So, I made an astounding discovery the other day.
First, some background. Jon Hilliard once, early senior yearish says to me while I'm over at his house "John, I discovered this band that's like mixing Ben Folds with Dashboard Confessional." My response was "EWWW, GROSS! Why would you ever do such a thing?" Till just recently, I always held to this mentality that Something Corporate was actually more hate-able than Dashboard. However, recently, I found out I was wrong.
Why, oh why, didn't anyone tell me this guy was such a poet? This Andrew McMahon? I mean ... this guy! He ... he's got a gift! His piano! It honestly rivals Mozart and Bach in its elegance and complexity. And such words, such lyrics! They flow with a grace far greater than the ancient bards of old.
then you bring me home
cuz we both know what it's like to be alone
and i'm dreaming in your living room
but we don't have much room to live
Oh! ... oh! ... I ... I get it! It's like, dreaming in your living room, we don't have much room to live ... it's like a play on words! Because he's dreaming in the living room, but they don't have much room to live. Not much room to live juxtaposed so nicely next to living room. Shakespeare is rolling over in his grave with sheer jealousy!
::aka, vomit::
But then I decided, "you've been so harsh in the past, and now that you've found reason to love and cherish such musical superiority, why not actually listen to a track instead of stumble across their lyrics in some online profile?"
And what do I discover, a line that I honestly can't choose if I like better than the last one or not. It's so ... pomo. So ... modern out.
it's to jimmy eat world and those nights in my car
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA, Something Corporate singing about being a J.E.W. fan!
::vomit:: (boot and rally, boot and rally!)
But being serious, my good friend Stef brought the following statistics to my attention. The following are the respective number of people listing each band as a favorite on thefacebook.com (I'm pretty sure this is Northwestern only, mind you).
355- dmb
255- oar
230- counting crows
192- guster
180- maroon 5
172- john mayer
123- jack johnson
109- ben harper
97- dispatch
And I see a real problem. (btw, I did my own search of Something Corporate and 70 people listed it) This all is far too predictable. While I'm not saying these artists are bad, it just seems like this shouldn't be something to distinguish yourself with.
In the end I don't know where I'm going with this, other than the Something Corporate thing has been bothering me. Music is on my mind, everyone check out the latest post from my brother Joe's blog. Also, my WNUR show was today, and I played two bands from Louisville because I was homesick.
The first, "Shipping News" which was some angular stuff, not bad.
The second you ask? Big Wheel! That's right, good old Glenn/Mr./Coach Taylor for you.
How did I introduce it? something like this:
"So what you just heard, Shipping News, was in spirit of my summer return to Louisville soon. And to continue this tribute to my hometown, I'll be playing another Louisville band Big Wheel. Now what many of you don't know, is that Big Wheel is none other than the band of my Junior Year AP US History teacher, Glenn Taylor on guitar. He told us all the time that he had this band big wheel and that he had fans, too, but we never believed him. Suddenly today I stumble across it in the stacks here at WNUR, and so in honor of what little he taught me about US History, I am going to play a track."
Alright, so only about another week and a half to survive of freshman year of college.
-=John=-
