Something has always seemed strange to me about people's expectations of music, as opposed to other forms of art. When we watch a film or read a book we understand that the person or people involved are not necessarily baring their souls or expressing their desires. Nobody really thinks that Stephen King is hiding murderous impulses. Bryan Fuller doesn't secretly want to slaughter and cannibalize people just because he has created a TV adaptation of the Hannibal Lecter series of novels, nor does Mads Mikkelsen, the actor portraying Dr. Lecter. Even with graphic art and sculpture we can understand that we simply may be seeing something that the artist finds fascinating and not necessarily anything deeply personal.
Music is treated differently. Somehow music is considered more personal by listeners and that impression is projected onto its creators. Musicians who use gruesome horror themes are regarded as being dangerous people and corrupting influences (see: Cannibal Corpse). Horror briefly takes away our control, our sense of balance, and makes us feel helpless and scared. It's all in good fun because we come out the other side safe like we always knew we would. So why is that different if it's music? Why is the musician considered to be expressing personal impulses and opinions? And what of the listener? Now that it's a song instead of a short story is everyone suddenly on the side of--or even vicariously living through--the monster?
But it's a lot broader than just tales of the weird and the macabre. Horror themes were what originally got me thinking about this "music is more personal" idea, but that prejudice has an impact on many aspects of our relationship with music, and because I don't feel that way I experience music differently.
As a musician I don't write personal lyrics very often. I don't like to write about my own life. My life is what I do all the time as it is, and I get nothing out of trying to squeeze art out of my trivial, mundane issues ("ooh yeah, replacing the radiator in my Jetta on a nice Saturday really blows, yeah yeah yeah"). I also handle tragedy pretty well and don't want or need to express it in some creative way to work through it. Instead, when I write music I'm trying to create something that is separate from all of that, something that exists on its own terms and in its own space that will otherwise be stuck banging around in my skull where nobody will ever care about it. I can't create a TV show or a movie to tell a story as those mediums are not where my skills lie. I'm capable of writing fiction but I'm still figuring out my style so it's sort of like pulling teeth, and it's easy to get discouraged early on in the process. But with a guitar, a microphone, and a DAW I'm able to just blast out idea after idea. If I want to paint a beautiful landscape or weave a fantastic tale I do that with my music because that's how I can most effectively realize my visions.
This isn't to say that I don't put something of myself in my work. Everyone does that. I write the music I do because I like it and find the subject matter interesting; I go with what tickles my brain and excites me. But if I write lyrics about a pair of feuding families it doesn't mean I have ever been part of that situation or want to be. I'm just telling a story. If I write a profoundly sad melody it doesn't mean I'm sad as I write it. I'm just trying to capture the feeling I want to portray, as a director will choose the lens and lighting that best reflects the mood he or she wants to evoke.
Because I lack the expectation that music must be personal, the majority of the artists I enjoy tend to be as impersonal as I am. Some of them consider lyrics to be secondary and just throw something suitable on top after putting all their real emotional effort into the melodies and arrangements. Others are always detached beyond, "Hey, I like this riff. I'll build a song around it," and therefore never put their own feelings into it.
And the funny thing is that, as a listener, I become more emotionally affected by characters and stories in fictional works than by hearing about a musician's own life. A typical Top 40 love song is nothing more than an irritation, but the sorrowful tale of doomed romance told on Opeth's album Still Life captivates and moves me in a real way. I'm not opposed to songs written from a personal place (with the exception of shallow love songs) and some artists I like certainly take that approach, but it just doesn't do it for me in quite the same way.
Then again sometimes it's just all about the rhythm, melody, and harmony, and heavy metal and prog rock are good at scratching that itch. Gentle Giant's songs are compositionally clever and make the puzzle solving part of my brain go bonkers. I've never cared to pay attention to their lyrics much at all because I'm so focused on the interplay of the instruments. I'm a fan of a lot of bands like Spiral Architect, Nile, and Yes that have interesting lyrics, but whose music is so incredible that I'd listen to them if the were singing about Frosted Flakes. Actually, I could imagine Devin Townsend doing just that, and it would probably be a prog masterpiece.
I also don't expect to agree with the message as long as the music is great. I remained a fan of Megadeth even as their lyrics descended into embarrassing, paranoid Glenn Beck idiocy about FEMA coffins and the coming apocalypse. It wasn't until the most recent album, which was full of uninspired compositions and lackadaisical performances, that I checked out.
In the realm of writing there is a difference, at least in marketing, between genre fiction and literary fiction. The idea is that literary fiction deals more with the mundane and focuses on emotions and motivations while genre fiction is more about setting, plot and action. There is of course overlap in subject matter and how it's treated, but literary is difficult and personal while genre is escapist and fun. The distinction doesn't necessarily speak to quality, as there's a lot of really shit literary fiction wandering around, but it does mean that one is aspiring more toward art and the other more toward entertainment.
Somewhere along the way we reached a point where music is supposed to always be "literary" instead of "genre." I think it's because casual listeners are far more attached to vocalists than to instrumentalists. Even when the instruments are being played by people (though they're automated more and more often as the decades pass) the voice is instantly recognizable as human, even when it's been autotuned and sonically airbrushed into oblivion. I bet that people make an instinctual connection to this familiar sound as it sits on top of a more distant and esoteric instrumental sonic soup. And this connection probably feels very personal and intimate.
But not to me.