by Corwin D. Smidt

Staff Writer

These pages recently have discussed such impressive and important topics as pacifism, environmentalism and racism. These discussions have been enlightening, if not helpful to the Calvin community. So in a full-fledged effort to pursue this scholarly and Christian pursuit it is perhaps time to bring up another important and controversial topic the hackneyed music scene at Calvin College.

I first realized this peculiar problemin my freshman year at Calvin. Dave Matthews Band was popular, but not the hottest thing on earth. Matthews seemed to be an all right artist, certainly respectable with a good amount of popularity. However, here at Calvin he was in the running to be entered in as the fourth member of the Trinity. This strange amount of popularity did not really hit me until after my first five weeks at Calvin. Walking to my dorm from Knollcrest every day with a constant Dave Matthews Band song emanating from someone's blaring stereo convinced me that this college had some room for improvement.

Since that time three years ago the bands might have changed but this unneeded uniformity in our music selection has not. For instance, are Bela Fleck and the Flecktones really that deserving of the amount of popularity they get? It is not that the musical group is bad at all. Their music is original and their performance sounds good. However, the status they get here on Calvin seems to be a little higher than that of other college campuses. It seems likely that there would be a couple of faithful fans or more existing at Calvin. But come on, could we get some other bands to play here in concert? The Ben Harper craze at least seems to be on the downturn here. For a while it seemed like there was no other band that mattered. It is great that he is a Christian, but that does not make his music any better.

The other old Calvin student standard bands need a little bit of a rest too. U2 has been a good band and has had a long run of popularity in the world and at Calvin. But, being a popular band with ``Christian influences'' does not mean they should be worshiped as the Christian rock band almighty with dire attention being paid to their Christian metaphors. Pedro the Lion is another good band that I also happen to like. However, it sort of ruins it when the Fish House plays them on a three-times-a-day basis. I guess it is everyone's own choice to hang out there and listen to the music, but it still represents the eerie trend of music conformity that exists here at Calvin.

Over the Rhine was apparently named ``Band of the Decade'' in a 2000 issue of Chimes. Still, I have yet to hear or see their name mentioned outside of the Calvin campus as a legitimate contender for the title.

There is an important lesson to be learned from all of this. It seems that for the amount of crap students give Calvin for not being diverse or unique enough, there should be an equal amount of blame placed on the students themselves. Remember the spoof calendar a couple years back of Clone Village? We all laughed at that, but we still go on and perpetuate the practice. Granted, individuals find their identities in groups, and it is natural for some commonalities to emerge out of the campus here at Calvin. Nevertheless, it does not excuse this immediate acceptance and extraordinary approval of decidedly ordinary music groups.

This is not some musical elitist's diatribe. I own a Britney Spears CD, for goodness's sake. This is a call to all Calvin students: let's branch out a bit and try to be more of individuals. If you like a couple of the bands mentioned here in this article, then by all means keep on liking them. However, if there is not a CD in your collection of a band that has not played here at Calvin, then maybe you should take a trip to the music store. And on a more important note, whenever a complaint is registered about the homogeneity of the student body, perhaps it should be pointed out that we are all to blame.