Textual Poaching

Beat. Beat.

Drum. Guitar.

You are proud to listen to yours

While I can only glorify mine if its behind closed doors

Tell me of its bad influence and scare

But listen close and tell me which one is more bare

Condemn me for the way it sounds

But don’t you listen a single bound

Yours sounds like honeying sweet

But see, the lyrical dirt doesn’t miss a beat

Assume it’s loud and reckless too

Though your talks more of who to do

Judge me not I guess does not apply

Your not even smart enough to see the why

You go one listening to more and more

While I must be a little whore

Artist Statement:

My name is April, and I am a metalhead. I love screamo music, emo music, and punk music. People often look at me and say that that’s not possible. They look at the way I live my life and say that if I listened to the kind of music that I claim I do I would have piercing and tattoos and use profanity as my only way of communication. People seem to think that if a song screams then it must be negative message. If a song is happy, poppy, and from a well known artist with a mainstream, then it MUST be good and MUST contain a better message than from a band that has boys with long black hair. 

The piece I made is a compilation of several pictures. The main picture in the background is a group of Beatles fans standing outside one of their concerts. I wanted to take the fans and replace their love for the Beatles and change it into bands that are typically considered to be loved only by drug addicts and hippies. I wanted to point out that these clean cut individuals could appreciate the music that comes from bands such as the Ramones, Dead Kennedys, Blink 182, if they would just take the time to look around the stereotype and listen to the lyrics of the music produced.

I wanted the image to looked very thrown together. I wanted it to look like things were out of place—because according to society they are. People who are good and upstanding individuals can’t possibly like NOFX and Bad Religion? That’s absurd, correct? I feel like there is such a stigma to metalheads, especially in Provo. This is where the poem comes in. It is something that I wrote just to get my frustrations out about how many people judge me for the music I listen to, without even knowing the lyrics, and glorify this pop music that sounds cheerful but is much more dangerous and threatening to the LDS standards than screamo. It all comes down to preconceived perceptions, stereotypes, and societal standards that have been around for years but have no right or authority to dictate our lives and the interpretations of the events around us.