I Am A Masochistic Music Fan, And You May Be Too...

    Have you ever been hurt by a band? Answer truthfully. Were you ever insulted upon meeting your favorite artist? Scorned after a post-gig love affair? On less personal notes, offended by a band's continual skipping of your town/region/country on tours? Disgusted by their new mashup of musical genre (*coughbonjovicough*)? Anyone who has passionate affection for more than one musical artist can probably answer "yes" to at least one of those questions, if not more.

    Now here's the hook... How often do you go back for more abuse?

    I have seen the whole charade enough to know when my friends and myself are loving the pain. Sadly it has been all too often where I've had no choice but to sit back and watch friends turn into groupies, be dismissed the next day and shooed away, never again seen in the same light by their idols. Yet those girls are the ones who continue with their undying love and fail to realize their love wasn't returned during that bathroom encounter. Ick. On the other end of the spectrum, I have male friends who continually build up the same excitement every time their "one true love" band announces a new album, only to be disappointed when it's the same crap rehashed since the 90s, with a new duo done with an artist they loathe, and their town is yet again left off the tour. Does it matter to them that they are so irrelevant to the famous guys they've modeled their lives after, and that this scenario will play out until they're balding old men?

    No. Masochistic band fans love the pain. It hurts so good, after all.

    In a way one could see music fans as some of the most optimistic and hopeful souls on earth. We may listen to the most depressing lyrics, dress all in black, and lock ourselves away with just our tunes for days on end (or perhaps that was just me at 16) but every time we are let down we get back up again, with more strength than we ever show in real life. We handle the artificial disappointments doled out by our loves with dignity, easily recover, and are quick to forgive and forget.

    I often wonder if it isn't an addiction, chasing that first high we got from our bands; yet just as the heroin addict can never repeat that feeling, nor can we. The first 5 times I heard Rebellion (Lies) by Arcade Fire, I had chills and goosebumps. When I saw them from the midst of O2 Arena in London, that feeling had long since passed, and I merely stood there in a sense of panic wondering what they'd done to my song to keep it from giving me that feeling. Ever since, I've loved at least a half dozen songs on each Arcade Fire album, but none have raised my arm hairs. I keep buying their CDs though, and in the back of my mind cannot kill that hope they will write something else that stirs me so deeply. The same goes for gigs - my first proper Franz Ferdinand gig literally changed my life. While that sounds incredibly corny, it was chasing that feeling again which turned me into a highfalutin, world traveling woman of the world who worked 4 disgustingly degrading jobs to pay my way across the Atlantic and back not once, but thrice. Those gigs were amazing, and a series of events pertaining to their aftermath led me to the very bed I lie in as I type this; however the rush I got at that first gig in Providence never came back. I had lost my sense of awe at their live shows, and my inhibitions went up and up the more I ran into the guys in the band. I no longer wanted to be a fan having a good time, because those people annoyed me - and I didn't want to annoy them. Going to gigs, sometime around gig 15 of 29, became a right effort. I know that effort will be massively multiplied come seeing them again in October, but that hasn't stopped me from buying tickets to 2 gigs so far. My inner masochist is looking forward to that pain.

    It isn't just the live gigs. I do it with the albums, too, and I know I'm not alone. My friend and I have been debating all week, ever since the new Franz album came out, whether or not we like it. At first, we didn't - hell I even hated the mere IDEA of it. But now, it's growing on me. Am I liking it because it's them? Did I ever *not* like it, or was I just resistant to the change? Have I forgiven them for skipping my entire half the country five times in a row, doling out drama galore to do with this album, and taking 4 years to produce something that probably should be better for that time frame? I'm not one to forgive and forget, so that can't be it. I think the masochist in me is coming out. When it no longer hurts to like them, the masochistic band fan must find a way to drag that knife. As my friend and I debated this album online, another friend of hers chimed in, "Why wouldn't you like it? You love Franz." Neither of us really had a good answer, but we tried. That's the thing, after all. We're all just too big of masochists to enjoy the good parts, and when loving our loves stops hurting, we have to find a way to get our fix.

How about you? Do you like your music with a side of heartache, or are you more subdued than that? Do you know the warning signs of band masochism in case you or your friends need an intervention?