5.15.13 HAPPY TRESPASSING DAY!!!

What I love about Trespassing

*The initial frenzy was so exciting for me. I loved the anticipation, the angsting over the release date, the endless discussions, the strategy speculations that went on and on and on.... The eagerness with which we soaked up the first performances and embraced blurry fan videos was enormous. That album was wanted and loved and cared for before it saw the light of the day. I love the collective investment and shared experiences.


*I was so blissfully unaware of its relevance to Adam at the beginning. Just by looking at the album's jaw-dropping artwork or the sincerity and beauty of the liner notes, I knew that it was big, capital in a sense; that the level of investment and care about every single detail were tremendous. What I did not know, could not have possibly known so soon, is how personal, audacious, how adventurous really, it was. Its audacity was, and still is, caused by the times we live in. It took me some time, a lot of time, to get its entire scope. Actually, what I do know now is that I still haven't gotten, nor will I probably ever get, everything about it. I love the elusiveness of it; no matter how revealing Trespassing is, the essence of Adam, for that is what I was searching for, kept escaping me like a magical fata morgana, always brushing the tips of my fingers and then slipping away as I try to grab it.


*The love for some songs hit me instantly like a sledgehammer; for others it came slowly, in delicious, epiphanic increments. I became obsessed with his lyrics, the need to analyze them like a deranged lunatic taking over me like nothing before. Again, what I did not know is that it would take me a lot of time, probably the same amount it took Adam to create it, to even begin to understand them properly. Later, I got embarrassed by my initial writings and wanted to delete them, but I could not access my earlier posts; I still can't. So, it was a technicality which made me accept them and the No Regrets motto; ridiculous, I know. The acceptance of my mistakes, having no regrets for my obsession - that is also what Trespassing gave me.


*Just like returning to my favourite books in almost regular time periods and with each reread discovering something new about them, from the time of its release up til now, a year later, Trespassing has not stopped giving, explaining, or planting itself in my mind and heart, consciousness and subconsciousness.  Whether it is the new realisation from the inside of it, or the new aspects of its outside impact, it has not let me relax or lull myself in deceptional understanding. I love the never-ending gift of it.


*But what I love most about that album and it is something I fully learned last about it - how utterly, unspeakably and unapologetically brave it is in its beautiful release of Adam's everything. From the standpoint of a member of the last minority still being denied its basic human rights, and also from the standpoint of a man who desires a career in pop music, to take the opportunity of making his first album, essentially, at least the first in a sense that he put his entire being and his best effort and the sum of his personal and musical growth in it, and come up with brutally honest, highly unstrategic and basically anti-consumerist material was almost insane. Insanely beautiful to me, insanely unacceptable to some. Adam thought and he still thinks that he has achieved balance on it, the balance between his integrity and his practicality. Is that true? I do not know for sure. I think that he has not - I think that Trespassing is so different from all the manufactured music out there, so unique in its daring expression, that even Adam himself underestimates the level of its autonomy. The little impersonal exceptions he made on it are so few; the poetical directness of everything else is so enormous.


*Finally, Trespassing gives me comfort and reassurance which I need - I needed to know that Adam is an artist who makes music from the cells and chambers whose walls and floors have nothing to do with concrete or plaster and everything to do with nuclei and plasma. Adam gave me that knowledge and I am thankful for it. Whatever he records next, whichever path he chooses to take, I will have Trespassing and he will have it as a dignified, remarkable and courageous anchor, to keep me where I am, to remind him who he is, and to firmly cement the bond between us.

 

To call Trespassing an album, to call its content songs, to call its experience just a musical one is not enough, it does not cover it. I am not saying that it is bigger or greater or better than anything else - I am saying that it is different, in two major ways. First, it is being mainstream in declaration, but alternative in essence; and second, the current political situation is giving it an aura of a dare, making it politically and historically relevant. Its first Billboard place is not just any first place, its rewards are not just any rewards. By buying it you are not just making another addition to your music collection - you are making a political statement. By going to Adam's concert, you are not only expanding your culture - you are supporting a cause. Perhaps inadvertently so, but you are. By loving and understanding and sharing it, you become a receiver and a giver of a greater love - the one where love is love is love. Words like equality and rights and unity are very important and Adam keeps saying them. They do mean a lot; but what he did on Trespassing is show the world what it is that they need to accept. It is invaluable. I hope that the time will come when we will have to explain to the new generations of music listeners what it was so groundbreaking about Trespassing and that they will look at us funnily, unable to understand. Happy Trespassing Day.