Going through a stack of CDs and DVDs, I found John Darnielle’s Master of Reality, which I’d meant to write about long ago. The Mountain Goats’ singer/songwriter contributes his take on the Black Sabbath to Continuum Books’ 33 1/3 series in the form of a novella. That made me nervous, and I was moreso when I discovered it was written in the voice of a 15-year-old boy in a psychiatric hospital and his twentysomething self years later. That sounds like a recipe for cheap drama, but just as Mountain Goats albums work better than a description would make you think, Master of Reality is gripping storytelling and smart criticism.

Perhaps its not surprising that the older voice is more credible, but the younger voice rings true enough, and both address the roles music plays in our lives, which is a question I often consider these days. I  listen to the music I like most least because pop and punk, if it’s any good, distract me from writing. Much of my listening is function-based, and when we think about much of the music of Louisiana, thinking about its function is important to getting closer to how we should appreciate it. At the Ogden a month or so ago, David Greely, Joel Savoy and I debated whether Cajun music is at its core music made to be experienced as the soundtrack to a Saturday night, Greely making a good argument against that notion.

Black Sabbath might be a world away from Varise Conner, but the role of each’s music is well worth considering. In the case of heavy metal, more insightful thinking about it has long been necessary, and Darnielle’s suggestion that it’s a defusing element is a sensible alternative to a few decades’ worth of stupid, knee-jerk notions.