pareidolia

Bob Mould has some problems

Bob Mould, you must have some sort of strange ear dis­ease that makes you think your albums are mixed/​mastered well. They aren’t. I love you anyway.

blips: see also bloops

I hate elec­tronic music.

This is not entirely true. But it is, for the most part.

Here is a handy list of some of the qual­i­ties of elec­tronic music that I find unfavorable.

1. It is often amelodic

2. It is usu­ally pro­grammed, instead of performed

3. When it is made to sound like live instru­ments often it does not

4. Much of it is entrenched in genre (club music)

5. Tends not to have vocals

6. Much of it sounds alike

7. The fans tend toward douchebag

Many of these things could be said about other gen­res of music. 1, 4, 6, 7 apply to Phish/​Greatful Dead style jam bands — Clas­si­cal gets 4, 5, 6, 7, and so on. 

I don’t want it to seem like I’m only hat­ing on elec­tronic music. Really, this is about all bad music — I just use elec­tronic music as an example.

I like some. Ladytron, I believe, is all per­formed on syn­the­siz­ers. But it has vocals, and it is quite melodic, so I like it. I appre­ci­ate Aphex Twin/​Squarepusher type music, but I don’t lis­ten to it all the time. I appre­ci­ate their exper­i­men­tal qualities.

For some rea­son I like Daft Punk. I think it’s because the music often has a pop struc­ture, but it is unde­ni­ably elec­tronic music and has much of that con­no­ta­tion — it is def­i­nitely of that world and I shouldn’t like it.

Prefuse 73 is pretty cool.

I hate LCD soundsys­tem and all the other DFA records crap. 

It sick­ens me that Death From Above 1979 died and its only musi­cal suc­ces­sor (so far) is MSTRKRFT.

Any­way. This is all very clearly defined — in my head. What does this say about how I view music in general?

1. I like guitar.

2. I like vocals.

3. I like melody.

4. I pre­fer music to be per­formed on instru­ments, rather than “triggered.”

5. I like it when the lyrics “say something.”

Notice how this list also elim­i­nates most hip-​​hop.

Update: I have read Stephen Fry’s lat­est and this has shed some new light on the subject.

Music for danc­ing vs. music for lis­ten­ing — I, in gen­eral, pre­fer music for lis­ten­ing. I also pre­fer medium– to fast-​​paced music, so there’s a lot of over­lap there with the danc­ing and the not danc­ing. Nir­vana is often fast– or mid-​​tempo, but you can’t dance to it. I wouldn’t. But I love it. I would tap my foot to it, or fake-​​drum to it, but never dance. It can inspire me to move, yes, but dance, no.

I do not detest danc­ing as much as he does. I do not like it as much as the rest of the world, how­ever. I dance, per­haps, about two times every three years. But I lis­ten to a lot of music that makes me want to move. This seems contradictory.

The answer is cul­tural. I don’t want the music to be pre­sented to me as dance music. Music should be music. It should be lis­tened to. Music expressly cre­ated for dance does not hold up well when you lis­ten to it. It is intended to be felt rather than heard. It is intended to facil­i­tate inter­ac­tion with other peo­ple (danc­ing), not as pure art. It has other purposes.

Music “as pure art” also has social impli­ca­tions. I talk to friends about it. I go to shows. I share mp3s with friends. But, at the root, the expe­ri­ence of it is only me and my brain. I don’t feel that I have truly lis­tened to a song until I am at home, with head­phones, con­cen­trat­ing, lis­ten­ing. It is hap­pen­ing only in my brain, with­out the dis­trac­tions of glitter-​​encrusted hal­ter tops and cheap vodka.

So, although the music I lis­ten to has roots in dance (the same could be said of all music, most likely) I have come to appre­ci­ate it on a much deeper level - with my brain rather than with my feet. My solip­sism is show­ing again.

Much elec­tronic music is dance music. So I hate it, because it’s not really intended to be lis­tened to.

My apolo­gies. This really needs to be edited.

best blog comment ever

From here. Read the post too, I agree with the author whole­heart­edly. This com­ment was sim­ply too hilar­i­ous not to mention.

On This Day

Hor­ri­ble events that occurred

1989: Exxon Valdez Oil Spill
1998: Jones­boro Massacre

Famous Peo­ple born

1915: Gor­geous George
1930: Steve McQueen
1962: Star Jones
1974: Alyson Han­ni­gan

Kevin McGuires born

1980: Kevin McGuire

he’s implying that they smell worse on the inside

It’s always both­ered me when peo­ple use the word “guts” to describe things other than guts. Like the inner work­ings of a machine, or the con­tents of a book­let (as opposed to the covers).

It’s not the turn of phrase, I actu­ally find it sort of clever. It’s just — gross. Makes me feel like when Han slashes open the tauntaun in Empire.

famous bloggers

I’m really sick of hear­ing about your stu­pid kid. Ok?

song

This is of course just me play­ing gui­tar with a bunch of screwy effects. But I like it.

crap gui­tar

reasons to use a baseball bat

—You slept with my best friend.
—There was still some hum­mus in the fridge when I went to work this morn­ing.
—The front of my pants are now cov­ered in water that was recently in a pud­dle.
—You denied my mem­ber­ship appli­ca­tion to the condo board.

list

—Mother thinks I’m being irre­spon­si­ble.
—She wouldn’t like my new girl­friend.
—But Mother’s in a hos­pi­tal bed.
—She’s still proud of me.

The Onion: Idiom Shortage Leaves Nation All Sewed Up In Horse Pies

This is so funny I had to stop read­ing it, because I’m at work. I don’t want to be that guy that laughs at his computer.