Accepting and embracing the journey from underground to mainstream

By Jenny Lu | Editor-in-chief

For me, it was fun. Their songs filled my playlists since I was 12 years old. But then, it happened. Seemingly out of nowhere, they shot to the top of the music charts. I was just a tad belligerent. The fact that the song that made their name (“We are Young”) is hideously auto tuned just made me rage all the more. “This is not their true self!” I cried to myself over a pint of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. “And I knew them before they were famous!” I would wail with the indignation that only music can induce.

We’ve all done it before. “Discovering” an artist is like walking in the dreary and annoyingly cramped hallways of Irvington and spotting a butterfly cocoon, and not just any regular cocoon. A super awesome rainbow colored bedazzled cocoon. And being the nurturing and kindhearted humans we are, we gently carry it and bring it into our homes, place it in a padded cardboard box and nurture it with all the love we can possibly bestow upon it. There are some close calls, like when that nasty spider made its way into the box and tried to make a pseudo-reggae version of Neil Diamond’s brilliant cheesiness. (To UB40: thank you for making it seem like Halloween every day with all the chills you send down my back.)

But there are also the beautiful memories. I was 13 when fun. released Aim and Ignite. Tears slowly made their way down my face as I listened to the beautiful tracks–especially “The Gambler.” It was just beautiful.

There’s something about music that brings us together in ways that nothing else can. Oh, we have six classes together and we’ve known each other since second grade? That’s cool, whatever. Wait–did you just say you like Vampire Weekend? You are now my RRBFFL (really really best friend for life) and we should be bridesmaids at each other’s weddings and be neighbors and our kids can be best friends and rainbows and unicorns forever! Even science confirms that we are hardwired to respond to music. Heck, even Dumbledore commented on the power of music: “Ah, music… a magic beyond all we do here!”

So it comes as no surprise that we tend to be a little possessive of our artists and bands. We like to let people know that we’ve known that band before they were even born, kind of like how your parents would tell every other parent in the audience that you’re the one playing the tree in the fall play. And when they politely asked where you were, your parents would proudly point to the farthest corner of the stage, where you stood uncomfortably in your itchy and stiff tree costume. You belong to them, just like how fun. belonged to me.

We’re possessive. It’s who we are. But, sooner or later, as we lovingly take care of our little cocoon, there comes a day when it is time for it to blossom and fly away, when it is time for it to share its beauty with the rest of the world. And you will eat your ice cream and begrudgingly watch the whole world converge on your prized possession. They will download billions of copies from the internet. They will pay hundreds of dollars to see the live version. And we have to accept it. We have to understand that, even though we’ve raised it since it was a tiny shell of nothing, it’s time for everyone to see the world’s only bedazzled cocoon.