2.) As seen above, she’s also a talented piano player (and yes, I’m purposely avoiding using another word here).
3.) If you think she’s abandoned her roots or something, then you should be made aware of the fact that she performs piano versions of her songs very often, and in these performances, she actually sings the songs differently to fit the style of music; it’s not just a slowed down rehash of the original.
6.) Many pop musicians let the fame get to them and end up going insane (think Britney Spears’ shaved head). Gaga is pretty much already insane, but that’s part of what makes her so great.
7.) Everyone loves and covers her music: pop singers, rock singers, punk singers, metal guitarists, etc. That’s respect, right there.
8.) Come on, admit it: her songs are really catchy, and she writes them herself.
9.) It’s always fun to see what she’s going to wear. Call it crazy, call it looking for attention, call it whatever you want, but it’s still fun.
I just wrote a pretty long news update on my fiction blog. If you haven’t noticed, the only two blogs of my F-O-U-R blogs that I actually keep up are this one and my writing blog/inphiltrate fiction, so yeah, the Lucid Dreaming project is on hold.
I think I may have called Fall Out Boy’s demise a little too early. It’s looking like they’re really on break, which is fantastic news.
Music news that isn’t so fantastic, however, is that I have a ticket to see Paramore in September and I have no idea where the ticket is. It’s very unlike me to lose things like that, and I really hope I can find it soon so I don’t have to worry about it.
Just in case anyone was wondering: yes, I’m probably getting the iPhone 4, and yes, the iPhone is the best smartphone on the market, despite what the haters may think.
We’ll be entering election season soon, and I just thought I’d throw this out there: I think Ron Paul is fantastic, but I’m actually sort of hoping he doesn’t run in 2012, because I really want (former) Governor Gary Johnson to run, and I don’t think he’ll run against Dr. Paul. One of Ron Paul’s biggest problems was that he wasn’t really that good with the media (in my opinion, at least), but Gary Johnson is. Pretty much the same ideals with a new face – well, I don’t think that could hurt the movement that Dr. Paul’s fans stand for.
On Sunday, my favorite TV show, Lost, ended. After thinking about it and reading other people’s interpretations and rewatching the last part, I’ve decided that the ending was beautiful and satisfying. Lots of questions were left unanswered, but I feel like the most important thing – the relationship between all of the characters – was resolved quite wonderfully. I must say that I’m very sad to see the show go after watching it for four years (I picked it up right before season three started; watched one and two on DVD).
I’ve been digging this song lately. Very cool synth stuff.
Melfina is awesome so far. Kalmiya was the best computer I’ve ever had, so I’m hoping this MacBook Pro will continue that trend. I’m going to wait for Q3/Q4 of this year when the next generation of solid state drives come out and then stick a sweet SSD in this thing so it’ll really fly. I apparently could’ve done that in my old MacBook Pro as well without voiding the warranty, but I guess it’s all been for the best.
And also, just for the record, the iPad is still amazing and I still use it every day. Crazy how I thought I had no use for a big iPod Touch, and now it’s integrated into my routine.
(Yes, this is going to be one of those posts. Skip it if you like).
I wish I could express in more eloquent and meaningful words how much music affects my life. I think if you ask most people for a list of things they couldn’t live without, music would be on almost everyone’s list. Though the musicians change and everyone’s tastes differ, I think the euphoria of music flowing through a person is pretty universal.
A long, long time ago, in the year 1994 or perhaps 1995, I got my first CD: Hootie & the Blowfish’s “Cracked Rear View,” an album that I still regularly listen to. It was some point after then that I really started getting into music. I was mostly into country and pop, and the first (real) band I can remember calling my favorite is Matchbox Twenty, and then sometime shortly after, Creed.
I tried to pick out why I thought some bands were better than others, and I believed it came down to something like this:
1) Catchy songs.
2) Songs that people can relate to/rock out to/”feel.”
3) Singers with awesome voices.
4) Really interesting instruments/arrangement.
A song needs one of those to make someone really feel it, and all of those to be something really special. These will probably differ in importance from person to person. Number 2 is probably the most important to me, and number 4 would be the least important.
What really got my attention when I first heard Creed was that their lyrics were incredible. Something about that band just clicked, and I loved them.
Then, later down the road, June 4th, 2004 came, and Creed announced that they were breaking up. To say that I was upset would be an understatement; I was probably closer to heartbroken than that. If that sounds weird, then you’ve probably never really enjoyed music like I have.
There was a point where I’d make fun of bands for “sucking,” but I realized that the reasons I cited for them sucking didn’t make any sense except for one: when a single band has songs that factually sound the same, and even then, they can still put out a song that’s not half bad.
