Middle Wednesday: The Decline of Coffee and Music

The main goal of this blog is to focus on music and the main problem with Billboard. However, I just have to make a brief mention of something that happened to me.

On Monday of this week, I was very low on energy. The day was beating me down, and it was a pretty crappy day in general. I still had a voice lesson to get through, and I needed something to help power myself through it.

So I bought one of these.

N--no, not the laptop, the coffee.

I don't know if you have ever had a Starbucks Doubleshot, but it comes in two flavors: Ass and Sadness. I don't know which flavor I got, and I do not care. I bought this with the hope that it would restore my energy and taste semi-decent at the same time.

It got one of those things right. This is hands-down the worst coffee I've ever had, but it did at least give me some fuel for the fire.

And that fuel ran out halfway through my voice lesson. It was the most glorious crash in human history, as I felt time slow and my head begin to whir with a headache that got caught in my teeth. A smell was intercepted in my nose; it was that of milk and wet coffee beans, mixed together in what I like to imagine was a pale aroma of unhappiness. 

It was tragic. But it was so beautiful.

After the last half hour slugged on for about two hours, I headed back to the dorm and tried to fall asleep. Lo, I had what is now known as "the Coffee Shakes," as the last of the caffeine wriggled itself out of my body (don't think about that too hard.) I got up, walked around, ate some chicken, and now I'm here, writing about it.

So I will say this now: If you have never tried a Doubleshot, don't. Don't drink this. Don't think about drinking this. It is the worst $2.50 you will ever spend. If you are that desperate for a form of energy, just eat an apple or get someone to kick you in the balls super-hard (or that other part for the lady-girls.) The only thing I've drunk worse than this were smashed salamander eggs. At least those weren't overpriced.

Anyway...

(Disclaimer: This features some nostalgic music that you may not be happy to hear again. God knows I wasn't.)

For some reason, my lovely college's radio station decided to play the Top 40 from 2008. I was at lunch with a friend in McAlister's, not drinking their pale imitation "famous sweet tea," when I heard the break in music and the pre-recorded voice say:

HIT MUSIC FROM 2008, TODAY! 

To which I thought, "that makes no sense. Hit music from 2008 today? What does that even mean?"

The answer was bestowed upon me in the worst way possible: Disturbia started to play.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I don't hate Rihanna. The girl has pipes, she really does. It's just... when she chooses not to sing, things get bad.

Ironically, the song that played right after it was a song that I don't hate. Well, I hate it a little bit. That one song by Jason Mraz everyone knows by now.

I used to pester people to get me to sing "I'm Yours," but even back in 2008, I could differentiate when a song was not very good. I still make fun of Disturbia, and Womanizer and Britney Spears still sucks, don't argue with me.

However, I found it odd at the same time. These songs, while really crappy, still had me tapping my foot every now and again... and I couldn't put my finger on why.

I went back to my dorm, and tuned in the radio on my Nano to see if I could get the answer. It came to me in a message from Satan himself, almost instantly. 

It dawned on me. Music is getting worse somehow. Those songs from 2008--I would not consider them oldies, I'm not a part of the swag generation douchebags who do crap like that--were a slight cut above those now. While it wasn't much, some effort was put into those. Now? Now no effort is put into hardly anything.

There are exceptions, as usual, but we live in a world where "Cruise," a song that still shows just how bad the definition of "country music" has gotten warped and mutilated, has been on Billboard for almost a year... and people will still say it is country.

We live in a world where "Blurred Lines" nearly took the record for the longest time at number 1 in Billboard history.

We live in a world where Party Rock Anthem stayed on the Top 10 for 29 weeks straight. Do you want to see how bad things have gotten, truly? Re-read that sentence.

Party Rock Anthem--a type of genre that is only popular in clubs with light up floors--house music--was in the Top 10 for 29 weeks straight.

It's sad to say that, somehow since 2008, music as a whole has gotten worse. Not much worse, I would hate to see the day that I can say that music has gotten "much" worse... but worse nonetheless. Lazy editing and writing from so-called "talented artists," mixed with the cash-cow, money hungry producers and executive labels they go to have made something I love become a lazy hack.

The good news about this is it isn't only in America. Japanese music has been... erm, not great for a loooonnnggg time. And K-Pop?

...That should speak for itself.

