Monthly Archives: April 2011

I love music. I have loved music since I was a zygote. I listen to at least one song everyday and I’m not exaggerating! The choice of songs I listen to has in large part to do with the way I might be feeling for the day. One day I might listen to one song repeatedly another day I might listen to a mixture of artists. Take note that I wrote artist, not singer.

The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines a singer as someone who sings which is defined as a person who produces “musical tones by means of the voice.” That same dictionary defines an artist as “one skilled or versed in learned arts.”

Don't you Just Love My Drawing!!! Especially The Mic!!!

I see an artist as someone who sits with their thoughts and then links them together like a chain that is made heavy not by metal, but by the emotions and time spent crafting it together. Each lyric acts as one link in the making of the chain. When the chain is complete the writer has gotten used to its weight and although it might still be somewhat heavy the person can carry it, and they carry it with pride.

Singer/songwriters Jewel, Sara Barilles, and The Script (Danny O’Donoghue, Mark Sheehan, and Glen Power) are several people who come to mind.

Jewel's Album 'Spirit' (1998). Taken From My Computer From My iTunes Library.

Sara Barilles' Album 'Kaleidoscope Heart' (2010).

Barilles, when it came to writing new songs for her album Kaleidoscope Heart, said on her website it felt “like pulling teeth to write them.”

While writing for their self-titled debut album Sheehan’s mother became terminally ill. This had a tremendous affect on the band’s writing: “That was pulling on my heart strings in a big way. Lyrically it was pouring out of me” said band member O’Donoghue whose father also passed away during the album’s creation. “But then amidst all this travesty and disaster, these songs have risen out of it. That was the time when it finally came home to me how important music was to me, cos in my darkest moments that’s what got me through.”

What O’Donoghue and Barilles said on their websites proves my point. Every word, lyric and chorus that the artist writes is an outward expression of an inner emotion. Time after time when pen hits paper or finger hits keyboard that person is acting as their own therapist.

Every time someone decides to listen to a music track they are giving themselves permission to feel something and they assume the risk that the emotion they feel may not always be positive.

The Script's Self- Titled Debut Album (2008) (THEY'RE IRISH ♥!!!)

I have an unspoken deal with the artists I listen to. Since they have put a lot of themselves in to their music they have earn some privilege to co-exist with my emotions. If I don’t want to share my emotions with them, be it happiness, sadness or anger, I simply change the track.

As You Can Tell (Hopefully) I Love Music & My iPod!!!

Every time I listen to a singer who didn’t write their own lyrics I am not connecting with them I am connecting with the songwriter.

Songs are called tracks for a reason. Songs are placed in order on an album because the artist wants to create a journey for their listeners. Tracks are laid down so that a train may ride on them. As a listener you are a passenger on that train and you can decide to take the entire journey are only make a couple of stops.

In today’s music industry anyone can be a singer, but not everyone is an artist.

It started off innocently enough.

First, there were baby tees — you know, the kinds with Beatles song lyrics imprinted on the front next to photographs of Abbey Road or of John Lennon’s somber stare. Then, the revolution started — t-shirt makers (and hoodie, sweatpant, and bag) makers across the world cashed in on making merchandise with popular bands as a selling tool. The Strokes, the Smiths…heck, I can get Lady Gaga’s (hopefully, sans the prosthetic horns) on an otherwise plain shirt from Zara for under $25 bucks.

Okay, so it's KIND OF cute.

Don’t get me wrong, I always thought fashion and music worked off one another for inspiration (anyone remember that scene from Clueless where Cher got dressed to David Bowie’s Fashion? No? Well, I do!) but when does music become fashion and fashion become music? When the two combine, it’s hard to make the distinction, yet there should be some sort of line…right?

Case in point: one of my dearest friends, who I shall call Jelly Bean for the sake of her identity, and I decided to go shopping. While on our quest to find a pair of espadrilles that didn’t look like grandma shoes, we somehow ended up in Hot Topic (purely for the laugh factor, I assure you). While browsing the dimly-lit and somewhat dingy store (if you’ve been to the one in Staten Island Mall, you know what I’m talking about), I heard an over-excited shriek that sounded far too inhuman to be emitting itself from an all-too-human body. I immediately flounced over to examine the cause for such alarm to myself, and then she held up a shirt that, frankly, I don’t have the words to describe accurately: black, save for the neon imprint of a face that looked like a cross between a kitty and an alien, with the words “KE$HA” in metallic blue scrawled over the cat/alien/person’s eyes. The shirt itself was shapeless and made of a thick fabric.

In all meanings of the word, it was hideous.

“So, do you like it? Isn’t it awesome?” Jelly Bean exclaimed, holding the shirt up proudly.

“Um, do you even like Ke$ha?” I refrained from stating the obvious — that I’d rather wear a plastic bag than get near that thing.

“No, but I like the shirt! What does it matter if I listen to her or not?” was J.B.’s ever-so sensible reply.

Let’s assume that the shirt was, indeed, not horrendous-looking. Was it right, though, that Jelly Bean wanted to buy a so-called “band shirt” (the cashier at Hot Topic’s words, not mine) of a band that she doesn’t even listen to? Doesn’t that destroy the whole point, then, to walk around like a walking billboard? Hypothetically, if you don’t make the distinction between “good” music and “bad” music, it still shouldn’t matter — band shirts are only meant to be worn by fans of the band, not by someone that randomly decided that they like the shirt. False advertising, people.

For the record, Jelly Bean didn’t buy the shirt. The $20.50 price tag for essentially a printed Hanes undershirt deterred her.

Thank God.