That was musical elitism stage, but nowadays, you’d be hard pressed to find me saying that any band sucks (except for Nickelback…and maybe Theory of a Deadman since they sound just like Nickelback). I realized that elitism in music is stupid. If you truly like music, then you can find things to appreciate in the way that any musician presents their art.
Because of that, I can say that I like and actively listen to more types of music than I even know how to list. Pop-punk, alternative rock, country, electro-pop, Japanese pop, elctro-hop, southern rock, electronica, pop, classical, and music from soundtracks that I don’t even know how to categorize by genre, just to name some off the top of my head (and without diving into deeper sub-genres).
I am writing all of this, because between yesterday and today, news has emerged that my second favorite band of all time has, in every sense except for the semantics, broken up.
I don’t really have the words to describe how I feel about it. There is no other band in the past four years that’s done for me what Fall Out Boy has, save for the exception of seeing Creed live at the NO Arena.
Fall Out Boy spoiled me in what to expect from music. You’ve heard jokes about them being emo or sucking; yeah, whatever, the lulelurah video was funny, but Fall Out Boy is more than wacky enunciation and Pete Wentz’s haircut. Their lyrics were extraordinary; not only were there cooly bizarre pop-culture references, but the lyrics were so cleverly crafted that they were damn near the point of being military-style tactical (“weapons in the form of words”). Some of their songs just amaze me; I simply cannot figure out how these words come to Pete.
Patrick’s voice is so unique that I confidently say that no other singer sounds like him. The way he enunciates words is simply incredibly, and that makes for insanely cool lyrics presented in an insanely cool way.
Every album Fall Out Boy put out from since From Under the Cork Tree was phenomenal, and their first real album, “Take This To Your Grave” was pretty good too.
I guess what I’m getting at is that I will miss Fall Out Boy, but I’m glad that I got to see them twice and that the last new song I heard from them was “From Now On We Are Enemies,” because it was definitely a good note to end on.
So, thanks for four great albums, guys. “Infinity on High” will always be one of my favorites. I hope this isn’t really the end, but I suspect that I’d be disappointed in hoping otherwise.
“Cracked Rear View” by Hootie & the Blowfish: One of my favorite albums of all time. After not having heard it in a while, I randomly decided to listen to it while in the back seat of my sister’s car on the way to Florida, and ever since, it’s reminded me of Destin. It also reminds me of being younger and having a simpler life, because it was my first CD.
“Hybrid Theory” and “Reanimation” by Linkin Park: All I can think of while listening to either of these albums is playing Halo back in high school with the old gang, particularly with Jared.
“Fallen” by Evanescence: I don’t really listen to this anymore, but it reminds me of sitting in my old Kia during break time when I worked at Winn-Dixie.
“Weathered” by Creed: This is a come and go thing, but sometimes, this album reminds me of Mardi Gras.
“Now” by Jessica Andrews: This is pretty much the same story as “Cracked Rear View.” I listened to this CD on the way to Florida once the entire way there (that’s about 5 hours).
“Origin” by Evanescence: Again, it’s not a regular occurence for me to be listening to Evanescence, but I had to include this album because it is absolutey the most depressing set of songs in my music collection. Listening to it reminds me of being depressed.
Spent about three hours washing Evey and blacking out the bowties on Saturday.
Other than that, I’ve not been doing a whole lot. I saw Ninja Assassin last week and it was pretty good relative to what I was expecting. Lot of blood and ownage.
I also saw both of the Twilight movies, and…unfortunately…I liked them.
And now for the obligatory “what I’ve been listening to” part of the post. I have been into electronic stuff pretty hardcore lately, and my latest kick is electro-hop, which is – as it sounds – electronic hip-hop. I’ve never taken hip-hop lyrics seriously, but I’m really digging this genre (it helps that I love keytars ).
The band I’m enjoying the most is Hyper Crush. This video is for their song “The Arcade.” It’s pretty much about how awesome old school video games were, I guess. hahahaha.
I love the Mercedes emblem around Donny’s neck, the shirt Preston (the keytarist) is wearing, and the Super Mario Bros. video in the background with Megaman instead of Mario.
Okay, yeah, it was a pretty weak snow, but…it was cool nonetheless. It’s a lot easier to see in this video that I took under a lamppost.
Also, I’ve been meaning to share this for a while, but I kept forgetting. It’s a very short video of the key to my Camaro. Just so I don’t get any smartass comments, I know Volkswagon did this first, but it’s genius and every new car should have this kind of key.
On a final note about cars, I have six Camaro Hot Wheels cars. I’m collecting them.
I’ve been listening to one of Fall Out Boy’s new songs, “From Now On We Are Enemies,” a heck of a lot. It’s about the composer Antonio Salieri being jealous of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart because he thought Mozart was very undeserving of his fame because of his lifestyle (as far as I can tell). It’s a great song and another of Pete Wentz’s fits of lyrical genius.
