Then again, there’s a very different kind of disruption you probably don’t want from music, whether it’s a song that ruins your day because it reminds you of your ex, or just an earworm you can’t get out of your head. When I attended a keynote and Q&A given by Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon in 2014, she summarized the central aim of her legendary former band in a simple one-word phrase: Disruption. And even on a smaller scale, there’s something to be said for art as shock therapy-making visible things that go unseen or unspoken, giving voice to something that can’t be expressed verbally, even extracting us from a sense of routine. The introduction of distortion, the sampler, even recording technology itself forever changed the established order of things. It connotes a sense of danger or edginess, when in fact it’s rarely more than an empty marketing phrase, but in the context of music, however, disruption can be seen as something of a virtue. In recent years it’s become a part of the corporate lexicon typically through discussions of new products introduced to the marketplace. I’ll admit that “disruption” is the most odious kind of buzzword.
Occasionally, a song can even be disruptive. It can shake us out of a stupor and perhaps change, if just subtly, the way we hear and process things. But under the right circumstances, a song can do more than pacify a listener. Perhaps a blistering 90 seconds of grindcore or 20 minutes of drone aren’t everyone’s idea of a satisfying listening experience, but some of us enjoy a little bit of both between more conventionally pleasing songs. That’s maybe self-evident when you consider the subjectivity of taste, but even the most abrasive sounds can soothe in their own strange way. Music isn’t always meant to be a source of comfort.
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