What happened to the world?

I don't think there are any music magazines I really like in general, besides the ones aimed at creators of music, especially engineer and programmer types; magazines like Keyboard, Remix, EQ. Although I've read plenty of them and admit they do have interesting content sometimes, I dislike magazines like Rolling Stone and Blender. And I dislike Spin.

I noticed that it's the 25th anniversary of Spin, and on their website they have a readers poll about the past 25 years of music. As I was reading the first category "Best Band", I was trying to think about how long ago 25 years actually was, and that's when I realized it was 1985 25 years ago, the year I was born, and that next month is my 25th birthday.

All of the choices available in this poll are ridiculously mainstream, and many of them are choices I don't think belong if we're talking about the best in music from the past 25 years. Choices like the recent Jay-Z hit "Empire State Of Mind" in the category of "Best Song". And there are so many things I think are missing. I'm not even talking about slightly less mainstream bands, songs, and albums either, even though there are plenty I can think of that are better than most of the choices on this poll. What I'm talking about is very popular and amazing things missing, like the album "Disintegration" by The Cure and "Loveless" by My Bloody Valentine.

What's even more baffling is the results of the poll so far. According to the readers who voted in this poll, The Killers are the best band from the past 25 years. How does that even happen!? Apparently "American Idiot" by Green Day is the best album of the past 25 years. And I thought the hype surrounding that album 5 years ago had died. So far, the results had me wondering what kind of people read Spin. When I came to the "Best Rap or Hip-Hop Artists" results, I think it might have painted at least a vague picture of what kind of people. I say that because in first place is The Beastie Boys and second place is Eminem. Unless I'm mistaken they're the only two white hiphop artists on the list of choices. I'm not saying either are bad... but the best? In the past 25 years? That's pretty much as long as hiphop has been popular. Do these Spin readers only or mostly just listen to white rappers? Public Enemy, Tupac Shakur, and Notorious B.I.G. didn't even make it in the top 5. Snoop Dogg and Puff Daddy weren't even choices in the poll.

I'm just confused about these results. I think it's probably mostly just a result of people not really putting any thought into their answers, and just picking their favorites. And those favorites being a result of bad taste and limited exposure to music. If there was really no better band than The Killers and no better album than American Idiot in the past 25 years, this would be a pretty terrible era to live in.

I've been really into this band lately.

"Fuck What You Like" by A.R.E. Weapons.

Although I dislike labeling things, especially music, I think this is a great example of modern punk. While it doesn't have the cliche punk sound, style, or fashion, I think it definitely has a punk sound and style. Despite the simple sound of the song, it really makes me think. It has a wonderful, yet simple message, which I think people could really benefit from. Just do what you do for your own reasons without being controlled by what other people will think of you or what you think other people will think of you. Don't do things based on what you think other people will like; a concept that's definitely important when it comes to any creative endeavors.

I think the lines "Fuck what you like, I don't care what you like. Fuck what you like, I'm living my life" stick out to me especially in the context of the vocabulary used in things I've been noticing lately on the internet. There was a recent change on Facebook that I really don't approve of, where pages no longer have a button you can click to become a fan of whatever the page represents, and instead have a button for you to click to "like" whatever the page represents. It makes things much too black and white in my opinion. I think people already think in terms of everything being black and white, and this just makes it easier for them. Everything is now easily organized into two groups. Things they like, and things they don't like.




Obviously the song is not about that, after all, it has been around for a few years now, but I think it applies to the meaning of the song. Look at the top right corner of the Vimeo video player I embedded at the beginning of this entry. It has a button with a heart symbol on it, labeled "LIKE". If you like the video, you're supposed to press that button to let people know what you like. If that's not irony, I don't know what is.

I was disappointed recently when a few people decided they no longer "liked" my music page on Facebook, because I feel it's like finding out people who you thought once supported you suddenly no longer do. Going from someone who supports you to someone who doesn't is quite a significant change for an action involving one mouse click. Although their actions still upset me, it's really not a big deal. It's not for them, so I don't really care if they like it or not. To them it's not about support. It's about what they like or don't like. I don't care what they like, and what they like doesn't affect how I do things, because I'm doing it for me. It's my life.

David Bowie likes cool music.

I was just watching a David Bowie interview I've never seen before where he's mostly talking about my favorite album of his, Heathen. At one point he's talking about how it's important to listen to old music as well as new music. He was saying it's okay to listen to The Beatles, but that it's also important to listen to The Streets, which he practically pulled out of the air as an example of an important modern band. I love The Streets, and it's pretty cool knowing David Bowie thinks so highly of The Streets too. It made me smile.

Here's a really good song by The Streets that was around back when the Bowie interview took place: