, instruments, length, tempo, etc. The results are the most wanted song, a shitty, Kenny G-esque ballad; and the most unwanted song, a half-hour-long piece that varies between children singing holiday jingles and an opera singer rapping. The weird thing is, the most unwanted song is SO much better than the most wanted song. The unwanted mixture of all these unpopular features (accordion, advertising, strange transitions) makes for something so hilariously preposterous that it is pretty listenable. I only wish it wasn’t so long, but people dislike long songs. You have to keep in mind that this is the most unwanted song, after all.

A lot of people would argue that none of these groups are really all that strange. But “strange” is really subjective. Just play any of these songs for the average casual listeners, and I’m sure they’d have that classic wtf-look on their faces.

It’s not that I like weird for weird’s sake. It’s almost the opposite of that. In everything else, I dislike when art is made for quirk value. I suppose that music has permeated my life so much that I’m just grateful to hear something different. And a lot of times, different means weird.