Expanding Your Musical Horizons

Every now and then you find something you really enjoy, and you feel the need to share it with the world. That's been happening to me a lot recently, particularly with incredibly good yet underrated songs and artists. A lot of Indie genre stuff doesn't go far in the musical ocean because their target demographic is hipsters and people who actually listen to Indie music. I think that's a real shame.

So I invite you to go forth and experience the overwhelming sea of unheard genius. Envelop yourself, develop your taste for the sound that makes the world spin around. Let me introduce you to some of these up and coming young bloods. Go forth and listen.

Mansions on the Moon

Freelance Whales

Wax Tailor

Right Away, Great Captain!

Macklemore

I'm back, bay-bay!

So I was laying around the other day, wasting my life eating junk food and playing video games, and having an awfully grand time doing so, when suddenly I said to myself "sick flying pickles, I've got a blog!" So I hurried the fricksticks right up my stairs to my laptop, which brings me to here. I have been feeling a severe lack of writing, and I think this'll cheer me up. (I don't know if "this'll" is a correct contraction, but I like making those up, so I amn't going to change it.)

You know, I can honestly say that I'm pretty awful at pretty much everything. I mean, I can play some instruments pretty well, but I can't read music, and I never got a grade on how fast I can play something I made up on piano. I couldn't do Biblical Exegesis because every time something had a deeper meaning I took it as literal, and vice versa. Math? Well, that's pretty much a lost cause for me. Chemistry? That's just a fancy way of saying "more math." I enjoy languages but the translations over and over and over and over bore me. Words. I love words. If there's anything I can do in this world, it's list off synonyms for pretty much any word you throw at me. And you know the sad part about all this? Last year, at school, I did awful. I was awful because they give me all these classes that I have no idea what I'm doing in, while at the same time I wrote a grand total of about four papers the whole year.

And for serious, that's probably the reason I started blogging. We all know that my good friend Matt Woods and I had a sort of blog-battle in the beginning, but I seriously just wanted to write. Writing makes me feel good. I didn't have any classes where I could let out all this compressed creativity, and frankly it was screwing with my brain. I'd start getting sarcastic on my homework answers. I remember specifically answering "beats me" and "I dunno" multiple times on my math work. There was one particular case where I flat out said "who cares about the falling velocity of this kids baseball?"

So anyways, it feels good to be writing again. Writing is my mistress, and frankly my dear, I'll never get tired of you.

Is the answer "dust?" (reference to Kansas win?)

"How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?
How many seas must the white dove sail before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes and how many times must the cannonballs fly before they're forever banned?

The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind. The answer is blowin' in the wind.

Yes and how many years can a mountain exist, before it is washed to the sea?
Yes and how many years can some people exist before they're allowed to be free?
Yes and how many times can a man turn his head and pretend that he just doesn't see?

The answer my friend, is blowin' in the wind. The answer is blowin' in the wind.

Yes and how many times must a man look up, before he can see the sky?
Yes and how many ears must a man have, before he can hear people cry?
Yes and how many deaths will it take till he knows that too many people have died?

The answer my friend is blowin' in the wind. The answer is blowin' in the wind."

This is, in my opinion, one of the greatest, most inspirational songs ever writting. Bob Dylan is a genius. Simple as that.

Anyways, I really just wanted to share these lyrics with you. I'm not really sure if this is an emotional song for anybody else out there, and I don't exactly burst into tears or anything when I hear this, but it does hit me down deep, you know? These are words that really make you think. Im in the middle of compiling a list of videos and songs that make you all teary-eyed, and I'm always taking suggestions if you know of any good ones.

Fun fact! The first time I heard that song "Listen to Your Heart," I cried. I was like, twelve, but still... Haha.

Musical trolls all up in your endocrine system!

