I hate it already. If there’s any word(s) to describe the feeling, I’d say “sonically violated” if I wasn’t so afraid of being labeled dramatic. Just being honest.

What’s funny (in a non-funny way) is the elements remain the same. Same guitars. Same drum set. Same roles for the band members to play. But here they’re so harsh, so bent or intent on destruction that I’d never actively choose to take this in. Played in a different way, in a different time, I’ll gladly turn it up, sing along and buoy the mood. Now? I just want to throw up.

The “it” from the first sentence is Noise Rock. It’s an actual category with actual artists and actual reviews that we’ve put up on our very own site. Some of our writing staff actually like the genre. And we’ve given it some mighty fine grades from time to time. As for me? No way. And, should you get to know me personally, you’ll find that’s no surprise. The reason? Have you been to my house?

Or perhaps I should call it my echo chamber — “an enclosed space for producing reverberation of a sound.” Currently this term is being touted in reference to media intake and our propensity to create an echo chamber without even knowing it. Our culture is so fractured into exact genres that I can go straight to any online or TV media outlet who will tell me exactly what I want to know/hear and will only back up the position I want to take. There’s hardly any outposts of rational thought that both encourage and challenge a particular viewpoint. Thus, our two-party system remains.

But that’s another topic for another time (and probably not on this site). But it makes clear a point that goes beyond politics and inhabits another significant portion of our lives (and can be equally as destructive): popular culture. I dare to say that each and every one of us create an echo chamber with our media choices. Consider the following:

I always have one pant leg rolled up from riding my fixed gear bike. I have to pause Real Estate or MGMT before we start talking. And the only websites I check or magazines I read for any new music only reinforce my musical choices with phrases like “the next MGMT.” Welcome to an echo chamber.

What’s wrong with this? Nothing that resides within the echo chamber. It’s the actual chamber itself that is the issue. It’s not asking what is actively wrong with something that exists, but asking what is missing. In other words, none of the current set props are wrong, per se, but key elements remain missing from the scene.

When we create the echo chamber of our musical choices, we’re cutting off lifelines of relationship and understanding that we don’t even realize. To not like Noise Rock or mainstream Hip-Hop or Country/Western or the like is to disassociate yourself from more than you think you are. And I don’t think you know it. When you say you hate country (for example), you believe you’re rejecting lame songs about sticking a boot in the ass of the rest of the world, wearing large four-color paneled shirts (i.e. Garth in ’90s) and Larry the Cable Guy. But it goes deeper than that.

When most of us say “I don’t like [insert genre here],” we’re also passively rejecting a part of our humanity — that part of us that’s intended to be tied to something greater than us. Cultural expressions like a song or a film are simply a reflection of a constituency of people who believe/act like/embody such traits. It represents history, geography and human experience. Simply put, to not take in the emerging stories of a particular style/genre is to ignore the people behind those stories.

I think we are worse off as humans when we ignore each other’s stories. In the political sphere, many are questioning the sanity of the two-party system and rejecting outright media outlets on both the left and the right, asking for something more intelligent than something so reductionistic. To do so takes work — a tremendous amount of work and much more than we’re used to — but when it comes to politics, many are discovering that it’s worth it.

I contend the same amount of work is necessary in our pop cultural choices. Instead of retreating inside of our musical echo chamber and filtering out dissenting sounds (and voices), it takes real effort to actively sit through a listening session of a genre that you normally cast off with a statement starting with “I hate…” But once you emerge from the echo chamber, you begin to find the heart and life behind the words and behind the sounds. And if you look and listen long enough, I think you’ll begin to see a version of yourself on the other side. And that’s when we become better as people.