If you haven’t listened to the band Beloved in a while… or at all, I definitely recommend you find a copy of their album, “Failure On”, somewhere and blast it through your stereo.
One of the life-changing realities of college had nothing at all to do with school work or professors. I remember walking through the hallway of my new dorm on campus and hearing an array of sound hit me as I walked past each door. Although I had been exploring and collecting music all through high school, the majority of what I heard was new to me.
The process was simple enough: log onto the network and connect to the shared computers on the hall and you can pass music back and forth in seconds. Sure, this may have been slightly illegal, but we didn’t care. What mattered was that the best music was coming in from every direction and I was sampling more music than I could imagine. One of these albums was “Failure On” by Beloved.
You can never pinpoint concrete reasons of why music speaks to you, but this collection of songs has become a staple in my musical life. Rock music filled with stomping break downs, gut wrenching screams, raspy heartfelt singing, and catchy tunes. A little vague but I think there is something more interesting behind it.
When I look through my music collection, I find myself drawn to groups that have disbanded. It could be that the music is now a stationary piece of artwork that is completed whether it is or isn’t. Beloved falls into this category at a perfectly bittersweet moment. After completing a defining record, “Failure On”, the band toured and eventually ended their run when the drummer left for family reasons. Loyal fans were left with great music, a live DVD, and an imagination of what could have come next.
When I look into starting a band, I don’t necessarily need to achieve the world. To simply create something that affects someone in a positive way with a record that becomes an inspiration would suite me just fine. Music is art, not a money making machine. Completing a dream is in the eye of the beholder or the ear of the listener and to be able to look back on a work of art that captures a moment and creates some memories is my current striving focus.
