Rock Me, Amadeus!

Recently I have been listening to a lot of classical music. It's relaxing, calming... helps me focus. I have grown particularly fond of Mozart.

At least I think those toe-tappers are Mozart.

See, I listen to classical, but I do not have the full "Music Appreciation 101" experience. There are people who are really into their classical music, who know all the facts about the composers and their symphonies, or how to pronounce Offenbach or Chopin (it's sho-PAN, not CHOP-in). Heck, I don't even know my adagio from a nonet.

Maybe this is part of the reason I've always preferred pop music. There's not so much information involved in enjoying it.

But, wait... it occurs to me that, for a form of music that needs so little knowledge, I know an awful lot of useless rock knowledge. For instance, I may not know anything about Beethoven beyond the fact that he went deaf, but I know that The Rolling Stones' Aftermath LP (released in 1966) has different track listings in the US and UK (US version includes "Paint It, Black"; UK version includes "Mother's Little Helper" and "Out Of Time", which wasn't released in America for a year until an edited version was included in the US-only hodge-podge compilation Flowers. The full-length version of "Out Of Time" wasn't issued in the States until two or three years ago.)

I know The Beatles recorded the bulk of their first album, Please Please Me, in one day in 1963. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, their psychedelic magnum opus, took more like seven months in 1966-1967. Also, Leo Gorcey, Mahatma Gandhi and Adolf Hitler were originally on the cover of Sgt. Pepper, only to be removed to avoid paying the former Bowrey Boy, and to not offend both the population of the subcontinent of India, and most of the civilized world.

I know Roy Harper is the vocalist on Pink Floyd's "Have A Cigar" (from 1975's Wish You Were Here) because Roger Waters had throat problems and couldn't sing the day of recording.

I know The Toys' "A Lover's Concerto" (1965) was based on Bach's "Minuet in G". But I only know that because I've seen Mr. Holland's Opus - a fact that also helps explain why I know about Beethoven's deafness.

Hmmm... so which is more important? Knowing that Böhm influenced Bach? Or knowing that Dylan influenced The Beatles, The Byrds and practically every pop performer in the mid-1960's? In the end, it's all fairly trivial information. And while pop music should be unpretentious by nature, not knowing every detail about Handel or Rachmaninov is what makes my pleasure of classical music strictly aural. I can relax with a smooth symphony without wondering whether it was composed in Leipzig or London, or how mad the composer went trying to hammer out the fine details of his work.

Maybe I should just pop my Gorillaz CD in and forget the whole thing.