I just have to get a little something off my chest.
After many years of consideration, careful and otherwise, I've come to the conclusion that I fucking hate reggae. I really do.
My ire has very little to do with the culture that traditionally wraps reggae. As I'm not even a marginal fan of the music, I admit that I've got the usual stereotypical catalog in my head: pot and dreads.
Ganja doesn't offend me. I don't think it's nearly as benign as most pot-heads adamantly insist it is, but I also don't think it's evil. I voted to legalize medicinal marijuana in California. In my own experience, I don't like the smell. I hate dealing with a dorm full of pot smoke as much as I hate a dorm full of fucking incense or rancid pizza box reek. At a college party where I was the only honky and my roommate was the only Asian guy, I made myself violently ill when I lost count of how many mason jars of beer I'd consumed and how many times that cool little pipe had been passed around by all the vatos playing poker. My dad has worked with a few pot smokers over the years and has witnessed with disgust their marked inability to deal with reality. I pity folks who can't seem to make it through the day without sucking on a bong, but I don't have any strong feelings against it.
Dreadlocks inspire the same mild apathy in me. When someone takes care of their dreads, I think they can look pretty cool. However, too often I've run into your typical lazy college puke who's decided that the way to be cool and get laid is to simply neglect their hair until it clumps into random, greasy, stinking, matted wads on their head. Wake up, you little cocksucker. You need to take care of your dreads if you want to keep from looking and smelling like a mouth-breathing, shorts-defecating moron.
What gets me about reggae is how goddamned repetitious it is. The same damned bass line buzzes your sinuses. The same bepoxed guitar riff whangs at you. The same suicide-inducing chorus cycles to infinity.
It all reminds me of the loops that musicians find themselves in when they're really grooving on themselves and/or the music. A guitarist will be laying down a mean solo and then, for no apparent reason, he'll hold a single note and sustain it through all sorts of distortion and feedback, all the time looking like he's being given an enema with molten lead. And their audience goes absolutely nuts, whooping and screaming. I just don't understand.
I appreciate aspects of reggae when it's sprinkled through other popular music. Take Jack Johnson's Wasting Time. Despite the fact that it's nearly inescapable if you turn on the radio to any station in the Bay Area, I still find it easy on the ears. The mild reggae baseline amuses me, especially when I'm listening to a massively bass-capable system like the one we have at home.
I hold ska in nearly as low regard. One of my friends in high school absolutely adored ska. Senior year saw her slobbering at the feet of Skankin' Pickle when they played in the area. As much as I liked her, as much fun as I had with her, as much as I really just wanted to boff her considerable brains right the hell out, my friend's slavish adoration of ska disturbed me. When I turned down her invitation to spend the night at her house when her parents were away, I'm sure that ska played a big part in my decision. Fuckin ska kept me from getting laid. What kind of twisted, pathetic asshole was I back then? Damn.
I guess you just have to be stoned out of your mind to truly appreciate reggae and ska.
Pakeha