Music

The Grab

Chill Amusing, Music

One of my friends messaged me about my “First Ten” playlists, saying that I sometimes have songs on there she cannot find anywhere1.

Welcome to me ganking stuff from the fast-disappearing internet. If you don’t get it ‘fore it’s gone, it often is gone soon enough, leaving no trace at all.

  1. She uses it as a song recommendation service.

Nights

Chill Music

This is the best cover of Smashing Pumpkins’ “Tonight, Tonight.”

There used to be a great live video of the band playing the song. Now lost, like most things on the internet. Sarah has great enunciation and her voice is single-tracked and unprocessed (very rare now and then). Just such a great cover with more heart than the original, and a far better voice.

Stuck Music

Chill Music

I think on average that music now is noticeably better than when I was 14-23 (the age most people seem to get stuck at musically). Production is easier and there are more people out there just trying things.

But it’s pretty clear that major label music was better in the 1986-1999-ish period because the record labels were at their peak financially and creatively. They had enough money to experiment creatively — and did so.

This is not any kind of point about, “All the music was better then!” I don’t think that, at all. Ninajirachi and Renee Christine (and many others) are just as good as anything released in that period. And mary in the junkyard is now one of my favorite bands though not a one of them was even alive in the 20th Century.

Change with the times because the times are gonna change whether or not you do. And there’s tons of good music out there. I find 11.6 new good songs a day, every day. You could do the same.

Rock 30

Chill Culture, Music

The US modern rock chart 30 years ago.

Some of those songs I don’t remember at all.

Of course, in August 1996 I was quite occupied being a paratrooper in the army. I believe I had just arrived in Egypt then so I was a bit disconnected from the music scene to be fair.

Best song on the list: “Angry Johnny” by Poe.

Worst song: “6th Avenue Heartache” by The Wallflowers.

I think “Tonight, Tonight” is the best-written song there, but I can no longer stand Billy Corgan’s voice so I could not choose that one. There are some great, great covers of that one, though.

Taste This

Chill Annoying, Music

I don’t think I have good taste in music, but just like what the fuck I like and don’t give a flying fuck who knows it.

That radio station that’s showing the tracks in the sidebar? That’s the music I actually listen to. It’s not curated (for the station). It’s just whatever semi-randomly1 pulls from the 11,000+ tracks I have in my main music directory. I don’t edit or block or even pick anything.

Simple as that. Woo-Hah!

  1. There is an AI DJ.

Locating

Chill Music

Probably nearly no one is going to go listen to and evaluate music at the absurd and nearly-obsessive1 pace that I do.

But check it: Even if you only find one new enjoyable song a day on average, at the end of that year you’ll have (obviously) 365 new songs you like. Worth it, I think, if you’re into music at all.

Over the past year I’ve discovered 4,236 new-to-me songs I like. That’s 11.6 a day. Pretty good pace2. There’s nothing stopping you from having music you love other than you. I spend hours a day doing it; you could spend a puny 15 minutes rather than blathering on about “there’s no good music anymore.”

There is. You just have to actually do something to locate it.

  1. Narrator: It is definitely an obsession. A raging porn addiction would be much healthier. We’re pondering a medical intervention.
  2. Narrator: In fact, that is an insane pace and large men in lab coats are being marshaled now.

Music Call

Chill Music

I listened to all or part of 689 songs that were new to me this morning. Of those, I liked 28. That’s a 4.1% hit rate. Not that great, but hey: 28 new songs. This took about 5 hour of my time.

Worth it, as I love music.

Speaks Art

Chill Gutter Philosophy, Music

By the way, The Castellows have one of my favorite lines of any song in “Freeway.”

And it is: “Don’t know what you’re feelin’ til you hear it in a song.” Those girls understand art and its use. Yeah, it’s just a throwaway lyric in a pop country piece, but it hints at why so much leftist art fails and apolitical but now right-coded art like The Castellows’ succeeds: what matters (to also steal from Bo Diddly) is how it makes you feel.

Nearly all good art, by the way, is apolitical even if the person creating it is extremely politicized. And by this I don’t mean that art cannot or should not contain political content. Not at all. I mean that the work must treat whatever side it is portraying as fully human, fully realized, with actual motivations and not just as some cackling evil caricature.

Good artists can’t help but do that, even if in their everyday lives they are raving lunatics.

I said more than I intended, but so does that line in The Castellows’ little song. Which is exactly what good art does.