I remember when Disturbed did that Genesis cover all those years ago and people were confused and ambivalent and I didn't even know it was a cover until like a year later. Wow, here in the year of our lord 2022, I've officially heard Disturbed in a grocery store. To wrap up, when I heard Disturbed's "Sound of Silence" in the grocery store a bunch of thoughts went through my head: Still though, when I hear a song I like in a grocery store, I can't help but think "You deserve better than this." They obviously didn't choose to have their music contextualized in this way. This isn't to disparage soft rockers like John Mayer, or Tracy Chapman, or even Kenny G. I don't know how else to say this: if I deeply respect you as an artist or a band, then I most likely don't want to hear you in a store as agreeable, mundane background noise. You instead have to accept that the music will become a part of the store's predictable, expected, mundane ambiance. But in a grocery store, you can't turn it off, and you can't turn it louder. Any artist would ask that their music be paid attention to, and even judged, regardless of the haters. As a total music snob, I'd have to put these among the worst assumptions to be placed on a piece of music. There's also the assumption that it will serve as appropriate background music (i.e. Therefore, the assumption placed on this music is that it needs to be agreeable music for everyone and anyone. It's important to remember that everyone inside of a grocery store is a captive audience to the corporate radio that plays there (unless they have earbuds in). Was it in some movie I didn't see? Was it played at sporting events? (I say this because I saw a teenager figure skating to it the other day in the Olympics.) Or was it pounded into mundanity by corporate overlords who decided it would be ripe to play in grocery stores? Clearly this has struck a chord culturally, and it's actually impressive considering the song was released in 2015. It's got more listens than "Down with the Sickness" on Spotify, and is within striking distance of having more listens than the original "Sound of Silence". Somehow, this cover has managed to eclipse all of Disturbed's discography. Disturbed's cover is the definition of overdoing it when it comes to a song that's supposed to be quiet, haunting, and foreboding. "Sound of Silence" is not supposed to be epic. "Sound of Silence" is a brilliant song because of its stark instrumentation and its defiant, prophetic, and despairing lyrics. Perhaps the only thing I can be happy about regarding this cover is that it may introduce the original "Sound of Silence" to a new swath of 15-year-olds the same way seeing Watchmen in theaters introduced it to me.Īnyone who's listened to Bob Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel, or any MTV Unplugged concert knows that, sometimes, stripping a song down to its bare essentials brings out its beauty, and makes it more powerful. In my opinion, Disturbed's "Sound of Silence" is powerful in the way a 15-year-old would think it is. You take a serene, poignant, ambiguous protest song like "Sound of Silence" and you add distortion, a strong buildup, and David Draiman's signature vocals in some effort to make the song have more oomph, more power, to give it a new life or introduce it to a new generation. Something that absolutely kills me is the need to make everything "epic" in this day and age. I heard Disturbed's cover of "Sound of Silence" in the grocery store the other day.įirst, I need to address this particular cover of this particular song. This leads me to the impetus behind this post: The thing I wasn't expecting was that nu-metal would become so mainstream that it would become mundane. Looking at the way culture persists since the mid-00s, this is sort of expected. That scene is still, evidently, raking in cash and it's not showing signs of stopping. I ended my relationship with nu-metal nearly half my life ago, and it amazes me how many of these bands are still together, making the same sounds, 8+ albums in. By the time I left high school, I was fully immersed in albums and completely detached from the radio. I eventually found other (read: better) music, and transitioned out of this scene. As middle schoolers we'd compete to see who could do the best "OOO WA-AH-AH-AH". Disturbed was, of course, a mainstay in those years. Rock radio ruled my teens, exposing me to '80s hair metal, '90s grunge/post-grunge, and '90s-'00s nu-metal. Naturally, I was going to follow my brother's musical tastes purely on the basis of exposure. My older, tweenaged brother began listening to rock radio after he grew tired of '00s boy bands and top 40 hits. Nu-metal was a vestige of my youth that I feel like I didn't choose.
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