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.
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| 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?
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!)
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