There is reason behind my statement of a title. Simply, I want to talk about music. In particular, three aspects of music. The first of which is the ever-decreasing ability for the public, in the UK in particular to recognise good music when you see it.
I grew up in a world dominated by who gets the number 1 spot on the weekly chart, moving through the ages of cheesy teenage pop music in groups like S Club 7 and 911 to the currently, and stupidly, immensely popular dance music world. That's what truly annoys me with today's musical society, if you will. People get immensely influenced by others around them, leading to week in, week out records of monotonous beats, repetitive lyrics and scantily clad women/men. Why that became so popular is a different matter entirely, I won't go into that one. But, the public refuse to deter from this equation. For example, one of the greatest rock songs of the 21st century - Best Of You by Foo Fighters - got to number 4 in the charts, whereas more recently, one of the worst songs of the 21st century - The Club Is Alive by JLS - got to number 1. How does that work? How can people see past pure emotion, all the anger that goes into a song like Best Of You, the band members actually playing musical instruments and replace it with four boys who can't sing, have their voices synthesized to the extreme and have constantly on show six packs? It's ridiculous. Bands who actually play their music constantly get overlooked by talentless cretins. I'm praying for the day where I see a rock band get number 1 in the UK chart because, at the moment, it's basically impossible.
The second of my points for this post is how important music is in my life. I can honestly say that it's impossible for me to go a day without listening to at least an hours worth of music, be it a barrage of random selections chosen by my Spotify, a CD I've made of brilliant songs that I'll never get bored of, or simply one of my favourite albums. Depending on my mood, I vary my music taste. If I'm having a good day, anything can come on and make me feel good. When I'm angry, metal or hard rock is always the way forward. If I'm feeling a bit more emotional or down, Frank Turner is the man right at the top of the list, edging ahead of Brian Fallon from The Gaslight Anthem. I own all of Turner's albums to date and I don't intend to stop. His rip-roaring anthems, love songs and general rants about life are a joy, and bring me right back up when I'm having a bad day. In fact, it's a Frank Turner lyric that is bequeathed in my post title. Oh how I love music, it really has saved my life from the black hole that is boredom.
Finally, my third topic is my annoyance at how I never learned to play an instrument. I tried in my younger years. In my primary school days, maybe around year 3, I attempted to learn the most useless instrument in history - the recorder. How many band's have you seen in the past 10 years that use a recorder? Not many, or none that spring to mind quickly anyway. I attempted that for maybe a year, before promptly giving up. The next instrument was the piano, which lasted me longer than the recorder, but I distinctly recall my piano teacher being annoyed at me every lesson for not practising (or practicing?). I promptly gave that up too. The final instrument, and the most annoyed I am for quitting, is guitar. I stuck with this for a good 2 years - I never got into it. I think I just wanted to pick up a guitar and be able to strum amazingly to whatever I wanted to. No hard work at all, I just wanted to play it without the hassle of working through the stages of getting better. Oh how I wish I stuck with it, me being the 17 year old with a rock fan Dad and numerous friends who can play guitar quite brilliantly. I can see playing guitar being such a useful skill to have, if you get bored, you can get in the Internet, look up the tab for a song you love at the moment, and spend time learning the song. I'd love to do that. I constantly air guitar (or air ukulele to those who know me) to songs, never able to play the real thing. I'm gutted for that.
It seems YouTube is starting to be predominant in my blog, so I might as well continue the trend I've made with a song I discovered a matter of minutes ago, by Frank Turner, one of my favourite ever musicians.
Now do you see where my title came from? Yeah, this is good stuff.
No comments:
Post a Comment