I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything of linguistic substance, but lately I haven’t had much to post about besides Evey.
First of all, Katy Perry’s MTV Unplugged live CD is absolutely amazing. I love her voice so much. She did a brilliant cover of a Fountains of Wayne song, and the entire album has a “lounge” feel to it. It’s really worth checking out if you appreciate beautiful singing.
Anyway…
Yesterday I hit the 400 mile mark on Evey. When I got the car, it had 20 miles on it from the factory and the PDI at the dealership, and I took a picture at 22. The odometer reading grows so quickly. Come tomorrow, I’ll have owned her for a week, and I couldn’t be happier. Every time I walk up to it, I smile. There’s liking your car, and then there’s this – finally having a car that I once called a dream car. I just flat out love this car. It’s so much fun to drive. Everything about it is fantastic, right down to my switchblade key. I think between the Camaro and the Chevy Volt, GM is really looking up (Chevy Volt > all hybrids).
Last week was pretty awesome. I took off on Wednesday to pick up my car, and then I had the rest of the week off for Thanksgiving to enjoy it.
And speaking of Thanksgiving, I hope everyone had a good one. I usually make a post about being thankful, but I guess I’ve just been neglectful of my poor blog lately. We had delicious food (duck and deer, mmmm), and I have plenty of leftovers in my freezer right now. The rest of the holiday was spent with family and friends.
Now, it’s Christmas time and I guess I should be happier about that, but I really enjoyed the Thanksgiving holiday. The tree is up at my parents’ and I put up a little one at the apartment, though I only turned on the lights once.
Other than that, I’ve been watching way too much anime and playing Starfox 64 a good bit.
I need to get back in the habit of updating this thing regularly, because I hate making this catch-up posts where I have to condense a bunch of crap into something readable (or slightly readable ).
One of my favorite synthpop/electro-pop artists is coming to the Varsity with another really awesome artist of similar musical styling 10 days before my birthday. If you are interested in attending LIGHTS and/or Owl City, please let me know. I’m going no matter what.
Getting older feels so weird. Well, I guess it’s more of a passage of time thing thing aging, but the point is that it’s so weird how things change.
I used to go through so many of my friends blogs and LiveJournals every day that it was hard to keep up. Now I’m lucky if there’s one or two updates a week on my friends’ sites. Heck, I remember when inphiltrate kind of used to be a big deal, and now most of my readers are people that are reading the posts imported on my Facebook feed.
I used to have a lot of people to talk to on AIM. We’d have big chat rooms and I’d have 5 IM windows open all of the time. Now I go up and down my buddy list for people to talk to and find it difficult to find anyone to which I have anything to say.
Perhaps I’ve been feeling this way lately because I’ve been listening to a lot of Creed. I know that sounds ridiculous, but the majority of my Creed-listening days were 2000-2005. Of course, I still listened to them regularly after that time, but it was 2006 that brought me into a completely different world of music (pop-punk), so listening to Creed is kind of like a time warp, especially their first album. I didn’t listen to it when it came out since I didn’t know they existed, but it’s from 1997 and it has such an amazing (post) grungy sound, as characterized of late 90’s rock music. Going from synth-laced pop and energetic pop-punk (rock) back to this stuff just puts me in a different mindset, I guess.
Anywho, on Sunday at about 7:20 P.M., I decided I felt like going to church, so I did. I went to the Refuge on campus, which is where I used to go sometimes. It felt nice to be around a bunch of people my age, and I even signed up to do some video production work (utilizing my skills that were developed making videos for my communication studies class, and then subsequently for Team IS the Movie 1-4 ). I’m not sure of the details, but I like video editing, so hopefully it’ll be fun.
I think there’s a small crack in the plastic on the back of my iPhone near the dock connector. Not too happy about that. Does anyone have any experience with getting a crack like that fixed at the Genius Bar? And on that note, is there anyone else that upgraded Tiger to Leopard to Snow Leopard and never had problems before Snow Leopard? I’m thinking a wipe and reinstall will fix it, but it’s kind of sad to see this installation I’ve been using for over two years get blown away.
I’ve been playing a little bit of BioShock and Halo (the first one) on my computer ever since I got my SSD (which is crazy fast, can’t wait to put one in my MacBook Pro next June). Fun games right there, I don’t know why I always stop playing BioShock when I pick it up, but I’ve played Halo enough for a few lifetimes, which is probably not that surprising since it’s my favorite game.
“Unity took a back seat, sliding further into regression.” – Stapp/Tremonti
I apparently could’ve done that in my old MacBook Pro as well without voiding the warranty, but I guess it’s all been for the best. 
