Fun. & the New Year
I was working New Year's Eve. I was (am) sick and exhausted and taking care of drunks, but this is not what I came here to talk about.
Fun.
I had an urge to listen to "Some Nights" while at work last night. I carry my iPod to work sometimes. I don't actually find time to listen to very often, but it sits there in the pocket of my cargo pants, banging into the side of my knee and being reassuring, like some sort of religious artifact.
Neither the song nor the album Some Nights is on my iPod, so I listened to the first few songs o Aim and Ignit instead.
Gosh.
Let's step back a bit. I find fun. a little infuriating.
I became aware of them literally right before they made it big. Brandon and I were looking at upcoming shows in Birmingham, and I think they were playing at Workplay so I looked them up and listened to "All the Pretty Girls" and a couple others, and really liked them. I downloaded Aim and Ignite. We didn't go to that show, because of finances or my school schedule or something, and by the time the show actually happened "We Are Young" had become a huge hit and they were For Real Famous.
So then I listened t Some Nights their second album, their big album, the one that had just been released, the one with "We Are Young" on it. It is not as good a Aim and Ignite! Not at all. This isn't an uncommon or revolutionary opinion, but it is the opinion I hold. "Some Nights" itself is a really well-written, rousing song, that is about disillusionment and I guess, war. The chorus is how I feel, often:
Oh lord, I'm still not sure what I stand for
What do I stand for? What do I stand for?
Most nights I don't know anymore.
But it goes into this layered auto-tuned weirdness towards the end, and the overall effect to me is like someone gave neon paint pens to a small child and let them scribble all over a very nice painting. I can still see the painting beyond the hot pink swirls, but I'm not going to hang it in my living room.
Most of the album is the same.
Their hit songs still inject something neat and new into current pop music, but I don't love it. And I want to love it. Frustrating.
Again, not a unique or radical opinion.
But I have to ask: Am I wrong Because the reason I don't like it is the auto-tune shenanigans. Straight-up, that is the reason. All of it. Am I just being a traditionalist? Am I just hating on the new thing the kids are doing? Fun. at least tries to use it, not just to correct their mistakes, but in an interesting way, as just another tool, another effect, another weapon in their arsenal. Shouldn't they be rewarded for it? I usually prefer more organic sounding, naturally flawed stuff, that's just a taste thing, but their first album uses a lot of overdubbed harmonies and that isn't a natural sound either and I didn't care. Electric guitars and chiptunes, and if you want to go far enough with this, fuckin musical instrument are not natural, so why doe thi bother me?
Ultimately the reason is I just don't like it, the lead singer has an awesome voice that I feel would sound much better without the effects. Ultimately, I want to present my opinion as a moral fact and I can't.
Should I try to get over it? Doesn't adopting any type of music that isn't the type of music you grew up with mean getting over something, whether that's unpretty vocals or heavy bass or distorted guitar sounds or a backbeat?
New Year's and Writing:
Anyway, I'm writing about this, not because it's any more interesting or pressing than any other thing that's been going on in my life, but because I want to get into the habit of writing. Writing a little bit always just makes me want to write more, and doing that little bit of writing about my own random thoughts is a lot easier than trying to write any sort of coherent anything else. Hopefully that way I can also get all the things I cycle through my brain again and again OUT of my head, so I can move on to other, hopefully better thoughts.
I don't think that the New Year has any particular sort of magic to it, except a bit of superstition about new beginnings. But in all art, a little bit of superstition and magical thinking definitely doesn't hurt, so I'll use it to my advantage as much as I can. I'm aware that I'm writing on the morning of Januar second but since I've only slept the once since New Year's Eve, I'm counting it as my first day of the New Year. If I'm successful in writing every day this whole year, my last entry will be early in the morning of January 1st, and I will be sloshed Everyone: next year? Party at my place.
Other thoughts:
The day I begin to sit in chairs only as the manufacturer intended will be the day I have become Old.
And a metaphor for myself:
A person wandering through an art gallery going WHAT WHAT WHAT WHY WHY WHY.
Really the question I would be asking is: Why is this here? Why is it here and not the smaller but more respected gallery down the street? Why are the things I love in neither place? If they were would I still love them?
And those are all stupid questions. They are like asking, "Why doesn't everyone love me?" And to answer that you might ask "Why don't I love everyone?" The answer t that is, of course, "Lots of reasons," but the main one is "There is not enough love in me. There is not enough of me."
