It’s not just a hobby or pastime music is a lifestyle. A song has the ability to bring people who have nothing in common together, even if only on the dance floor. Musicians set an image that the crowd identifies with and in turn emulate. Different types of music offer different views and different mentalities to their listeners; in a sense people choose what type of music they are. I’ve always liked listening to different types of music and trying to relate to what it is that they are speaking about. I like to hang out with people who listen to different music than me because it exposes me to what that lifestyle is like; there are different mentalities, different customs, and an all around different experience.
It is important to understand that different people have different outlooks and views in life. If you criticize someone’s taste in music you might as well punch them in their face and call their mom a whore. Music is something that people take to the heart because it is what THEY like; it is their lifestyle, who they choose to be. What sets me off fast is when people don’t take the time to listen to what can potentially a good song in their playlist. People sometimes throw a whole genre out the window because they haven’t heard enough of it to understand it. I believe that the blogs that I have posted since October have exposed people to something that they have not thought about before or maybe even new existed. I believe that music is important and everyone should realize the power that music and musicians hold. This power must also not be confused with reliability. First of all I would just like to say if you do something because you hear it in a song you’re a dumbass. You wouldn’t try shooting up heroin because a blind man did it in a movie, why would do something just because you heard it. Curiosity killed the cat. Life is a giant choice, everyday we start making choices before we even leave our homes, if you CHOOSE to do something it is because you obviously have some sort of reasoning to do it. In most cases you already know what the possible outcomes are for certain decisions that you make, which means that when you chose to do what you do you already know that if the shit blows up you might get stuck. I’m tired of people blaming music for bad parenting and bad decisions that they have made.
In the past I have written about news in the music industry, digital music pirating, stereotypes in music, insane people who blame music for their failures, music that addresses political issues, and how to REALLY listen to music and get the most out of it. Music is the time machine that can take us back a decade or two, even if some of us didn’t even exist in the 70’s bands like Led Zeppelin make it possible to look into what that world was like. Music is the window that we can open when we want to see into a different world.
I’ve never really been into blogging because sometimes I think who cares? But being able to put my thoughts and ideas together in a written form has made it easier for me to see what I am thinking and how to keep on developing my interest in music. I will like to keep on exploring music and what it has to offer to me. I’d like to say that I have become passionate about music over the past few years or so, each song that I discover I treat like a piece of treasure. To think some of the music that I have listened to made it this far in time and its still not forgotten amazes me. To think that some of my favorite songs are from the 70’s and 80’s and they still make an impact in people’s lives 20 and 30 years after they were released is something almost inspiring. I don’t know what destiny has in mind for my blogging career but it is definitely something that has helped me be active with my obsession for music.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Music, The 6th Sense
Music is my 6th sense. I can find the right song for the perfect occasion; and the best part is that I can decide on what the occasion is going to be, I get to set the mood. Sometimes it works backwards, if you feel like you want to change your mood you can change the song and then feel the energy of the music flow through you.
By the end of the day when I’m finally home there are a few things that I like to do to relieve the days stress from my mind. The first usually involves turning on the surround sound and hooking up my portable audio system, it might be my laptop if I still have work to get done. If I’m doing work then I usually listen to rock or rap music, I do this because most songs in these categories are fast paced and help me keep awake and motivated to finish my work, however sometimes I find myself rapping or playing the invisible guitar while doing my work.
A few songs that I definitely listen to while I’m doing my work
• Rage against the machine – killing in the name of
• Rise Against – Prayer of the Refugee
• Big Punisher – Still not a Player/ it’s so hard
• Nas - Ether
• System of a Down – BYOB/ Chop Suey/ Aerials
• Forever- Drake
Once my work is complete I usually follow the day by going into my “chill music” playlist, the songs in this playlist just set the mood for the rest of my evening activities. In this playlist I have anything from Bob Marley to Santana. These are the artists and their songs that help me relive my stress.
• Led Zeppelin – No Quarter/ Stairway to heaven / Kashmir/ Immigrant song
• Bob Marley - Various / Stephen Marley – hey baby/ Damian Marley – Welcome to Jamrock
• Bone Thugs N Harmony - Various
• AudioSlave – Like a Stone
• Santana – Smooth/ Maria
These are just a few of the songs that I listen to a on an almost daily basis. Music, I think, has to be used in context with what you are trying to achieve in order to get the most out of what your are listening. I love Salsa, Bachata and Merengue, but I don’t listen to it very often because it is music that you are supposed to dance to. You can listen to an Aventura (famous Bachata group) song, and relate to it, but unless you have someone to hold and dance the song with then you are not experiencing all of the songs elements. I think about it as buying the best sirloin steak available only to get home and eat it raw. You can listen to a great song but if you are not in the mood to listen to the song you will not enjoy it.
