A lot of my friends, acquaintances, contemporaries, and sworn enemies consider music to be one of the most important parts of life. Many would prefer to go blind rather than go deaf so that they don't lose their precious, precious music.

Now I enjoy an occasional ditty as much as the next person, but in ranking of importance, music comes in just below my wisdom teeth. Yes, even my loving girlfriend is appalled by my relative apathy toward music. My indifference may be due to my intensely discriminating tastes that severely contract the pool of music that I could actually stand to listen to. Heck, all you need to do is turn on the radio to hear the mediocre vomit that people will listen to. I need to REALLY like a song to waste my precious TV-watching time listening to it, and few artists can fit my bill. Eh, maybe I'm just picky.

Anyway, one thing that continually vexes me is when a band gets all political, spouting poorly conceived and poorly researched propaganda that I would expect to find in some nutcase Web site stuck in some dark corner of the Net. I don't know what mental malady convinces people that they're experts in political science just because they can play guitar, but it's really annoying. It would be roughly analogous to me thinking I'm qualified to critique the architecture of a building because I can spell reasonably well.

Actually, it's not the fact that they're political that I find annoying. It's when the bands I like take begin their pointless bitching to music that I feel a deep inner conflict. When it's a band I hate, I can just say, "What a bunch of tools," and ignore them, like I do for Rage Against the Machine. When it's one of the few bands I like, though, my urge to dismiss them battles with whatever vestigial music-liking gland is nestled deep in my brain.

One of my favorite bands is/was Bad Religion. (The collective gasp from the audience reflects their surprise that I would like such a band). When they're singing angsty, depressing songs, I'm happy. Being an angsty, depressing person, I can relate to them. Every few songs, though, they just HAVE to have a song about how the American government is colluding with big business to personally anally rape every single child in Ethiopia. I just want to scream, "Ethiopia is raping itself due to corrupt, socialist government, tribal rivalries, and a bunch of idiots who refuse to adapt to the 21st century!" So when that thought is tearing through your brain, it's hard to concentrate on the music.

If they were REALLY into making a world a better place, why don't they sing songs that might actually have a positive impact? Why don't they encourage their listeners to drive safely and wear their seatbelts? Why don't they tell them to use birth control? Why don't they preach recycling? Why don't any lyrics reflect the need for exercise and a healthy diet? How come they don't have any songs about kids who listened to their music too loud and went deaf later in life? Probably because songs like that don't sell.

Which raises the possibility that these musicians don't believe a word they're singing. They might just be singing leftist "fuck the establishment" music to appeal to teenagers and college kids who have yet to feel the soft caress of the real world's iron fist across their faces. I'm sure that berating the rich and preaching Marxism has made more than a few musicians wealthy enough to have Dom Perignom enemas every morning. I don't like hypocrisy, either.

Incidentally, the last Bad Religion CD had a song called "Kyoto Now" on it. Coupled with the fact that their last CD ate starfish, I couldn't bring myself to buy it. It depresses me to have to abandon a band I've liked for years in spite of their political tendencies. If I could say one thing to bands like Bad Religion, it would be this:

"Look, toolbags, you're entertainers, not political/economic theorists. Go back to singing about sex, drugs, and Satan-worship PLEASE!"

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