If you've ever been to something like a work outing, a blind date, or a big party where you only know one person, you're familiar with the concept of small talk. And a question that often comes up is "So, what kind of music do you like?" And the answer is often, "Oh, I listen to just about anything."
But my answer is not that. My answer is "I like alternative rock and emo rock that was released in a date range between approximately 1994 and 2012."
If you are one of those people who will listen to just about everything, I envy you. You must get so much more joy out of life than I do. And actually be able to go on road trips without making the other people in the car mad. Because other than some people like Green Day after they went kind of mainstream, and I got my roommates into Ludo one glorious summer, no one likes the music I do.
But, you know, I'm not completely close-minded. Occasionally, a song comes along that steals my heart and makes me stray from my genre. Even if it's the only song I would ever, ever listen to by this artist and have no interest in pursuing the rest of their oeuvre. Here are my top five diamonds in the rough. Some of this will get kind of personal.
5. Love the Way You Lie - Eminem Feat. Rihanna
Just gonna stand there and hear me cry
That's alright, because I love the way you lie
I feel like everyone who's not an Eminem fan has an Eminem song that is a guilty pleasure. For most people it's "Lose Yourself." I remember going on a road trip with my friend Corinne once and she was going through her music library, most of which was stuff I'd expect, and then she said, "Oh, and believe it or not, I have one rap song."
Me: Is it "Lose Yourself" by Eminem?
Corinne: ...Yes
If it's not "Lose Yourself," it's usually "Stan" by Eminem featuring Dido. And oh boy, do I have a lot to say about that song. The guy who drove me to school every day sophomore year of high school was into Eminem and for several weeks just played this song on an ENDLESS loop. I mean, yes, it's very interesting, it has Dido in it, and it's a departure from what I thought of Eminem at the time was just that he was an endless self-promoter obsessed with the fact that he is Slim Shady and has a cult following. Though, that's kind of what this song is about too, because the premise is that this superfan is so upset that Slim Shady took a long time to write back to his letters that he kills himself and his pregnant girlfriend. And then at the end of the music video, you find out Stan's little brother is turning into him, it's super cheesy. But, a particular celebrity I "stan" managed to fix that song and create my favorite Christmas video of all time:
Is there anything Pete Davidson can't make better? No. Was he very late to the party doing a pitch-perfect parody of the "Stan" music video? Yes, but, to be fair, he was probably like 8 when that song came out. Seriously, watch the video. It parodies not only the music video, but the Grammy performance when Elton John stepped in for Dido, and the cameo by Eminem at the end ... it's ... just every second of this video is worth a year of life.
But, neither of those are the song I'm going to talk about. I'm here to talk about "Love the Way You Lie," a song about a tumultuous but inescapable love-hate relationship. The music video features affecting performances by Dominic Monaghan (of Lord of the Rings, Lost, and FlashForward fame) (does anyone remember FlashForward?) and Megan Fox (of quitting the Transformers franchise fame). And even though it features one of the stupidest lyrics in existence (Now she's leaving out the window, guess that's why they call it window pane), several of the lyrics resonate with me. I have been in a situation before where I chose to live on beautiful lies, and I'd imagine a lot of us have.
4. Gangsta's Paradise - Coolio feat. L.V.
They say I gotta learn, but nobody's going to teach me
If they don't understand, how can they reach me?
I'm not going to lie about my second rap entry on this list. Unlike three of the other four songs, I have no emotional connection with these lyrics. Despite what popular opinion would have you believe, I'm not living in gangsta's Paradise. I just have a lot of fun memories associated with this song, and as a result I still know pretty much all the words and will start doing an enthusiastic but terrible rap any time I hear it.
I didn't listen to a whole lot of music growing up other than Andrew Lloyd Weber and Sandi Patti, because my dad was afraid of music that was not classical music and my mom liked musicals a lot. Occasionally, like, The Carpenters or something would be thrown in there. So when my sister and I used our allowance to buy a bunch of random CD's, some of which were Grammy nominee anthologies, an extra dimension was added to our world. One of the songs we discovered was "Gangsta's Paradise," and, I mean, this song is not hard to rap. It's slow paced and really easy to understand. We sang along with it. We were RAPPERS, dude.
This reminds me of one of my favorite conversations my family has had, after my sister got back from a school trip.
Mollie: Ash said I was the most gangsta person on the geology trip.
Me: That's impressive!
Dad: What's gang ... sta?
Me: Especially considering the stock you come from.
3. Back to Black - Amy Winehouse
Amy Winehouse, a tragic member of the 27 Club, had incredible talent. Like Ariana Grande, she had a powerhouse voice and knew how to use it, seeming to possess talent well beyond her years. Like Taylor Swift, she connected with her fans by making some of her songs semi-autobiographical.
And I really don't like any of her songs other than this one. I am more than willing to admit she's talented, but it's just not my genre. When "Rehab" was getting regular radio play, I wished I could just somehow launch myself into an alternate universe where that song did not exist.
