Looking back

Not a fan of people, especially young people, who try to enhance their cred by complaining about current music. As far as I can tell, the ratio of crap to greatness is pretty much the same now as it's always been in pop--we just are able to filter out the wheat from the chaff more effectively with the old stuff. My tastes are aligned pretty heavily toward the late 60s to mid 70s era, but I go out of my way not to be chauvinistic about it, and there are plenty of "current" artists that I like--Chili Peppers, Stripes, some recent power metal and prog, random alt-rock from the 90s that reminds me of grade school. It's annoying in general when people talk about a sublime past that never really existed. It's fallacious to do it with politics, morals, and language, and no better to do it with music.

That said, 98% of rap is just stupid.

Backstreets

The piano intro is a cascading, crescendoing epic all by itself. The exquisite, almost jaunty riff that continues throughout the song is a flawless distillation of the entire album's message of deep-chested yearning yoked with desperate joy, a plaintive invocation of forlorn adoration and the unquenchable catharsis of speed and love and darkness. The rest of the instrumentation is equally flawless. Somebody in that studio knew how to use a goddamn organ, that's all I'm saying. Springsteen's immortal vocals accompany the throbbing wall of bass and drums to a cataclysmically powerful guitar solo that weeps and shudders from the deepest recesses of the human spirit. And if that wasn't enough, the lyrics are devastating enough to move the hardest heart to anguish:

Blame it the lies that killed us, blame it on the truth that ran us down / You can blame it all on me, Terry, it don't matter to me now / When the breakdown hit at midnight there was nothing left to say / But I hated him, and I hated you when you went away...

It's hard to fathom, much less express, how much pure humanity is bound up in these six minutes and thirty-one seconds. This is beyond genius.

Liveblogging

9:01: Palin is a fox. Chummy to Biden.

9:02: Biden mirrors Obama's opening statement, laying the epic smackdown on supply-siders. He's also giving an emphatic defense of Obama's bailout positions. Maybe a liiitle wordy.

9:03: Palin is meticulously scripted.

9:04: Ha, you can tell Biden is really forcing himself to look at her.

9:04: You can hear a little bit of the Couric bluster creeping into Palin's words.

9:05: Palin tries the workforce card.

9:06: Man, real shades of Miss North Carolina (or whatever state). Something about her syntax.

9:07: Rofl, still talking about "new face," etc. Remember who your running mate is?

9:10: Pretty soporific so far. Nothing major.

9:11: Biden better respond to the $42,000 lie.

9:12: Good tax response, I think.

9:12: Palin bites back.

9:15: Palin is using Obama's first name. Interesting. (Of course, Biden uses McCain's first name).

9:16: I wonder if lauding the "private sector" is still effective.

9:16: It must be said that Palin's performance has offered little to complain about. This really will be a debate about policy.

9:19: Good response from Biden on healthcare, taxes.

9:20: Biden miiight not want to rail so much against "tax cuts" as a concept. I guess if he makes it clear that they're for undeserving companies or people, it's fine. Also, he's been flubbing lines and doesn't look too energetic.

9:25: Palin's first real balls-up answer. Nothing horrible, just a big ramble.

9:26: Biden voices voiceless bilabial stops intervocalically, and I think it's funny. Princibal.

9:28: Palin rocks the dangling participles. She's starting to crack, maybe--definitely seems to be getting more incoherent.

9:30: Produce, emit, and even pollute! Whuh?

9:33: "All of the above" approach?

9:38: Surge is exit strategy. Blablabla.

10:16: Yawnsfuckingville.

9:41: Maliki and Talibani? I don't recognize the second name.

9:45: Nukular.

9:46: Seriously, the Repubs have nothing on this precondition thing. Give it up. Come on Biden, put her down.

9:49: Not impressed with Ifill. Skips through the questions with no followups or acknowledgement. Would be no different if she'd just played a tape of the questions.

Muzak

Music is a big part of my life. I listen to it when I'm on the computer and when I'm in bed. There's a lot of music out there that affects me in powerful ways. And yet I've never bought an album. I think maybe when I was in grade school I bought a CD by some boy band as a birthday present for somebody. But I've never had the experience of going to a music store and purchasing an album, or even a single, from a recently discovered band. I've never liked a song on the radio and decided to go out and fork over fifteen dollars on the record. I don't even know where I would go to do such a thing, or whether fifteen dollars is an accurate number. Heck, come to think of it, I don't own a sound system.

And it's not as if I spend my money on iTunes instead. I've used it for a few obscurities here and there, but I got a twenty-dollar gift card for the store last Christmas and still have twelve bucks left. No, I just "pirate" everything, through either Limewire or Cornell's intranet hub. And so does everybody else I know.

Fuck me, this is a useless post.