Many people never really stop to think about what they are listening to, what do the lyrics what do the lyrics actually say? I never understood the hook to the song smells like teen spirit by Nirvana until I looked up the lyrics. “A mulatto, an albino, a mosquito, my libido” its hard to understand it when Kurt Cobain, deceased lead singer of Nirvana, is screaming it right into the microphone. For some reason I liked the song better before I knew what the lyrics meant. But this is what I am trying to get at, most people don’t really know what they are listening to, they simply listen to the music because others are doing it too. When I listen to a song that I have never heard before I listen to what they are saying explicitly and implicitly. I think the best part of listening to a song is imagining what could have inspired the artist to write the song.
By the end of the day when I’m finally home there are a few things that I like to do to relieve the days stress from my mind. The first usually involves turning on the surround sound and hooking up my portable audio system, it might be my laptop if I still have work to get done. If I’m doing work then I usually listen to rock or rap music, I do this because most songs in these categories are fast paced and help me keep awake and motivated to finish my work, however sometimes I find myself rapping or playing the invisible guitar while doing my work.
A few songs that I definitely listen to while I’m doing my work
• Rage against the machine – killing in the name of
• Rise Against – Prayer of the Refugee
• Big Punisher – Still not a Player/ it’s so hard
• Nas - Ether
• System of a Down – BYOB/ Chop Suey/ Aerials
• Forever- Drake
Once my work is complete I usually follow the day by going into my “chill music” playlist, the songs in this playlist just set the mood for the rest of my evening activities. In this playlist I have anything from Bob Marley to Santana. These are the artists and their songs that help me relive my stress.
• Led Zeppelin – No Quarter/ Stairway to heaven / Kashmir/ Immigrant song
• Bob Marley - Various / Stephen Marley – hey baby/ Damian Marley – Welcome to Jamrock
• Bone Thugs N Harmony - Various
• AudioSlave – Like a Stone
• Santana – Smooth/ Maria
These are just a few of the songs that I listen to a on an almost daily basis. Music, I think, has to be used in context with what you are trying to achieve in order to get the most out of what your are listening. I love Salsa, Bachata and Merengue, but I don’t listen to it very often because it is music that you are supposed to dance to. You can listen to an Aventura (famous Bachata group) song, and relate to it, but unless you have someone to hold and dance the song with then you are not experiencing all of the songs elements. I think about it as buying the best sirloin steak available only to get home and eat it raw. You can listen to a great song but if you are not in the mood to listen to the song you will not enjoy it.
Many people never really stop to think about what they are listening to, what do the lyrics what do the lyrics actually say? I never understood the hook to the song smells like teen spirit by Nirvana until I looked up the lyrics. “A mulatto, an albino, a mosquito, my libido” its hard to understand it when Kurt Cobain, deceased lead singer of Nirvana, is screaming it right into the microphone. For some reason I liked the song better before I knew what the lyrics meant. But this is what I am trying to get at, most people don’t really know what they are listening to, they simply listen to the music because others are doing it too. When I listen to a song that I have never heard before I listen to what they are saying explicitly and implicitly. I think the best part of listening to a song is imagining what could have inspired the artist to write the song.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Stairway to Truth
This Halloween I saw many people I hadn’t seen in a long time, met people I never knew existed, and I got to listen to Stairway to Heaven, by Led Zeppelin, on my way home after a long night. It is kind of Ironic that I would be listening to this song while I’m being driven home at 6 a.m. after a Halloween party. Halloween is supposed to be the day they celebrate the dead, and for some it is the day of the devils. I listened to the lyrics of the song and it made me think, what do they think?
The song actually talks about some important moral issues, “Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run there's still time to change the road you're on.” For some reason this line was all that I could think about while on my way home. It really made me think about, and analyze, the lifest
yle that I am leading and where it is leading me. It is life put into a sentence. Through out life there are many possibilities and outcomes for a person’s life, I don’t think people realize it or maybe they don’t care, but every action that we take in our lives ultimately affects the outcome and quality of our lives. I guess it can be seen as a maze, we don’t really know where the exit is but we are trying to get there the best way we know how to, but we really don’t know what were doing. The two paths can be seen as doing the socially correct thing or listening to your inner gremlin and doing what makes your happy, even though it may make others around us unhappy. Why is it wrong to live a free life? Free from being a slave of society, free from following the daily herd.
