Monday, July 13, 2009

A Muddled Music Post

Updating my website takes forever, but it does allow me to multitask: I've been trying for the past six weeks or so to listen to all the songs I've downloaded with Stationripper that are from 2007, so I did that while coding the html for all those pages. Yeah, I know, 2007...but I've downloaded several thousand songs over the past few years, so I'm a bit backed up. I've gotten though most of the 2007 songs by now, and I have to say that most Christian Metal really sucks. It all sounds the same, like bad 70s arena rock! I kept less than 10 songs out of the more than 150 I listened to, and almost half of those were Pillar and Red that I already liked. Oh well, I won't be downloading that station again. Don't be surprised, though indie music is my favorite I'll listen to anything, even as my mom asked recently, "Isn't that a country song?" I have less than an hour of country music on my computer, but I do have some.

I also listened to a lot of electronica from a different station, which I had better luck with. But a remix of "Monkey" by Low reminded me what a weird song that is. "Tonight you will be mine. Tonight the monkey dies." Okay, everyone can understand the first part, but why does a monkey need to die? I like monkeys. I hope I never have the sort of relationship that directly causes their deaths. I can't even imagine a scenario where that would be a likely outcome...

Last month someone my parents' age complimented me on my vast knowledge of music. He has no idea: we only were talking about oldies, and that's not even my area of interest in music. He wanted to know if I spend all my time listening to music, and I don't. I have a really good memory for music, though. It's very easy to memorize the minutia that no one else cares about: like the fact that the girls from Smoosh sang vocals on the track "Noisy at The Circus" as part of the musical collective Head Like a Kite, that folks from Death From Above 1979 are now part of Mstrcrft, that Eve 6 and Killswitch Engage took their names from X-Files episodes, that Malcolm Middleton from Arab Strap is now a solo artist, that the Bard Of Ely song "Nicky Wire, You're a Liar" is about a singer for Manic Street Preachers, that contrary to what a lot of people think Billy Talent isn't named after someone in the band but a character in a novel, and just today I learned that the PJ Harvey song "Sheela Na Gig" is about a Celtic fertility godess...these things stick. After seven years of having the same bank account I still don't know my account number without looking at my checkbook, but I'm all about pointless musical trivia.

Preferring indie music can be sort of lonely, though. How many of the bands besides maybe Eve 6 do you recognize from the last paragraph? Not many, I'll bet. Maybe none at all. I don't mind that, though, because that gives me the opportunity to inflict new music on the unsuspecting. I've made a lot of mix cds for people who have no idea who I'm talking about. In fact, the concert I'm going to this week is for a band I introduced C to that way. The only problem with indie music is that I can't ask other people questions. Like, there's this song by Northern State called "Better Already" that I know I've heard the chorus of before, but was it on a soundtrack, or is it sampled? They're a rap band, so it could be either one. I may never know.


"I think I tried too hard to find what was never inside of you...this is the last time I let my heart lead" - Lenny Pierce, Last Time

No comments:

Post a Comment