Every decade has its own stereotype for music. In the 60's you had classic rock, 70's was the golden age for rock, 80's were the beginning of electric synth and disco (even though I'm convinced that even people in the 80's didn't like disco all that much), 90's had some of the best rap produced ever (and I say that because it was people actually using their voices, and not auto tune goodness) along with other beginnings of indie pop, and 2000+ was the hip hop/pop scene. Every decade has people who are essentially zealots that worship this era. For instance, you can click on literally any Sugar Ray music video and find a treasure trove of people saying things like (and these are actual quotes):

"Listening to this takes me back to my childhood. Before Lady Gaga. Before shitty music was played repeatedly over the airwaves. Before Jersey Shore, when MTV actually played music. When the most competitive we ever got was over a game of horse in Tony hawk's pro skater. When Nickelodeon played actually funny, enjoyable cartoons. When kids got fresh air and played basketball or baseball in the park for fun, instead of being cramped up in a basement playing cod. Man, I miss the 90's." 

"amen to that hell kids todayare a bunch of lazy tards who think they know real msic" (I really wish this guy would have been kvetching about grammar and spelling, because I love myself some good irony).

"I cried when I watched this video because it reminds me of how much "now" sucks, and how great "then" was."

This one was on Billy Joel's music video for We Didn't Start the Fire:

"1st of March is Justin Bieber's birthday. He's been infecting the whole world. Because of him, the world of rock is going extinct

So on his birthday, we all will go to his "Baby" official video and push the 'dislike' button so that the 'dislike' bar becomes 10 times bigger than the 'like' bar.

If you are a rock fan, join with me and thumbs up me, copy-paste this message to all rock videos. We have six months to unite and fight against this little cockroach."

Sweet Jesus, man, are you starting a religion or something? Look, I'm not a big Bieber fan (because I'm not a 14 year old female, mostly) but I'll admit that he has at least some talent. I can't sing and play guitar at the same time worth crap. Little cockroach? That's harsh man. 

Look, the point is that on some level, every person is a big fat depraved, barbarous fiend and/or troll. Kids in my generation who listen to pop and hip-hop, and those only, are a little more passive aggressive about it, but it still kind of ticks me off when someone just flat out says that they don't listen to old music.

But all that stuff I can stand, because I'm perfect, and I can find aesthetic value in pretty much any of the multiple manifestations of music. If you really want to perk up some ears, though, just tell people you don't like music at all. This isn't a joke, either. I know at least two people who have said this to me. Seriously? What is wrong with you people? There's even science behind the awesomeness of music. I can confidently say that if you don't find any pleasure in listening to music,  there is something psychologically wrong with you. Then again, the two people who have said this to me are the types of guys who are on the robotics team and spend the night at teachers houses because they were working on a project (true story) and who not only still play Runescape, but get so excited about the wildy coming back, along with free enterprise, that they post it as their Facebook status and tell everyone at school (also a true story. And ashamedly, I knew exactly what he was talking about...).

Oh, and while I'm talking about hormones, here's this video that Matt and I made for an Anatomy project. Because hey, who doesn't want to learn about the endocrine system from two high-schoolers with a video camera?

 

Edit 2/20: I just found this on a video of Jump Around by House of Pain. "Ok listen you all kids who were born yesterday and think 2Pac and BIG are gods:You are eminem and 50Cent generation,you are Jersey Shores and Jackass generation,you know nothing,and it's ironic that me,a person who does not cares about rap,knows the whole history of the genre and you pseudo-rappers keep worshipping 2 CRIMINALS who distorted the whole rap purpose.Until you kow exactly who Public Enemy,Big Daddy Kane,Grandmaster Flash,Digable Planets,De La Soul,are,shut up." (and even worse, it was the highest rated comment on the video).

This primarily pissed me off because he says that we, the Eminem generation, don't know anything. I love Eminem. I'm just gonna put that out there. And his song Stan (feat. Dido) has named the greatest rap song ever (by me), reaching no. 1 on the charts in six different countries. It came in 3rd during a survey for the best rap song ever produced by Q magazine. It placed 290 on the Rolling Stones Magazine's list of the top 500 songs ever made. Here, let me say that again. The Rolling Stones Magazine (yes, the famous one) declared this song to be in the top 300 songs ever made in the history of everything ever made ever. Do you know how many songs have been made? The answer is higher than I can count. My best guess about this guys problem is that he's not black. Racists. Haha.

*due to formatting issues, one of the quotes (the one about Justin Bieber killing music) was cut off. It's fixed now, and what I say after it makes way more sense now. Haha.