Music

I can't quite define my life by the songs or music I've listened to. The main reason for this is because I love the vast majority of the medium. When I make that statement I must stress that I'm talking about several thousand years of notes.

I hate contemporary rap. And country. For very different reasons. But oddly similar at the same time.

I can hear dog whistles (more like feel them, but it hurts, regardless), and deep, loud bass, is similarly disconcerting. It's like a pile-driver on the ears. Like rumbling large diesel trucks, on the low end, or chalk on blackboards on the high end. People running their fingers on paper bags is just an empathic response to what I would feel if I had done it, feeling tendrils of electricity all up my arm..

Contemporary rap, for some reason, seems to have mostly dropped off the long end of the pier. I think much like the big hair bands of the early to mid-80s were a response to the "hard rock" of the late 60s and 70s, rap's original message has become lost in the deluge of sycophants and commerce.

I liked what's probably considered old school rap from the likes of NWA and Ice-T. They took what was for them a limited budget squeezed together some social commentary. Lil' Wayne's done some good work ala Beastie Boys's "You've got to fight to party" with "Lollipop". The fact the irony is lost on most is exactly my point. You really don't know what it is you're listening to.

In the beginning, country music couldn't do more than piece together Appalachian folk music and limited instrumentals. Much like the beginnings of rap, it was all about what could be gotten ahold of. Where folk music, bluegrass, and country really diverged is for people sitting on more paper than I'll ever acknowledge having. All I really get is that I like Folk, only usually enjoy live bluegrass, and strongly dislike country.

I think Tom Petty said it best:

"Real country music, not what they call country today, which is basically a bad rock band with a fiddle."

Real rap music, not what they call rap today, which is basically a heavy techno beat with a trumped up bass rhythm.

It's appealing for the moolah. Don't get me wrong. I get that, it just makes my head feel like I've just sobered up after a week long bender. Twenty minutes after listening to this crap, I have to leave the room. If I last that long.