Noise, and how lots of people are wrong.

Few things annoy me more than Strictly Come Dancing.

But one of those things is when people, invariably stupid or old people, describe the music I listen to as "noise".
"It's just noise".
It's another example of a cliche that is true. I experience it most times distant family members ask me what kind of music I like.

I can give a specific example that happened last Christmas. You remember, when Rage Against The Machine defeated some X-Factor rubbish to be the Christmas no.1.

As a little side point, can I add: a number of newspapers picked up on the fact that when the campaign started to get Killing In The Name to the top-spot, RATM where on Sony, the same record label as Joe McElderry (I had to look up his name, as I really did not have the slightest clue).

The newspapers said that it was just a cynical campaign that would make no difference because the same people would make the profit out of it eventually. Some even suggested that the whole campaign was orchestrated, or at least supported by Sony.
But they were completely missing the point. People didn't buy that single to shun the major labels, or strike back at the corporate money making.
We bought it to show we supported real music, not commercialised crap. I didn't/don't even like RATM that much.
But I like it infinitely more than I like Joe McElderry.
We'll come back to this in a minute.

So anyway.

It was Christmas time. Christmas, of course, is a fantastic example of when I always find myself agreeing with stupid/disgusting world-views purely out of politeness (note, I have semi-plagiarised this thought from Stewart Lee).

This Christmas RATM was no.1.
This topic of conversation hadn't been brought up.
So I considered it my duty.

These paraphrased replies basically give you an idea:

"What a load of rubbish"
"Just a lot of screaming and swearing"
"It's not real music"
"It's just noise"

No.

There's a lot of music I don't like, but I still respect, because it is good for what it is. It's artistic. There's good types of all music. Or at least most.

To me, noise is something that has no artistic talent. It's just a regurgitated pop song no with no discernable unique or interesting elements.
Joe McElderry's attempt at Christmas no.1 was a cover of a Hannah Montana song.
That is noise.