#but anyway!! that literary element; the rich language and historical background and symbolism is part of what makes religious imagery in art

[luxpenumbra]

ugh ohmygod so I saw this post and it made me so mad that I simultaneously wanted to reblog it just to rant in the tags and to not reblog it so that I could avoid sharing it with /more/ people

listen. music is universal. when a singer, songwriter, producer, lyricist, musician, team puts something out into the world, there may be emotions that they are trying to put into it. They will draw on these emotions as they perform and edit and refine this thing they are making. There may be a story they are trying to tell, an experience they are trying to communicate, and this may not be straightforward; there is a level of abstraction between conceptualization and realization that I am convinced exists to some level in all pieces of art like this. This is not a flaw; this is marvellous. When I the listener interact with a song, or an album, or an artist's entire body of work - the emotions that I feel and the story that is conveyed to me may be just. absolutely different from the artist's intentions and their own experience. It may resonate with me in an entirely different way than intended; it may resonate with someone else in a separate, distinct, discrete way. My and others' awareness of the artist and any context they have made clear may play a part in this or it may not; it depends on how I interact with music and how readily available this information is.

All this is to say: the only fucked up thing with this whole gaylor shit is the part where people are convinced that their interpretation of her music and the way it resonates with them indicates some fundamental truth about her identity. The only person who knows that is her and frankly it's none of anyone else's business and it's probably not that interesting anyway. But!!! this does not mean that her music cannot resonate with someone's experience of queerness!!!! It is story and song and a vehicle for emotion, and the details that make something sing true to someone's life and values are not pinned to the artist's "true identity" like a fuckin. butterfly to a corkboard. there is VALUE and DELIGHT in being aware of some additional dimension of queerness by virtue of the singers intentions or identity or whatever but that's a fucking BONUS you NIMRODS the only thing you need is a heart to feel things and a song to feel them about it's about YOU and how you interpret things. you change things just by existing!!! the only person to experience a song the way you do is YOU!!! "if I wanna listen to gay music I'll listen to gay ppl singing about gay sex" good for you!! but what a sad and limited life you must lead to need the significance and meaning of art spoonfed to you by author bios.

AND THEN. fucking condescending ass AAAAAAAH listen. christian rock can slap. i say this as someone who is markedly not christian. and even if you don't think it slaps that's fine. but the fact that someone's out here going "oh poor limited babies who've never listened to real proper good music before projecting sasanaru onto christian rock because they've never known anything else" grow uppppp!!! first of all!!! nobody. NOBODY. is out here saying 10,000 reasons by matt whatever is about sasuke and naruto kissing. you know this in your heart of hearts, just like you know deep down that there is VALUE in eking out meaning in places where you don't expect to find it, and in places that have some connection to the earliest parts of you. (and even if you aren't doing this, aren't interacting with the context of the music and its genre, see above re:universal fucking language). you've probably done it before. it's tumblr, land of transformative works and webweaving of course you have. how limited in scope must you be to think that people who listen to a genre you don't value but who are also queer or something must be just poor deprived children, limited in resource, waiting for that next evolution i'm gonna weep. anyway listen to relient k cowards