The Burden of the Delusional Mistalents

What should you do about your out-of-tune friend?

To Cass Elliot’s delight, we all know somebody is making their own kind of music. Perhaps it is the kid who grew up strumming the guitar, banging the drums, or fingering the keys.¹ Maybe it’s a deejay who performs at brunch locales, spinning house music to drunk diners paying $25 for eggs and bacon.² In my hometown of Pasadena, we have as many rappers as we do bakers, nail artists, and car detailers!

Music is often praised for making the day-to-day easier to handle, and such a gift is greater appreciated when it comes from the ensemble of characters already cast in our lives. However, within our social circles, we likely know or know of someone out of tune and out of touch with reality. From this, we find ourselves trying to solve the following predicament: How do you tell committed singers to quit their day job?

The good musicians are usually omnipresent³, always being reposted, praised, or streamed — and rightfully so. Whether natural or practiced, talent of any sort is hard to come by. But what happens to the bad musicians of our world? It is much easier to jeer at the untalented when they have no real connection to us, but when the musically damned is someone we know, weighing an oath to friendship against one’s sense of taste presents a tricky dilemma.

Like most people, I consider it a privilege to have musically talented friends. Everyone wants to duet with them at karaoke events, and car rides can become fantastic little concerts. Musically gifted friends almost always⁴ add joy and intrigue to the lives of their loved ones. When it comes to this fortunate demographic, the louder the soundtrack, often the merrier the listener. However, the world’s creator can only bless so many people — no one has an exclusively gifted contact book. The reason we revere the musically talented is that the musically ass are much more abundant; and whereas we have few friends who fall under the classification of the good, we have many more who are considered the horrific.

Typically, the bad musicians we know of are aware of their deficiencies. They sing for shits and giggles, knowing full well that their belting may shut down whatever music is being played to accompany a road trip or concert (see Erika Jayne singing along during the holidays). Returning to the karaoke bar, while the talented are great, the notoriously off-key (and often off-consciousness) produce better memories.

The moral debacle I alluded to earlier emerges when our friends believe they are anything but insufferable. They have the gall to release song after song, sometimes forcing their friends, who know better, to film promos and offer words of endorsements. At the very least, we cringe as we watch and listen; at the very worst, it keeps us up at night. On their part, this sort of ignorance is often to blame for many fractious moments endured in friendships. Narcissists never consider themselves to be one, which can also be said for our befriended gaslighters, manipulators, and bullies. It only makes sense that many misguided singers themselves believe they are on the right path. (Can you imagine how hard it must be to be friends with Jennifer Lopez?)⁵

This is the burden of the delusional mistalents.

Falling victim to this scenario is not uncommon. Often, the burden’s perpetuation is traced back to inauthentic kindness; and while the root cause is easy to identify, a solution is harder to prescribe. No one wants to tell a good friend that they suck at singing, especially if they dream of filling concert venues or hitting millions of streams. Doing so can end friendships and designate you as an asshole — even if killing the singer’s career advances the greater good of the hearing general public. That being said, however, no one, particularly no one who considers themselves a “real friend,” should allow their buddies to continue living with false hopes. Like many, I believe that friends always tell friends when lettuce and lipstick become stuck in between teeth, when boogers make unsightly appearances, and when professional decisions are detrimental.

If it is the case that you agree with these principles of friendship, then the solution to the burden of the delusional mistalents is found somewhere in breaking the news to the offender. On the question of “How do I tell my friend they suck at singing?” the internet provides creative solutions. One person advised that if sinful sing-alongs occur when music plays through a car radio, consider only listening to podcasts while driving. I once advised someone who was friends with a bad musician to call them out anonymously via Reddit, fully understanding that such a method could be considered cowardly. Some have asked, “What about recommending vocal lessons?” In agreement with the internet, I believe some people are beyond help. Maybe you will find that blocking them on all social media platforms and every streaming service is the best policy, but if you get to this point, I doubt the friendship is worth saving at all. Even if you nudge the friend toward exiting delusion, who’s to say they will ever act on your advice? Great, you’re back at square one, bad tunes and all.

Odds are, you had done this exact calculus before and concluded that there is nothing you can do to cure your friend from their misguided judgments, and frankly, you’re right. There is absolutely nothing you can do to change some people’s minds. Some people are simply stubborn with what they think they are meant to do, and in their defense, who are we to tell them otherwise? You can only tell an addict to put down the pipe oh-so-many times. It’s not our duty to tell friends which degrees to pursue, nor is it truthfully our right to object at weddings, even if the opportunity is offered. Humans deserve to experiment with various life purposes and decisions. Eventually, a process of elimination carried by the consuming public will either sway your disillusioned friend to quit what was never to be or better themselves so that a dream can become reality.

Conan Gray is a prime example of what happens when you allow delusion to fester into a career…

For worried onlookers, the burden of the delusional mistalent is painfully watching our friends pursue paths that we know will never materialize; and we often allow this dilemma to play out because we’re afraid of being branded a hater, or worse, an unsupportive friend. However, for the person on the path heading towards a cliff, this is simply a part of what makes life interesting. One day, our friends may try returning the dream they bought, realizing it’s time to become an accountant. To the chagrin of most involved, that day of turning around is not this one, nor will it likely be tomorrow, sometime next week, or in the next month. They are not done wasting space on Spotify.

Let the delusional continue; just close your eyes and test how good noise-canceling headphones really are. Only when it becomes insufferable should you report them to the authorities.

---

1. I hope that’s the right term for playing the piano.

2. Email me if you want to know which restaurant I am talking about.

3. From the Oxford Dictionary: (adjective) widely or constantly encountered; common or widespread.

4. When can the musically talented become nuisances? When they overdo that shit. No one wants to go to dinner with a friend known for breaking out into song-and-dance in public settings. There’s a fine line between those good at making music and those engaged in theatre outside of a playhouse setting.

5. As a kid, I was a dedicated watcher of Family Feud. For whatever reason, one of the only Fast Money questions I remember was: “On a scale of one to ten, how good of a singer is Jennifer Lopez?” Good to know the show hired producers from the Wendy Williams Academy of Shade. (The number one answer was generous— “five”).