With KT Tunstall whistling a little tune in my ear, I am in the mood to blog. Her words are so simple it makes me feel like writing is easy. Perhaps in a way or two it is. Perhaps there's too many people trying too hard.
Now I know I took for granted that things would always go the way I wanted,
I was going to be a treetop, a sea, a boat, a rock of ages.
I am feeling guitar-sickness. I miss my lovely new black guitar. I am ready to be writing new songs and imagining I'm better than I am. This summer I have plans though. I am going to take vocal and guitar lessons and get much better. Then one day I'll figure out my voice. It probably won't be as good as I imagine it to be. I'm no Lady GaGa. Ribbit.
But then again earlier I was listening to Forever the Sickest Kids, which is this odd brand of indie rock which has been emerging for a while, most likely started by the likes of Fallout Boy and Panic! at the Disco. My sister likes it, but I find it every so slightly vapid. It's some kind of thumping guitar trying to pretend the drum beat is irregular while a ghd'd-haired-dude sings in a loud tempo about all the everyday phrases that make him feel victimised in romance. "You made your bed (so sleep in it)" by Youmeatsix is case in point.
Aside from this, there are all these club tunes reeling out their wee yarns of dance floor romps. Essentially the song is a bass line, a token black guy, an air-brushed anorexic and a slightly rapey theme. The big players being Pitbull, Jennifer "le derriere" Lopez, Usher, Taio Cruz etc eternitycetera. The songs are fine. They work in certain environments and are going to be what defines these years we are in (whatever we are calling them now), in the same way that Madonna defined the 80s and Oasis owned the 90s. It's no big deal, it's just a phase our music is going through because our children are getting more and more stupid and are satisfied by less and less challenging things. Adele may be the exception, but it's only because we cling to her in her ability to be respected in this era of binge-drinking (old news though; the boys several hundred years ago were doing it way better) and casual sex (also old news) and bralets (what the hell, Topshop?).
Spain is fun though. The infuriating repeats of Rihanna's Love the Way You Lie (too much like an approval of domestic abuse) and thingmy's one that goes, oh, you know, daaance the night away lalalalalala on the flooor, tonight we gon' blablabla on the floooor. It's semi-entertaining in the way it is trying to indoctrinate us (like gormless children) on the social codes of a dance club (basically to be more sexually available to all those guys out there struggling to pull anyone, because obviously he is going to love us long time for it).
I know that pro-creation is humanity's purpose, (which seems cyclical and pointless, but it's true. The only meaning of life, is to make more of the wretched stuff) but I can't say I'm convinced encouraging people to get low, low, low, low and make love in this club is exactly the most romantic/productive way to achieve this. All club music does is make people think they are sexy/force them to dance sexy (although in many cases this fails horrifically) and give them alcohol through methods such as brushing their teeth with a bottle of Jack and then there is all this rampantly aggressive grinding and kissing. Foul.
But that's not the point, is it? The point is that music is now made for the market, not the market for the music. The fabulously delicious irony of Jessie J's Price Tag is that it talks about how we don't need your money and how we need to take it back in time, when music made us all unite, when essentially her entire market is to the people who go to clubs and dance to music of similar catchy-ness. She's not exactly wearing a polo-neck in her video, despite her talk of disliking video hoes. Music does make people unite: in illegal downloading, on YouTube, in skanky club toilets. That's unity, people! Well done, JJ.
Now, I won't deny it, I have done this in the past: 18-19 was the time, but now it's become boring. Sure, I'll dance to your weird "we want to talk about sex all the time, but can't because it's mainstream music" music, but like hell am I going to let some greased up, reeking dude come anywhere near me while I'm trying to dance. Thus, I bought myself a ring. A simple, slightly sparkly silvery looking thing to adorn the fourth finger on my left hand. Since then, I have felt empowered, free of these grimy gawkers. Seriously, it's amazing.
And look at that, I just wrote quite a hefty rant about something (I now feel better) and it was easy. It was easy. So maybe that's the key? Write about something that well...you know the rest.
Pay my lip service, keep it eloquent,
Optimistic but never quite elegant,
Still a weirdo, still a weirdo,
After all these years
