My Guilty Pleasure

Now that I'm back to articulating my thoughts in blog-form, I think I'll start with a nice long dissertation on a subject that has filled up 90% of this blog to begin with--music.

A few months back, I was surfing through the radio stations that I am able to pick up in the Jacksonville, FL area in which I live. (I am able to catch loosely some stations out of Gainesville, as I live somewhere between.) The saturation of stations had been pretty even up to, and even through, my teenage years: 40% Country Stations, 30% Oldies stations, 20% Rock/Alternative stations, 10% Talk/NPR or The Bargain Channel. (For more on The Bargain Channel and how I feel about it, take a glander over here - (YTRiffers on YouTube). However, in the last 5 years or so, the Country music saturation pushed up to 50% (and focused on only Country of the last 10 years), Rock/Alternative went up to 30%, Oldies went down to 10% and kept pace with the Talk, etc. Over the last 3 years, I've seen at least 3 stations start and a few get axed.

However, a few months ago, I went surfing around and fell on a station that used to be oldies back in my day (FM 100.7), then was turned into Rock/Alternative for a short bit, but on my revisit, was playing Country. At first, I was seething in boiling lava hatred over the Country genre pushing up even more, but then I caught a snippit of a song and realized it was a pretty old Country song.

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At this point, perhaps I should clarify my stance on this topic. I have always been against Country--ever since middle school or so. I just didn't like it. The artists would put on a heavy fake twang to their voice to sound like a cartoon character. They would slur and slaughter notes in a way that made them sound like middle school drama students trying out for a musical that was way beyond their ability. The subjects are about mind-numbingly stupid subjects, even to me, someone who lives IN THE SOUTH.

I just don't like Country.

That is, I don't like Country now...

See, I was reminded that Country, despite what people think, WAS NOT LIKE THIS. Country from the 80's and back actually sounded decent. Artists had a natural southern drawn, but didn't Deputy Dog it to death. They didn't hold or even TRY for notes they couldn't hit. The subjects sometimes were cliche (wife leaving, road travelling), but most of the songs were just simple plays on words.

I'll elucidate. I was driving to work today. A 35 minute drive (in which I heard about 16 songs--do the math there), At least 4 or 5 of the songs were based around a pun or play on a phrase. 'If I told you you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against me?' 'Have you left the one you left me for?' 'Nobody' (every line in the song ended with the word Nobody and applied to different people). I was tired, so this is all I can remember. But I do remember two specific themes of the songs: This being the first. The second was that the choruses of 80% of the songs had a certain lyrical cadence to them. The Choruses always began with the title of the song (A), followed by a line that rhymed (B), a second line that rhymed (C), and the title of the song again (A).

First, that's an effective way to remember the name of the song. Second, a bit repetitive, but catchy, because you can sing along, even if it's your first time hearing the song.

I have to say, I rather enjoyed listening to Country music that I actually remembered from being a little kid. It brought back some memories. Some of the songs were songs I remember my dad singing. And believe it or not, there was a Hank Williams Jr song that had NOTHING TO DO WITH FOOTBALL this morning! I didn't even think such a thing existed!



Anyhoo, as I stated, I plan on making a few articles on music--specifically, how music has changed for the very worse in the last few decades. Tune in tomorrow, same website, same... uh... blog?

Revival. REVIVAL!

So it looks like it's been just over a year since I've posted anything to my blog. Ironically, it's been this exact same period of time that I've been working at home. Now that I'm getting out of the house again, I have very little to do during my lunch breaks.

Voila! Thus is my blog reborn.


Sadly, I was unable to participate in FAWM this year, but since a vacation visit from my friend and partner-in-riffing-crime, Marcus, we've been itching to fire up some projects. So, that's positive.

In any case, I do believe I will try to be more regular at posting on my blog, for those interested enough to follow it.