|
|
|
|
You should all go bang a gong. |
|
Nov. 17, 2005 - I am in such a good mood right now. Been that way all morning. Or at least since
And for that, I thank the Barenaked Ladies. It’s not for anything that they’ve done lately, you
see. I bring CDs in with me
to work, and once I finish, I have a gap between when I get things done
and when my newscast goes on the air at
Wow, I’m happy right now. I’m a cat with kittens. That may change later this evening, but that’s a whole different story, and I digress. Anyway, this morning, I popped in Rock Spectacle by BNL, and that just improved the hell out of my state of being. I’ve been in kind of a weird mood all week, and that snapped me out of it. Normally, I wouldn’t have been listening to that CD, but this week, I’ve been burning all of my old CDs over to mp3. Up until this point, I’ve been just picking out all of the big songs that I always listen to, but now, I’m pulling everything over and putting it in my Winamp playlist. And I’m starting to realize this: I actually have good taste in music. I bought most of my CDs in the 90’s, when I was a member of Columbia House. I waited until they had a 2 for 1 deal, then loaded up. Mostly, I bought entire albums for just one song. I bought Peter Gabriel’s So, for “Sledgehammer.” I picked up Let it Bleed by the Rolling Stones for “Gimme Shelter,” and, as a bonus, got “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” I was basically buying what I heard on the radio. If I heard it, and liked it, then I bought it, and only listened to one song. After I got out of college, I stopped buying CDs. Just stopped cold. I guess I just started listening to radio more, or talk radio. Plus, I got a computer, and started burning all of these songs onto CD-Rs. I think the last album I picked up was the soundtrack to Ray. Before that, it was The Rising by Bruce Springsteen. And before that, I couldn’t tell you. Now, I’m listening to all of the songs that I never listened to before, because they’re in my playlist, and just come up randomly, and they’re good tunes. It’s been fun to rediscover something that I had all along, but never realized until I threw the songs in to my mix and realized that they stuck out in a good way. Look at the music industry today. It’s down. Way down. Down to the point where record companies are illegally paying radio stations to get their songs on the air, so they can inflate airplay numbers and, obviously, sell more albums. Meanwhile, people like myself listen to the radio and wonder, “how in the hell did this band get on the radio? They suck. This song sucks. This music sucks. And this station is playing it every hour.” Combine that with the fact that every song is available online, for free, provided you know where to look for it. It’s not a very well kept secret. So, you hear a song you like on the radio, you download it, and you’ve got it. You end up with one song from a lot of different bands, and your playlist and the CDs you burn sound a lot like the radio station you were listening to. It’s then that you realize that the music you’re listening to is exactly the same as everybody else’s. That is tragically uncool. The coolest people I know listen to music I’ve never heard of before, and it’s all good music. It makes me wish I was operating in the same plane of existence as those folks, because they’re obviously hearing bands that come from some higher plane of Rock. Think of the soundtracks to the best movies you watch. They’ve all got awesome bands whose names you don’t recognize, or obscure songs from bands you do know about. Have you heard “Before They Make Me Run,” by The Rolling Stones, or “Queen Bitch,” by David Bowie? Neither had I, until by luck, I put them on my computer, which played them at random. So begins my music catharsis. And now, I’m happy to say that while most people’s CD burners are working overtime, mine is working even harder. In reverse. And I’m in such a good mood. |
