Archives for 2000

A total cop-out of an about page is up for now. I really haven’t got the slightest clue what to put on it, so if you have any ideas please run them by me. Otherwise, i think the layouts are beginning to stabilize now that i’ve got them where i want them. Before i work on the cast page i’ll need to work on a map for the rest of the site, since it’s nearly impossible to navigate these days without one. I’m about to start my 10th cd in my random trip through my collection, so i’ll update you on that little adventure in about an hour. If you’re getting bored, feel free to leave me for some other power blogger. Or, if you’re feeling brave, read up on a week of my life. Seeing as how i lived it, i try not to go back over it more than once or twice a day.

This is my response to a little discussion i’ve embroiled myself in.

1. Have you ever seen Aretha Franklin play an instrument?

No, and i don’t like to listen to her (though i respect her muchly). Additionally, you have to admit that her voice (as an instrument, if you care to take that point of view) is much more impressive than any current female pop star’s (*possibly* excepting Mariah and Whitney).

2. Have you seen the Temptations of Four Tops play an instrument?

The Temptations and the Four Tops were a product of the music industry at a time where a pop group doing harmony was in no way expected to write their own songs. Although many early rockers such as Buddy Holly and Little Richard wrote their own music, the advent of the the “singer-songwriter” didn’t come until the Dylan/Joni school. The Mamas and the Papas managed to write excellent vocal material and play guitar as well. I listen to Temps and Tops songs because they are classics and i grew up listening to them. However, i often can’t tell the difference between two groups doing the same song (“Build me up Buttercup,” for example), and if it is a favourite (as that one is) i don’t really care who the artist is as long as they can sing. Which means they are interchangeable in my mind, which is sort of my point.

3. If you don’t like pop why are you on a pop page?

Actually, this is a music for teens page, and being a teenager i am entitled to my opinion, as are others who dislike the so-called Pop Phenomenon. As a teenager i buy many more classic rock and modern rock albums than pop albums.

4. How many lead singers in these bands actually play an instrument?

“These bands” referring to what? Every act that i listen to (with the exception the ubiquitous Madonna) plays an instrument and/or is the main writer in the group. Examples being Garbage, Ani DiFranco, David Bowie, Tori Amos, Peter Mulvey, Alanis Morissette, Billy Joel, Elastica, Weezer, Tracy Bonham, ect…

5. How many rappers play an instrument? (Eminem)

None. Or, at least they do not publicize it, though i assume most of them are at least fluent with synthesizers and drum machines. Rappers who i respect the most are ones whose rhymes go beyond the obvious, and who are excellent arrangers and producers.

>sigh … You’re right, not all legendary people play instruments. However, i think it’s fair to say that the advent of “rock” music (which all of these things are) was with [Elvis / Little Richard / Jerry Lee Lewis], and that it took a long while for expectations from popular music to solidify. Up through as late as 1970 many songs i personally consider “legendary” were handed to their performers in the studio. However, as popular music diversified to include such bands as Queen and Jimi Hendrix Experience, expectations changed.

I don’t think my decision to slightly discount pop performers who were quite obviously picked for their image as much as their talent and who have been around for a mere two or three years is unfair at all. I sincerely hope that all of these acts find their own niches and do what they want. In a recent TV Guide, Aguilera said “If it were up to me i would have gone in a more soul and R&B direction. Also, N’Sync will soon “start work on a new record, with all five members taking a more active part in songwriting and producing.” Alanis Morissette released three trite dance records before she broke through. Obviously if the two pop powers just mentioned started out in their garages and got signed three years later, they would have wound up in a much different place. I am waiting to see where that place is.

We all have a right to like what we like. Some of our opinions are more well reasoned than others. Yours are certainly so. I’m sure you look forward to the next N’Sync record, and in a way i do too.

addendum to previous blog:

it could be that i’m just jealous of their coherent graphical layouts. but i use bigger font sizes. just wait until their eyesight goes.

some of them at least listen to Hanson, who write their own music. and play their own instruments. and have the greatest hair in the world. but i digress…

ps: go here. mindblowing layout, and who doesn’t love a bitch?

oooooo, scariness. I just traipsed my way through scary 12-15 year old girl blog-land. I hadn’t realized young girls were so on the internet, and i say more power to them, but their journals are unbearably scary. I mean, it’s pretentious for me to think that anyone cares about this little project, but at least i’ve had those crucial high-school years to develop all the mental problems that i bitch about now. I was still well adjusted at that age. And what is with the link between estrogen and changing your layout constantly? What is that? The worst part is that they all seem to actually like that bad mtv music that they’re supposed to. ::shudder:: By thirteen i had forsaken music not written by its performer and bought the alanis morissette CD. Obviously we need another alanis! Save us, oh angsty-but-intelligent canadian women!!

Anyhow, i’m gonna go surf around now until i find someone who is bashing my site :P  &nbsp 

I discovered in the midst of my near death experience with sarah mclachlan that my singing range has mysteriously increased by a whole step as of today. Which means that i was singing “building a mystery” at my current range, which is a whole step above what i assumed my range was at the time.

This is a significant event because i have a rather low range as compared to my speaking voice. Though i am willing to sing high (and i usually will take high harmony in impromptu all-male singalongs), the octave range i naturally defer to is the C below middle C. Which means generally i don’t get above middle C too often. In fact, my range is more like G to the G under middle C. An example of this is “touch,” which i could probably sing all the way through in the next highest octave.

The only way my range ever gets expanded is when i’m forced to sing along to a song that is above it. Usually doing the trick is Peter Mulvey, who has a range which is somewhat similar to Dave Matthews’ but without all the squeaking. Anyhow, hopefully this isn’t just a figment of my recently feverish existance and instead a permanent enhancement in my singing.