The Beat

So, I was incredibly frustrated about stuff a couple days ago. I came home from work so wound up, and so incredibly agitated I was having trouble focusing on anything at all. I ended up searching through iTunes, looking for Big Beat – Crystal Method, Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim – stuff like that.

I wondered, after a little while, why I was looking for that particular genre of music – I didn’t even find Vegas, the only other Crystal Method album I own, to be particularly exceptional. But there’s something very … I dunno – not really soothing – but sort of comforting about the regularity, the repetition, and the loudness of it all. I suppose maybe the reason is that essentially, the beat tells you what to do – you don’t have to really think about it, or contemplate the meaning of it all, or wonder how it’s going to upend itself from one minute to the next.

boom-chik-a-boom-ba-boom-chika, for six minutes on end, you can just turn your brain off, and feel the beat.

When I’m anything other than mentally beat, I find most Big Beat kind of boring – because there’s really not much to latch onto. But like Gatorade, it only tastes good when you need it.

8 comments

  1. Anonymous says:

    “you can just turn your brain off, and feel the beat.”

    That’s why I love instrumental music. Vocals are good every once in a while, because it makes a good contrast to the repetition of the drum. However, it’s not so good when you’re sleepy and on the freeway. :O

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