It sounds like a silly question, but if you've spent any time around the music scene, you know all too well the gate-keepers out there who dictate the when, where, and how of being a fan. Open your mouth, and you will inevitably be told that 'real fans' like everything an artist does, or they own everything even if they don't like it all, or they will always prefer the 'classic' era to everything else. And so on and so forth.
Things get so ridiculous that people will sometimes even tell us that being a fan of music means you must listen to music a certain way. I have been told more than once that 'real' music fans listen to the drums, then the guitars, and they leave the lyrics for last.
That is complete and utter bullshit, of course, but it's the kind of bullshit that arises when you dare to disagree with people who are so pathetic they feel the need to control everyone else. We've all heard about those schmucks who go up to people wearing a band t-shirt and ask them to name more than one song, haven't we?
What makes this all the more frustrating is that we are treating art differently than we are the people who make it. When we fall in love with a person, we don't love everything about them. We love people in spite of their flaws and foibles, and the annoyances that come along with the fact no two people are ever exactly the same. We seem unable or unwilling to be as generous to art and artists, which is a phenomenon I can't quite explain.
To get back to the point; What percentage makes us a fan?
Am I a fan of Black Sabbath if I love the three albums they made with Ronnie James Dio so dearly, but I don't care in the slightest about the years with Ozzy or Tony Martin? I know there are people who look at it the other way around, who will say you can be a fan and love only Ozzy's era. It doesn't make much sense to divide things up where only one era matters and the rest don't, right?
Many fans of Van Halen will take the position that they are two different bands, and Sammy Hagar's era can be completely dismissed, even though the band was just as popular then. The truth about all of this is that people are making it up as they go along, trying to write a set of rules to justify whatever they already think. No one wants to be seen as contradicting themselves, so we find ourselves tied up in knots in an effort to have both ends of the string pointing in the same direction.
Here's the truth; a fan is anyone who finds enjoyment in someone's music. It doesn't matter if you have every song they've ever recorded, the handful of albums you like best, or just a greatest hits compilation. Music is not a competition, and you are not a 'better' fan for knowing more of the minutia than someone else. People who look at it that way are not just missing the point, they are actively working against their own interest. If you love an artist, and you want them to have even more fans and acclaim, ridiculing and putting down people who don't meet your strict definition of a fan is only going to push them away.
All of this was prompted as I was listening to Pink recently. As I have said many times, there are certain voices that elicit a physical reaction when I hear them. Pink is one of them, but unlike most of the others on that small list, my relationship with her music is not as deep or involved. I can't remember the last time I listened to one of her albums in full, and I have not been overly enamored by her recent work as the entirety of the pop music scene has drifted away from me.
However, there is a compilation of songs I absolutely adore. When I listen to songs such as "Just Like A Pill" or "Long Way To Happy", it feels like I love Pink as much as any artist. Thinking about life, we realize love is not a constant. It ebbs and flows, sometimes disappearing completely, always making us question our sanity for chasing it down. Some love is deep, some love is intense, and some love is imagined. They all leave the same impression on us.
I look at music proselytizers the same way as the religious sort; Why are they so insecure about their own beliefs that they need to convert everyone else to agree with them? Much like how the relationship with God is supposed to be personal and not a performance of public spectacle, our relationship with music is felt entirely within ourselves. We might find ourselves in a community sharing our thoughts and feelings, and bonding over what we share, but at the end of the day we only know the emotional stir within ourselves.
Music is very much like existentialism that way, and it's why I'm comfortable saying I love Pink in whatever form that happens to take. I would say anyone who wants to judge can save their breath, but I have a feeling they're stupid enough to need to be reminded to breathe anyway.