When someone tells me that they think that sex is the best thing in the world, or chocolate, or love, I assume they’ve never been to a really good concert.

I love music. I am only ever at complete peace when listening to it. I have tried yoga, meditation, writing, but never am I able to connect to myself through those mediums as well as I can when I suffocate my ears with music.

I love sound.

I love the way sometimes, when Eminem spits a verse right on top of the beat, everything in the universe, in my head, in my thinking aligns in stillness for those two or three seconds. I love that after listening to Florence and the Machine, I feel that the next time I walk out my front door I’m going to conquer the world with love and glitter. I love that after listening to Janelle Monae (seriously please look her up, she’s a breathtaking artist) I have at once found a part of myself I had forgotten about and have lost a part of me that I once thought was necessary.

I don’t even know why I love the way sounds come together in music. The closest I could come to explaining why would be to list off hundreds of examples like those above. Or to have you see the way my face breaks like the clouds for the sun when I talk about music.

I’ll say this: my heaven, when I pass on, will be a place that lives and breathes and is made of music. I assume I will float in an abyss that changes colors to reflect the sound that bounces off it’s invisible boundaries. This sound will flow through me like electricity and each song will bring me deeper into an emotional eternity.

Even negative sounds deserve love. They create variety. “I hate… This sucks… Fuck you….” Sounds and consonants that all create tensions that are cranked up or let go. And they are the result of emotion. Nails on a chalkboard. Screaming. It’s all interesting.

There is only one sound I hate. I hate the sound that come from music elitists’ mouths. 

Indie rock elitists who thinks Lady Gaga is a man in tights who can’t sing. Classical music geeks who think all music written after the 18th century isn’t really music at all. Musical theatre fangirls who only know “Don’t Stop Believin’” because Glee did “the most awesome version of it, like, ever” last season and think the Journey original “sound so, like, bad.”

And they all claim, “yeah/ oh yes/ Ohmygod ya I love music”

No, you don’t.

You cannot love music and hate on music at the same time, or think one type of music is better than another. No sound is bad. They’re all just different.

People who hate country and people who hate Top 40 hits are the worst.

“Ugh, country’s just so like boring and annoying.”

“Country has no real emotional value it’s just a bunch of hicks singing about nothing.” (such elitists are both discriminatory and hateful)

“I looovveee music! Except for country, I seriously hate country. But Taylor Swift’s sooo good!!!”

Actually, y’all, country music is not only important to economy of this country (TSwift’s new album, still considered a “country album,” by the way, is the first album since 2005 to sell one million copies in it’s first week) but country music also represents a culture. It is an art form, a type of storytelling that draws from folk and bluegrass influences. There are individuals who listen to country because it reminds them of home, or a loved one, or their family, who connect with it. Country music is important to them. It not right to demean it just because it doesn’t make sense to you.

And for the Top 40…

“Lady Gaga has no real musical talent.”

“Rap is stupid. It’s just uneducated, misogynistic black men cursing about the world.”

“All the songs in the top 40 sound the same. They’re not real music.”

“Popular music sucks.”

Popular music is a major American industry. Thousands of gay men have found an outlet in Lady Gaga’s music. She is important to them. [P.S. about that no talent comment - Lady Gaga was one of 17 students in the world to be accepted to Tisch School of the Arts for voice. I think she has perhaps a smidgeon of musical prowess.] Rap music (though it is quite aggressive, misogynistic, and materialistic) is just a different sound, a different way of viewing the world. In the Top 40, there is no way that every song sounds the same. That’s called intellectual and property theft and is illegal. Challenge yourself. There are subtle differences between even the most similar of songs that make them different and interesting as individual pieces. Try to hear them and accept them. Love them.

Love sound. Let it in and dissect it. Play that Tim McGraw song on your iPod, sit and chew on it as it enters your ears. What is he saying? Why? How does the guitar flow over the fiddle and violin? If it doesn’t sound good to you, can you enjoy that banjo that sometimes makes an appearance?

What is Lady Gaga saying when she talks about a “Bad Romance?” Have you ever had a “Bad Romance?” How does Gaga’s use of spoken word enhance the effect of the song?

Why does Lil Wayne let “her lick the lollipop?” Seriously, though. What in his life has shaped him to think that this is a message he wants to send to people everywhere? Do you want to change that message? Do you like the songs ending? Do you find Lil Wayne’s use of auto-tune interesting?

When you begin to appreciate little things, relate them to yourself, you slowly begin to understand others and their motivations. This is the basis for all successful forms of communication. Walking in someone’s shoes. Understanding where they’re coming from, perhaps listening to their latest single.

Hate starts wars and rivalries.

Music is just sound, people. Gorgeous, fantastic, genius, life-changing sound. I think we should accept it and love it and listen.

Sound good?