Letter: Music isn't necessarily bad just because it's new

Editor,

Jason Darensburg, you recently claimed in your column “Today’s youth are bombarded with bad music” that music today is an implicative mess. I wish to address you on these matters and hopefully change your mind.

Your claim falsely implies that because today’s youth has bad music, yesterday’s youth must have had good music. Is it truly honest to think that, for reasons you had not pointed out, music today must be automatically worse than music in the past? Why is it that the use of auto-tune automatically implies that one isn’t fit to sing? What you’re essentially saying is that music in the past is the only means of music, and that if music today does not emulate such archaic music, then it must be implicitly bad. This is stupendously ridiculous.

First, music back then was just as horrid as music can be now. It’s not as if all the music in the past was amazing. In history, our society cherry-picks the best music of the past and because of that, people are ignorant as to how music truly was in regards to its quality. This trend has quite obviously impressed you. Second, you force your opinion of what you consider to be good music onto other people. Your opinion on the use of auto-tune is completely irrelevant to your argument. It is an opinion. You should have argued that auto-tune makes it easier to sound good. However, there is no conclusion to this argument.

You might argue that due to more people being able to broadcast their singing due to auto-tune, such music would be worse than music of the past. Although this is true, it should be considered that music is induced into a rigorous process of harsh judgment, and only if it passes such a judgment should it be popular. It’s nearly as effective as scientific peer review. Bad music uploaded by an 11-year-old will not play on the radio, and will not be sold. This process may not be perfect -- that is well understood -- but it’s effective enough that by the time any music makes it to someone’s ears, it has a relevant chance of being a decent song.

It is evident that your argument is fundamentally poor. I markedly hope that showing you the flaws of such a claim, that you either reinforce your argument, or instead change your mind. No one should ever be unchallenged in their beliefs, and I hope you see this as just that: A challenge.

Sincerely,

Chance Wagy

Current Albuquerque High School and future UNM student