Appetite for Dysfunction

I’m kind of over emo music. A bunch of years ago that’s pretty much all I listened to – Fiona Apple and Dashboard Confessional were at the top of the list because the lyrics just seemed so powerful. In recent years I’ve looked back on a lot of that music and realize the lyrics were given power through the inflections of the tone a lot of the time, though not all (I still find poetic beauty in almost all of Fiona Apple’s songs). And there’s nothing wrong with evoking a deep inner feeling through music of any sort be it instrument or vocally supplied. I’m just ready to mix up the suicide music now for something a little lighter.

But I don’t know what you crazy kids listen to these days.

None of the current pop music interests me much. You won’t find any Ke$ha (My inner grammar & spelling teacher dies a little inside every time I see her name written out.), Justin Beiber, Katy Perry, One Direction or the Jonas Brothers on my iPod. They’re still relevant, right? Wait, iPods aren’t even relevant? Damn.

Anyway I’d love to update my music with something fresh but there are so few bands/singers who really seem to capture emotion through their words. Lyrics used to be a lot fuller but it seems not so much anymore.

Okay to be fair, yes, I did listen to a lot of New Kids on the Block when I was a teenager. Yeah I own it. But when I think back I am fully aware of how thin most of the lyrics are. There were a few that were richer but overall any band that says the words ‘girl’ and ‘oh’ as much as they do on one album isn’t going to be winning many songwriting contests. But they sure were cute.

But I’m not fifteen anymore and to say a fifteen year old is cute would just be creepy unless I meant it in a maternal way. And we all know how maternal I’m not so I guess I finally fall into the place my parents and grandparents warned me about.

Those kids and their music today, I just don’t get it.

Of course when I reminisce on the music that really shaped my life, the music I would go back to and listen to time and again to evoke a feeling, a time and place of when the world was awesome because my days could be spent listening, I’m not exactly drawn to pop artists.

Give me some Appetite for Destruction, Whitesnake, Ride the Lightning, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Godsmack (“Stress”, best song ever), Lit, Limp Bizkit, Staind (everything on Dysfunction), Foo Fighters.

And I can safely say that anytime I was listening to any of these bands I’m sure (if she was around) my mom would have been saying she just didn’t get it. I guess that’s how the generational thing works right? But I grew tired of the same old stories, the same old songs so I dipped my toes in the broody waters of emo.

But the whining. Oh my goodness the CONSTANT whining is enough to make me want to poke a hot dagger into my speaker. But that shit is expensive to replace so instead I find myself changing the channel or forwarding the track to something more my speed.

Of course, these days my speed seems to be artists like Melissa Ferrick, Jason Mraz and Dave Matthews Band. All amazing lyricists and songwriters but a bit mellower musically speaking. But every once in a while I’ll let my Pandora shuffle through 90’s Alternative Radio to let my mind wrap around a song with a little more meat on its bones.

May’s Month of Music

Just Like I Am – Landon Pigg (iTunes first track)

4^th of July – Soundgarden (Pandora first track)