Yup. I am doing more music from Grooveshark. I just can’t help myself, I keep finding all this awesome music and I am compelled to share it with people.

Plus, I am just so pleased that something finally came along that made finding new music easy enough for my lazy and somewhat conservative ass to be bothered with.

Before, the stuff I downloaded tended to be stuff I already knew from my extension exposure from many years of various dabblings. That is still a pretty broad palate, including stuff my brother exposed me to, stuff that was in my parents’ record collection when I was a kid, stuff I heard off listening to the CBC, all the stuff I found when I was a volunteer at CIMN, all the stuff I caught on videotape when I was a MuchMusic junkie, and so on.

(Holy crap, CIMN is no more. Wish I had not looked it up on Wiki. And after they finally got a real broadcast license. Bummer. )

But now, I actually get to find awesome new music just with a few clicks. Stuff like this!

I immediately fell in love with this song’s darkly orchestral mix of pretty pizzicato strings and harsh, dissonant vocals. It reminds me a little of 21st Century Schizoid Man by King Crimson, and various industrial artists like Skinny Puppy and Nine Inch Nails, in that it combines the highly mechanical sound of a distorted, filtered human voice with raw, dark, painful emotion. This creates a sound that is somehow more emotionally compelling than mere unvarnished sincerity, to my mind. Sadly, the rest of AWOLNATION’s work is not quite so dark, although there’s still good tracks, so give them a listen if you like this kind of thing.

I just plain could not love this song more. I had no idea what I was in for when I clicked a song called Size Matters, but I certainly didn’t expect a fun, funny, sensitive song about being big of heart and great of spirit. I endorse the song’s message wholeheartedly. I am a big believer in spiritual growth and choosing the bigger hearted option. It is not only the right thing to do, it also makes you happier in the long run because problems which seemed huge before now seem trivial and easily overcome. Just as if you had physically grown from the size of an ant to the size of an elephant. And, on a personal note, I must really love the song in order to forgive it for saying “big up the love” so many times. I mean ouch!

Funky does not begin to describe this song. Muscially speaking, it’s like a phenomenal amalgam of hiphop, jazz, Latin music, and pure uncut hardcore awesome. It is the kind of song that makes even a fat ol slug like me want to get up and dance. And it makes me happy, because while I love the electronic sounds of yesterday and today, I am highly pleased that people have finally realized that you can also use your computer to make something that sounds more or less just like any other genre of music you like, or even to make something that synthesizes elements of previous styles into something greater than the sum of its parts. The work of Gnarls Barkley (now sadly defunct) is a great example of this. It’s soul music, and yet, also something more. Do they have a name for this yet?

I am addicted to this song. I love its walking, swaying beat and sort of Western movie influenced sound. You can just imagine the singer walking along to the beat of the song on his journey. How appropriate! And the lyrics speak to the side of me that longs to just wander away and never come back. The part of me that doesn’t want to come home when I have out and walking for a while. The side that gets wistful in airports, wishing I was going somewhere. It is the complete opposite of my socially anxious side that wants to stay home forever and not deal with the world at all. That side is in control of me, and has been for most of my life. But there is still a part of me that just wants to wander the world and see what happens to me.

Well, I guess that’s it. Can’t think of another song to add, though I have this vague feeling that I am missing something I usual do now. Hmmm. Like I missed something.

Oh right! An Eminem song!

SPOILER ALERT. Please listen to the song before reading the rest of this article.

This song really blew my mind not just because it is another fine example of how Eminem is a master of expressing life and pain in rhyme, but because it also fooled me right until the end. The whole song sounds like he is talking about a woman, presumably Kim, his ex-wife, and then at the very end, he reveals he is talking about the rap industry itself. Did not see that coming. Then, of course, when I listened to the song again, I had a whole new appreciation for it. That is some literary shit, Marshall. I am impressed. Say, is there a word for his kind of rap? None of that gangsta bullshit, just the truth of life expressed in all its pain and messiness and reality? Because if so, I would like to know it, so I could find more of it. It might actually get me into rap enough to consider myself a rap fan, as opposed to a nonfan with just a few rappers he likes, like Eminem, MC Frontalot, and MC 900 Foot Jesus. (All white guys… hmmm… )

OK, that’s it for realz. Seeya later folks!