I probably should talk about all the deep psychological; shit that came up in therapy today, and thus work through just a little more of my deep seated issues.

And I still might. But I am also going to allow myself to get all excited and enthused about all the music I glommed today!

WARNING : The following will contain a crazy amount of Youtube-age.

It all started with this wonderful video :

It’s like it was made for me, because all I need, at my age, is for something to remind me of songs I like so I can go download them.

So these six second clips are damn near perfect. They are just long enough for me to remember the song then it’s on to the next one.

For someone with my memory for music, that’s all it takes.

If that’s not your bag, though, I don’t recommend watching the video. There is a lot of utterly forgettable early 2000s crap in there. Boring ballads, hip hop that is more like flipflop, genre-less crossover trash, it’s all in there.

But there were gems amongst the detritus, and that’s what I want to share.

I started off with this wonderful gem from my childhood :

I prefer that version to the Carpeters one, by the way. The Carpenters version is overproduced and feels kind of forced.

Anyhow, I absolutely adore that song. It expresses that whole 70’s UFO worship feeling so well, and I adore UFO cults.

It’s like they are science fiction’s children. They have such noble ideas and such fervent hope and such wondrous wild eyed wonder at this universe of ours.

Sure, they may seem a tad credulous, and I suppose a lot of the more boring kind of science fiction fan would not want to be associated with them, but science fiction provided the vivid imagery upon which they base their faith, and so I feel, just a little bit, like we are responsible for them.

And their faith is, at least to someone raised outside religion like me, no more absurd than tales of the Biblical flood or resurrected Jewish cult leaders.

And what the hey. Nowhere in the song do they say they know this beautiful idea of theirs will work.

But it might.

So what the hell!

Next up, the only fresh discovery from today’s panning for gold :

Now THAT is some seriously funny shit. It’s such a bang-on parody of the sappy slow-jam love songs of a certain era that I am thrilled by its subversion of a cliche.

And because I know some people will jump to this conclusion. no, the song is not misogynistic. Nowhere does he state any generalizations about women. His anger is directed at one specific woman, and if all he is saying is true, she deserves it.

Anger at a person is not the same as anger at their gender (or race, or religion, or… ). A lot of people will respond to a song like this based not on its contect but based on the fact that they are so unused to seeing men direct anger at women without it automatically meaning the man is wrong.

He doesn’s threaten her physically. He doesn’t say anything about women in general. He doesn’t even say there will be consequences.

And the truth is, if it was a woman saying similar things to a man, you wouldn’t be upset.

And that’s just straight up sexist, yo.

And now, to take things in the exact opposite direction :

Yes, I know. It’s a super sappy ballad. And I don’t, as a rule, go for those.

But god damn it if it isn’t one of the best sappy ballads I have ever heard. And I am, deep down, a romantic softie, and I love the heck out of this song.

Remember, there ain’t but two kinds of music : good, and bad. Every genre of anything only exists to guide people toward other media they might like.

They’re not supposed to become a defining part of your identity or your membership badge for a certain culture or clade.

They are merely file tabs in the media folders of life.

Next up : a song that some of you might STILL be sick of :

And to be frank, when the one hit wonder video spit this one out, I was dubious. I remembered it as just another mindless summer hit.

But I gave it a listen anyhow, and found I quite liked it. I love its pumped up hard-driving energy and its lyrics about how much it sucks when the assholes show up and wreck the vibe (and worse, your chances with the ladies), and the rapper’s gravely Jamaican voice fits the overall canine vibe of the song perfectly.

So what the hell. Who let the dogs out? I did, motherfluffer.

And finally, bet you haven’t thought of this song in a long time!

I certainly hadn’t. So imagine my surprise when I realized I still remembered the lyrics!

I hadn’t heard the song in like twenty years but the minute I heard the music it all came back to me. And I am like, wow.

Sometimes I even amaze myself.

And obviously, I love the song. It’s another example of a type of song I don’t normally care for – in this case one of those lady vocalist dance-ish songs that get heavy rotation at gay venues – but such a good one that it doesn’t matter.

One thing it doesn’t need – more cowbell.

Well, that’s it for the ones I feel like sharing. I also downloaded Cars by Gary Numan, All Right Now by Free, Bette Davis Eyes by Kim Karnes, and Smooth by Santana.

Getting more music always makes me happy.

And I have so much music stored in my head that I know that I will never run out of things I like to download.

All it takes is a little reminder.

Wow that was easy to write. I should do fluffy stuff like this more often!

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.