While his albums never truly seduced our ears, the combination of his innovative flows with DJ Danger Mouse's angelic beats won us over immediately. "Public Service Announcement", "Encore", "99 Problems", "Dirt Off Your Shoulder", all great mash-ups. And while his works have mostly died out within the triangle, I feel the need to give him a shout-out (which he will never hear) on this, the day of his birth (Also the namesake for one of his weakest flows, but this is supposed to be a thank you). While I don't believe in a lot of the abstract ideas we use in English class, imagery is definitely an important part of my life, especially with music. It seems that every album I have brings about a certain image from my life. For "The Grey Album", it's Mario going up the outside of the pyramid during "Shining Atop the Pyramid" with "Public Service Announcement" playing. It's one of those albums that hold special nostalgic value for me.
Just a reminder that my blog is NOT about video games (for 8 more days), though I constantly mention them. Just kidding, it really is about video games.
But on the musical note (punular), I’ve recently realized something about my developing music tastes. I believe the reason that my tastes have strayed from the likes of Jay-Z and LP is because I'm actually getting more involved with the messages and themes of lyrics. Weird, I know. Suddenly I'm not content to listen to music that obviously has no feeling in it, and is just a good beat with good vocals. Linkin Park was my first step towards this- While they're lyrics are raw, unoriginal, and virtually meaningless in the context of the band, I went to them because of they offered more extreme emotions than other bands, and thus were more interesting. But behind these emotions was nothing, it was just scream to scream. Which is fun sometimes. But one reason I really like State Radio (and really like a handful of Rage songs) is that there is actually significance to what's being said. It's not the same old crap about love that we've heard a million times to. Somehow, even though we're being force-fed the same love spiels over and over, we still revel in it like the media wants us to (Bullets in our heads?) I'm not denying that many love songs are musically satisfying as far as beat and instrumentals go, but eventually I came to realize that I took almost no pleasure in singing along to them. The same goes for shallow themes of sex and drugs (Jay-Z, and the rap generation he spawned). I'm not saying these aren't legitimate subjects (Actually, I sorta am saying that about sex and drugs), but they've been beat to death.
So why is political music any different? Well, on the surface it has major differences just because of the vocabulary used (gone are the days of albums riddled with personal pronouns "need", "want", "love", and other cliché words, and in are "The capital is crowded with effigies", "what we don't know keeps the contracts alive and moving", and my favorite “No battleship too big for your war emporium/ It's give it all ya got son, and go back to where you're from/ We're hiding in the weeks, we're the super neocons/ 'Cuz we got bombs, and they got BARRELS of gasoline". Okay, honestly the only reason I wrote that whole thing out was to unnecessarily rub the "barrels" thing in Koop's face again.
In any case, political music is far more interesting, for while it maintains the same themes of rebellion and disappointment, its content drastically changes over short periods of time (Rage lines like "More For Gore or the son of a drug lord", referencing the 2000 election, and SR's "Guantanamo"). In this case I believe being dated is a good thing, it allows for the genre of political music to constantly evolve as the world changes, and in retrospect the dated songs still hold meaning and important themes. Needless to say, politics change a bit more often than love. The political horse is far from being dead, and much further from being beat.
I realize that most people will retort that the way music sounds is the only important part, but recently I've felt like a mindless zombie listening to love songs, as they seem so superficial. It's actually weird, because all of the political music I listen to (not much, unfortunately) is drastically liberal, and I don't usually share its opinions. But it is intellectually stimulation nonetheless. So if you like music just for the way it sounds, cool. I'm just personally on a rant about it (Also, it may just be that love songs find no meaning until you're smitten, but they haven't worked for me in my times of smittenness).
Wow, that was a terrible Thanks to Jay-Z. Oh well, my other plan was to write my own version of "December 4th" with pretend quotes from my mother about my childhood, but me writing a rap would not turn out well. Be thankful. In any case, you rock, HOVA.
So apparently SCUMM and my good friends Guybrush Threepwood, Elaine, LeChuck and gang are now on the iPhone in some weird mini-game or something. It still doesn't make me want an iPhone, but it makes me miss my Monkey terribly. MI5 soon, please? Or at least start working on it.
With some adjective,
OldSchoolKlingon
MMMMMM...Look at that bacon sizzle!
8 comments:
Bacon? Mr. Game and Watch? What?
Who would win a fight between Jay-Z and Mr. G&W? Where would Chetro fall in there, assuming his smash attack was with his oil-can guitar?
Chetro>G&W>Jay-z (Sorry, Jay). This is because Chetro's gas can would fill with G&W's bacon grease as G&W attacked, thus fueling his "no blood for oil" fury. G&W would beat Jay-Z, however, because Jay-Z has "put down the toast" and no longer has the munchies for bacon.
And actually the bacon thing was a reference to a cartoon short I saw on tv a few years back, though that could be a good kill line for G&W.
Just don't adapt it for the pump.
songs on the radio today- CRAP!!! at first ill think it's some bazaar alternative station, (which would have good potential for songs to come) but no, apparently this sonically threadbare alternative sounding music being played has attained pop status, and when that's done, we're back to meaningless hip hop and pop.
as much as i can appreciate hip hop and pop (though my pop threshold is miniscule, with a few exceptions) when I'm looking for something to dance to or just have fun with, I really feel alot of these songs either lack real substance all together, or are just the same ideas reshuffled like you said, I know that even the few I do like I will buy the single of, listen to for a month, and then forget about.
though I would like to shout out that Fergie's '"clumsy" is pretty original sounding, or at least it was at like 5 this morning....
I would also like to add that I generally have the music taste of a middle school aged boy, so i'm probably not one to talk...
I maintain that while "barrels" makes sense, it just doesn't sound like that word in the song. You were there when we went through it like 2-3 times, and it's definetly "ound" as in "sound." No matter how hard you try, they just aren't saying "barrels." Like, it's not even close dude.
On a different note, I think smitten songs do work better when you actually deal with smitten issues. Better... still not great for many (or maybe most) but better.
very true...but once your smitten issues are dealt with, if the song has few other redeeming qualities, theres nothing else to keep it on your playlist. And, at least for me in the case of pop songs, if you realize that empathy is the only reason you are enjoying a song that has no other good qualities you start to feel really cliche and easily bought.
I just realized that that thing I said about bacon grease makes no sense.
Whatever, it was 7 AM.
you blog at 7am?!? wow...
I comment at 7 AM.
I'm not a loser.
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