But then there's "Back to Black." It's a haunting song that gets under my skin and just stays there. It so perfectly captures the pain and simultaneous numbness that comes from going through a breakup and realizing you have nothing. Amy Winehouse, like Eminem, was in a tumultuous on and off relationship. This song was written from a place of misery, and in my opinion (granted I am not familiar with her entire oeuvre) it is her masterpiece.
It's unfortunately common for this to be the case. Pink has said she writes her best songs when she is unhappy. In the episode of Family Guy where Taylor Swift finds happiness dating Chris, her fans boo her for singing a happy song ("I'm pretty and I'm rich and I'm in love, me, Taylor") and say, "We only like you when you're miserable!" And, then, there's Paramore. This is a girl-fronted emo band that did kind of a shift when Hayley Williams decided to do a happy song about her then five-year relationship and how much she loved her boyfriend called "I'm Into You." I remember while waiting to see some non-Paramore emo concert with my friend Keith, I told him "Paramore is bad now" and played that song for him, and he responded, "They need to stop being a band."
I don't know what this says about us as people, but I think there are two kinds of fanbases. There are the people who are like, "This song is fun and I'm going to listen to it and have a good time" and there are fanbases who are like, "I'm going to listen to this song to get all my feelings out and make me feel like I'm going to be okay because these celebrities have had these feelings too." I mean, I'm sure we all want Hayley to be happy, just keep playing the old stuff, alright? My karaoke go-to may be My Chemical Romance's "I'm Not Okay," but I sincerely want nothing more for my man Gerard Way than for him to be way better than okay. Wow, I went off on a massive tangent. At least I didn't bring up Pete Davidson. Wait ... oops.
2. Take Me to Church - Hozier
Who would have thought I'd become obsessed with a song by a folk singer, when I feel like alternative rock music was turning more folk-y around the time this song came out and it was killing my genre. So many bands I actively hate from around that time because they were destroying rock as I knew it. Mumford and Sons is not something you can headbang to. There goes my youth, I guess.
But this song is really, really freaking good.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a Hozier fan and, just like all the other entries on this list, I don't want to listen to any of his other stuff. He was the musical guest on Saturday Night Live this weekend and I kind of groaned. At one point, I yelled at the TV, "Play your one good song!" But, he didn't, probably because this song is ten years old.
But I really love this song. It's so wrenching and powerful. I can't entirely identify. I can identify with struggling to have faith, and that could be a completely separate blog post I'm never going to write, but I've never been part of a church and had to deal with the self-flagellation the narrator in this song is going through.
It's just so incredibly soulful. In 2015, I went to the Lagunitas Beer Circus (it was a thing and it was wild), and there was a woman playing a piano that was spinning around in the air who did a cover of this song and maybe it was the beer but I fell even more in love with this song than I already was.
Anyway. When I want to feel feelings, I "Take Me to Church." Just not any of the other Hozier stuff.
1. I'm So Sad - 3OH!3
3OH!3 was a hip-hop? rap? duo that for the most part flew under my radar in the 2000's, and when I did notice them, they were annoying, like a fly you would swat away and forget about.
But then, in 2021, as the world was reeling from quarantine, a beautiful thing happened to my YouTube recommended videos. A music video called "I'm So Sad" descended from heaven into my computer and taught me that life is worth living again. Quivering in rapture, I wondered who these minstrels were who had not only serenaded me but given a hug to my very soul. Then I looked them up and I was like, oh, it's those obnoxious guys. Who struck me as so sophomoric you didn't know if it was supposed to be ironic and actually very profound and you're just not smart enough to realize it, which is kind of how I felt about Blink-182. So when YouTube tried to show me more of their videos, I was instantly like, NO THANKS, but I still watch this video. Pretty often. It's become a member of my family.
Are these "budget Nick Lacheys," to quote the song, really so sad? No one can ever really know what someone else is going through. Is this song their way of screaming into the void? I'm reminded of a minor character from Mrs. Dalloway who felt she had no outlet and would just scream internally "But I am so unhappy!" as if that would lead someone to come and help it get better. Yeah. I just compared 3OH!3 to Virginia Woolf. Deal with it.
But, they are successful pop stars, you might say. Or, were successful pop stars. Or, they exist. Why are they not happy? But one of the lyrics in the song is, "And if I had, all the **** I wish I had I'd still be sad, I'm so sad." They are sad. And they don't know why. They are all of us. They are everything.
Some people just don't work out until they become emo. Like Tobey McGuire as Spiderman (the emo sequence in the third movie is the only part of that trilogy I liked). Or Adam Sandler, who I thought was a plague upon humanity until I saw the movie Funny People where he's kind of an emo. Who should go emo next? I feel like I should get an emo ray gun and go out and use it to emo-rapture all the musical acts I can't stand. And then we will all get in a kick line like in the end of the "I'm So Sad" video, and vomit smiley faces like they do in the music video, and have a good cry, and become one.
Anyway. "I'm So Sad." Great song. Please don't ever perform any song other than this one ever again, guys.
No comments:
Post a Comment