Fun.
I had an urge to listen to "Some Nights" while at work last night. I carry my iPod to work sometimes. I don't actually find time to listen to very often, but it sits there in the pocket of my cargo pants, banging into the side of my knee and being reassuring, like some sort of religious artifact.
Neither the song nor the album Some Nights is on my iPod, so I listened to the first few songs o Aim and Ignit instead.
Gosh.
Let's step back a bit. I find fun. a little infuriating.
I became aware of them literally right before they made it big. Brandon and I were looking at upcoming shows in Birmingham, and I think they were playing at Workplay so I looked them up and listened to "All the Pretty Girls" and a couple others, and really liked them. I downloaded Aim and Ignite. We didn't go to that show, because of finances or my school schedule or something, and by the time the show actually happened "We Are Young" had become a huge hit and they were For Real Famous.
So then I listened t Some Nights their second album, their big album, the one that had just been released, the one with "We Are Young" on it. It is not as good a Aim and Ignite! Not at all. This isn't an uncommon or revolutionary opinion, but it is the opinion I hold. "Some Nights" itself is a really well-written, rousing song, that is about disillusionment and I guess, war. The chorus is how I feel, often:
Oh lord, I'm still not sure what I stand for
What do I stand for? What do I stand for?
Most nights I don't know anymore.
But it goes into this layered auto-tuned weirdness towards the end, and the overall effect to me is like someone gave neon paint pens to a small child and let them scribble all over a very nice painting. I can still see the painting beyond the hot pink swirls, but I'm not going to hang it in my living room.
Most of the album is the same.
Their hit songs still inject something neat and new into current pop music, but I don't love it. And I want to love it. Frustrating.
Again, not a unique or radical opinion.
But I have to ask: Am I wrong Because the reason I don't like it is the auto-tune shenanigans. Straight-up, that is the reason. All of it. Am I just being a traditionalist? Am I just hating on the new thing the kids are doing? Fun. at least tries to use it, not just to correct their mistakes, but in an interesting way, as just another tool, another effect, another weapon in their arsenal. Shouldn't they be rewarded for it? I usually prefer more organic sounding, naturally flawed stuff, that's just a taste thing, but their first album uses a lot of overdubbed harmonies and that isn't a natural sound either and I didn't care. Electric guitars and chiptunes, and if you want to go far enough with this, fuckin musical instrument are not natural, so why doe thi bother me?
Ultimately the reason is I just don't like it, the lead singer has an awesome voice that I feel would sound much better without the effects. Ultimately, I want to present my opinion as a moral fact and I can't.
Should I try to get over it? Doesn't adopting any type of music that isn't the type of music you grew up with mean getting over something, whether that's unpretty vocals or heavy bass or distorted guitar sounds or a backbeat?
New Year's and Writing:
Anyway, I'm writing about this, not because it's any more interesting or pressing than any other thing that's been going on in my life, but because I want to get into the habit of writing. Writing a little bit always just makes me want to write more, and doing that little bit of writing about my own random thoughts is a lot easier than trying to write any sort of coherent anything else. Hopefully that way I can also get all the things I cycle through my brain again and again OUT of my head, so I can move on to other, hopefully better thoughts.
I don't think that the New Year has any particular sort of magic to it, except a bit of superstition about new beginnings. But in all art, a little bit of superstition and magical thinking definitely doesn't hurt, so I'll use it to my advantage as much as I can. I'm aware that I'm writing on the morning of Januar second but since I've only slept the once since New Year's Eve, I'm counting it as my first day of the New Year. If I'm successful in writing every day this whole year, my last entry will be early in the morning of January 1st, and I will be sloshed Everyone: next year? Party at my place.
Other thoughts:
The day I begin to sit in chairs only as the manufacturer intended will be the day I have become Old.
And a metaphor for myself:
A person wandering through an art gallery going WHAT WHAT WHAT WHY WHY WHY.
Really the question I would be asking is: Why is this here? Why is it here and not the smaller but more respected gallery down the street? Why are the things I love in neither place? If they were would I still love them?
And those are all stupid questions. They are like asking, "Why doesn't everyone love me?" And to answer that you might ask "Why don't I love everyone?" The answer t that is, of course, "Lots of reasons," but the main one is "There is not enough love in me. There is not enough of me."