I once had a cold that lasted a year. I didn't notice it so much by the third month. What bothered me were the sweats. I had to sleep with the fan on and woke up with the same raw throat every morning, from sucking the dirty air of that apartment all night. We lived on top of a car lot, and changed the locks so the man downstairs who lived in the "office" would not have access to our restroom.
I dropped out of classes and tried to get a job at a fast food place a few blocks away. The money I had saved would do for a few months of rent. Sometimes my girlfriend would bring us food from the restaurant she worked at as a hostess, a burger and fries, or chicken strips and fries, something and fries. I'd bring home boxes of Rice Krispies Treats from the Student Union. It was kind of like food.
Being poor is romantic when you're in your early 20s. It's tiring by your late 20s, and intolerable by your early 30s. It's all in the circumstances. I have always been poor by choice, which is pretty insulting on the whole, considering most people have no say in the matter.
Okay, this is going to take some participation and some independent thought on your part (two things you are usually not confronted with when cruising the internet) but I think we can do this, together.
First, watch this video by teen android Rebecca Black:
Now, watch this video posted by online music critic The Needle Drop:
Now that you’ve seen/experienced both, I want you to seriously think about which version you think is “better,” or which one communicates with you, or whatever you think music is supposed to do for you.
If you decided not to watch either one in its entirety, but listened to enough to get the gist of it, you are on the right track. Ultimately, they are both equally meaningless until YOU receive the noises and your brain assembles these noises into concepts that you either like or hate (or feel complete indifference towards). To me, they represent polar extremes of what music means to its consumers. Interpretation is everything.
The smarmy comments on the slowed down version reveal something about how a certain subset of music listeners values music, which is to say they like music that they can project their own thoughts and feelings into. These people want to feel like they are part of an experience created by noises generated by a person they will probably never meet, so interpretation is a key element of music listening to them. Hence, they will find a deeper meaning or experience in a slowed down version of a song they would normally classify as “horrible.”
On the other hand, the tweeny boppers leaving positive comments on the Rebecca Black video are experiencing it on a purely visceral level: the beat is good, the lyrics speak to them, the voice is perfectly tuned, the singer is cute, and there’s a non-threatening rapper/eunuch character who does a drive-by rap (yet never enters Rebecca’s uber-white neighborhood party life). They like it for what it is, and if they don’t like it, it will probably be for some of the same reasons other people like it (beat, lyrics, whatever).
I would argue that both versions of the song are completely vapid. The original is disposable teen pop with no heart, but the slowed down version is equally disposable crap that listeners transplant their own feeling into. Both are excellent examples of art hijacked by technology.
A lot of the reaction to this video I’ve seen online is along the line of: “Is this a joke?” But I really don’t think it is, or should be considered one. Irony can only be expanded so far until it becomes authenticity, and I think this is what evades the type of person who dismisses Rebecca Black’s “Friday” but says the slowed-down version is “musique I’ll die 2” (sic). They’re part of an era where everything is enjoyed on an ironic level, which means anything enjoyed on a genuine level somehow lacks credibility. The person who has a mullet hairstyle and goes to Wal-Mart thinking it looks good is not inferior or superior to the hipster ironically wearing one for his trash-metal side-project (well, maybe a little superior). Viewed objectively, they are identical until we attach context and interpretation. If you ironically listen to “Friday” twenty times on your computer, you’re still listening to it twenty times. You don’t get that part of your life back. Even though you do not really “like” it, you are contributing to Rebecca Black’s singing career.
And here the distinction needs to be made. Rebecca Black made a song (kinda) and a video, and you watched it on Youtube. Who is winning here?
I don't know what it is about today. I had more fun killing pixelated strangers (strangling pixelated killers would have done more for society, but since when has society done anything for me?) than scuttling through reality today. There's a thin veneer of plastic over my senses, and I can't pinpoint what makes it return with such regularity. Maybe it's because nothing tastes like it did when I was out on tour. You can bring the Cheerwine home, but it doesn't taste the same.
I will be graduating college soon and I dread having to decide what comes next. I have two excellent options in front of me: pursuing music or grad school. Both of them shield me from the "get a job, settle down" path for a few more years, but how long can I keep that up? I am not in college for monetary reasons; I'm in it for the education. For the challenge. The same could be said about music.
The sad fact is the world does not exist to make me a better person. Nor do I exist to make the world better, so we're even. The current social-economic structure we live in dictates that my brain and soul have to die in order for me to continue my adulthood outside of the fields of education or music. How fucked up is that? Who wants to live like that?
Apparently, we all do. I say that not because I'm being facetious or arrogant, but it's true. Living is all we have, so of course we will put up with a lot of shit to hold somebody close to our bodies, or laugh with a friend, or just sit outside and feel the world hit our faces. I want to be able to say I would rather die than live that buttoned-down life, but I have tried that before, and it was a stupid thing. Every amazing thing in my life since that day is proof that I am willing to continue mortgaging increasingly large portions of my happiness for the chance at smaller, more concentrated ones. It just hurts when you're making the payments. The rent is too damn high.