But I hate to wonder, if the industry has become this lazy and selfish in the past five years, how much worse will it be in 2018? Will we truly reach the day where White Noise ft. 2 Chainz, a song that is literally just white noise with a three second rap by 2 Chainz (probably by Drake, Nicki Minaj or Lil' Wayne), is #1?

...I hope so. It would be an improvement over what is Number 1 of writing at this time. I can't link it, that would be a spoiler.

That's just something to think about.

(I apologize for the length of this Middle Wednesday as it has been a very busy week and I haven't had much time to write. I hope you enjoyed it nonetheless. Andrew and my's next song review will be out this coming Saturday!)

Middle Wednesday: Elephant Gun, The Creepiest Song Ever

(Disclaimer: You kind of have to listen to this to understand where I'm coming from on this post.)

So... Bink!

I love Beirut.

Not the capitol, the band. A very influential person showed me Beirut back in about 2010, and I've been hooked to their music ever since. They're great, alternative-indie. There is very little electric influence, and Zach Condon's voice is so uniquely weird that it really sets itself apart from most music, popular or obscure.

...No, there's no trick here. I love Beirut. The band has helped me through breakups, get-together's, tough moments, carefree stuff, etc. They are hands-down one of my favorite bands of all time, and their music has left an honest to God lasting impression on me.

That being said, holy sh** Elephant Gun is the creepiest ocelot song of all time.

This is all opinion and speculation, and you can head on over to SongMeanings for a deliberate, much more in-depth explanation of what is going on, but... doesn't this song sound too dang happy to you? The accordion is purposely out of tune, there is very little singing... and the words...

If I was young, I'd flee this town,
I'd bury my dreams underground,
As did I, we drink to die, we drink tonight,

Nothing too drastic so far. Just some childhood memory sounding stuff. Wishing you could get away, drinking your pains away, stuff like that. Pretty run of the mill lyrics thus far.

Far from home, elephant gun,
Let's take them down one by one,
We'll lay it down, it's not been found, it's not around,

Oh... okay. We're onto killing elephants. I guess that would explain the name of the song, then, it's just--that was kind of a quick turnaround... 

Let the seasons begin,
It rolls right on,
Let the seasons begin,
Take the big king down,

Let the seasons begin,
It rolls right on,
Let the seasons begin,
Take the big king down,

I mean... who's the big king? (Good album name) Is it God? President Bush? Why do we need to take him down? Is he just a really large elephant? 

Here's where I put in my nice little argument, as the instruments rage and break down in the happiest melody known to man. I know that, right now, I am overanalyzing. But just watch this video muted, and put Elephant Gun on in the background.

It may seem unfitting at first, but really think about it... can't you see the world ending to this song?

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and music is entirely subjective, and yeah it's weird (comma party!) but all I think about when I hear this song is the end of the world. That doesn't necessarily make it a bad song--it's awesome. But at the same time, it just seems too happy.

In the opening of Fallout 3, the song "I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire," a love song, is played while the camera zooms out to show the ruins of Washington D.C. The song has nothing to do with the end of the world, but at the same time, it seems fitting that it would play in a time where, yeah--the world has been blown apart by war and nuclear fire. It doesn't make sense... but at the same time it does.

Elephant Gun can very easily be related to that. A lot of songs could, probably. I just feel like this one in particular is shouting "BLOW SOMETHING UP" or "CALL IN THE EARTHQUAKE!" For real, if the world was gonna end, I wouldn't want it to be to any other song.

And it rips through the silence of our camp at night,
And it rips through the night,
And it rips through the silence of our camp at night,
And it rips through the silence, all that is left is all that I hide,

Even the above final lyrics to the song sound like a metaphor for death. If you're Christian or know about Moses, then you'll know that the final Plague of Egypt sent by God was that Death would roll through Egypt and kill every firstborn child of all those who was not an Israelite.

You can relate several things to several different things, and I'm not saying that this is a metaphor for death--okay, well, I am, but it could mean a million things in the world.

This song is no doubt drenched in symbolism, and after looking around I've noticed that there are several people who have several different theories about just what all this is about. In the end it probably doesn't matter; it's just a dang good song with some dark lyrics. Or light lyrics. Who knows?

It's just my two cents, but I honestly just think that this might just be one big apocalypse song. Again, nothing wrong with that. Muse released a whole album about it.

Juuuuuust something to think about!