Silly Girl said, giggling

georgiewood said with a georgiegrin 

 

trcanberra yelled at eventide  
“I don’t need some spotty frustrated 35 year old chap who is typing from his little room in friggin’ Delaware to tell me that.”

I can see why you would think Delaware is a town–It’s population is less than 1 million, but here in the States, we consider Delaware to be more of a State than a town. 

Hah! I only just realised that. I’m (technically) American, but I didn’t even really notice that till now. I suppose I’m not American enough. It’s probably due to my Anglophility. (Yah I invented a word. No I don’t care.) 

For you folk across the pond (on either side), Delaware has the distinction of being the “first state”, that is to say the first state to sign/ratify the Constitution.  It also has the distinction of being the home of all of my mother’s side of the family, the beach we went to every year, and the state i lived  in for 4 years You can drive across it in about 20 minutes if there’s no traffic.

meanmistermustard said
I was in a pub last week for about 2 hours that had the music channel ‘Smash Hits’ on. It played around 8 or 9 different songs in that period. The songs themselves varied between the bearable with laughable lyrics to the bad to the truly abysmal. The below falls very easily into the latter category with the additional bonus that Mr Thicke comes across as a smug creepy arse. 

He doesn’t just come across as one in this video – he is one. I had the dishonor of being introduced to his music several years ago (I was curious because I used to watch his dad Alan in the sitcom Growing Pains). Everything I’ve seen of him reeks of um..smug, creepy arseholeness 😉

You have to look farther than the hot 100 to find good modern music. Today’s pop ranges from inane (Taylor Swift) to awful (Iggy Azalea, and there’s far worse than her). Some hip-hop is just musical porn. Not that I am hating on Taylor, she’s very talented and lots of people like her music, so it qualifies as music in my book. She is her own manager and choreographs her own (as much visual as musical performance) concerts.

Amy Winehouse was a truly gifted modern musician – unfortunately she went the way of so many other gifted artists. I know someone who saw a documentary about her and apparently everyone in her inner circle used her and encouraged her to add drug addiction to her alcoholism (not sure if her cause of death was purely heroin or the mix of both). It’s very likely that her real problem was bipolar disorder, and she was self-medicating. She also exhibited other typical mental illness symptoms like self-injury and ED (not erectile dysfunction ;).

I decided to take a little time tonight and sample popular modern rock. I have to admit I find it difficult to get “in the groove” of modern rock, but I liked what I heard of a few of the popular bands. The lyrics in particular seem meaningless compared to classic rock, blues, folk, 80s, 90s/alternative, classic & even modern pop country, but when I try to get into a milennial mindset I think I can get something out of it. Florence & The Machine is allright. The Yeah-Yeah-Yeahs were pleasant to listen to, and have a heavy pre-punk through later punk (Lou Reed – The Pretenders) influence. I checked out the “popular” rock bands like Linkin Park (many comments about how meaningful their lyrics are – i found NOT) and generally wasn’t impressed with their musical or writing talent. I wasn’t impressed with the bands I found googling “modern rock musicians”. I’m not sure how popular Laibach is, I believe they dwell mainly in the old Eastern bloc countries and those still Communist, but their version of Sympathy For the Devil is worth listening to…for the entirety of one chorus – and then never again. As broad as my definition of music is, I find it hard to call their sound “music.”

But there is some really cool, indie stuff out there. Pentatonix are pretty cool (definitely worth checking out). Pomplamoose are a very talented husband-and-wife team who play all the instruments between the two of them. A lot of rappish-soul is very well written and tells a good story. I don’t find the delivery aesthetically pleasing, but many do.

Then I found NPR’s list of the year’s 100 best songs (for those outside the states, it’s National Public Radio – funded by the government, donations from mostly liberal philanthropists and trust funds, and individual donations). I jumped to the “rock” section and was very impressed with the first three songs…I’m going to keep listening and you might find something you like too 🙂

Gosh I guess I’ve run on a bit, but this is what I love. Hope you got to the end and check out some of the stuff on that list @meanmistermustard and whoever 🙂