“And if you listen very hard, the truth will come to you at last when all are one and one is all, to be a rock and not to roll.” YES, society wants us all to be uniformed and smart like rocks. Society wants us to take the role of a rock and just listen, never questioning, never stepping out of line. The don’t want us to “roll” they don’t want us to move out of the line they have drawn for us because we might start a dominoes effect on the rest of society, we might awaken our fellow rocks.
About a year ago I was browsing through YouTube when I came across the Stairway to Heaven backwards-subliminal message version a.k.a. backward masking. The clip suggests that the part of the song that says “If there's a bustle in your hedgerow, don't be alarmed now, it's just a spring clean for the May queen” really means “ There was a little path, would make me sad, whose power is Satan. He’ll give those with him six, six, six. There was a little tool shed where he made us suffer, sad Satan.” What really gets to me is that this song is supposed to be about thinking about your life and how you are living it but in reverse it really actually sounds like the opposite. I’m not saying that I believe that there really is a subliminal message in the song but one of their original lyrics states, “'Cause you know sometimes words have two meanings.” When people put emphasis into words in a particular way, well its usually that they're going with the implicit meaning rather than the explicit one. People are only listening to what they want to listen. However, if the original song did include intentional backward masking then they totally just made a reference to it.
The song begins and ends with “There's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold and she's buying a stairway to heaven.” To me this means that there is those who cant distinguish between real issues affecting their lives from unimportant media. People fill their lives with objects and the objects end up filling them. They are empty on the inside, buying their happiness, not quite living their own happiness but other peoples happiness because they think what makes them happy is what they are taught happiness is and everyone is supposed to have the same happiness.
The song actually talks about some important moral issues, “Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run there's still time to change the road you're on.” For some reason this line was all that I could think about while on my way home. It really made me think about, and analyze, the lifest
yle that I am leading and where it is leading me. It is life put into a sentence. Through out life there are many possibilities and outcomes for a person’s life, I don’t think people realize it or maybe they don’t care, but every action that we take in our lives ultimately affects the outcome and quality of our lives. I guess it can be seen as a maze, we don’t really know where the exit is but we are trying to get there the best way we know how to, but we really don’t know what were doing. The two paths can be seen as doing the socially correct thing or listening to your inner gremlin and doing what makes your happy, even though it may make others around us unhappy. Why is it wrong to live a free life? Free from being a slave of society, free from following the daily herd.“And if you listen very hard, the truth will come to you at last when all are one and one is all, to be a rock and not to roll.” YES, society wants us all to be uniformed and smart like rocks. Society wants us to take the role of a rock and just listen, never questioning, never stepping out of line. The don’t want us to “roll” they don’t want us to move out of the line they have drawn for us because we might start a dominoes effect on the rest of society, we might awaken our fellow rocks.
About a year ago I was browsing through YouTube when I came across the Stairway to Heaven backwards-subliminal message version a.k.a. backward masking. The clip suggests that the part of the song that says “If there's a bustle in your hedgerow, don't be alarmed now, it's just a spring clean for the May queen” really means “ There was a little path, would make me sad, whose power is Satan. He’ll give those with him six, six, six. There was a little tool shed where he made us suffer, sad Satan.” What really gets to me is that this song is supposed to be about thinking about your life and how you are living it but in reverse it really actually sounds like the opposite. I’m not saying that I believe that there really is a subliminal message in the song but one of their original lyrics states, “'Cause you know sometimes words have two meanings.” When people put emphasis into words in a particular way, well its usually that they're going with the implicit meaning rather than the explicit one. People are only listening to what they want to listen. However, if the original song did include intentional backward masking then they totally just made a reference to it.
The song begins and ends with “There's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold and she's buying a stairway to heaven.” To me this means that there is those who cant distinguish between real issues affecting their lives from unimportant media. People fill their lives with objects and the objects end up filling them. They are empty on the inside, buying their happiness, not quite living their own happiness but other peoples happiness because they think what makes them happy is what they are taught happiness is and everyone is supposed to have the same happiness.
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