What happened to REAL MUSIC? ♪

Posted by in Life, Music on Jun 9th, 2010 | 1 comment

Music, and essentially lyrics, seem to have degraded heavily in the last decade or so to become a perfect point of comparison with the prole’s habitual activities  in Orwell’s 1984.

On one side we have artists who are incapable of writing lyrics about anything that happens outside their mainstream lives, and on the other side we have we have record labels that bet on this shite because they know it sells, why? because of all the people who don’t care about anything else than what happens in their mainstream lives?

Have people grown dafter? Or have people just stopped caring? Or maybe it has always been like this. However, as far as I recall, in the 80′s there seemed to be quite a lot more complex lyrics floating around than what there is today. I know this is not always true for radio hits, but groups such as The Beatles, Pink Floyd and Bob Dylan would garner thousands, if not millions of fans, and often their lyrics were rather complex and thoughtfully creative. There seems to be a lack of this nowadays.

The thing about taking on the biggest giants is that most of the time (so often as to be all of the time if you’re willing to do some rounding) you fail. You don’t just fail at the end, you often fail long before the end.

Yet the dreamers persist. These are usually the garage entrepreneurs, people with little market success behind them, those working without a track record or significant resources. People forget that Google was backed with millions of dollars from the biggest VCs in the world when they took on Yahoo.

- from Will Marlow’s post “Don Quijote didn’t ship”

Today I went ten-pin bowling, and in the lane next to mine there was about 7 screaming teenage girls. Every time a “hit” song came on the loudspeakers they would all yell out loud (which seemed to be just about every song). Not surprisingly every single song was about love, relationships, break-ups, or being far away from a lover. Most of the time the chorus was a single line repeated one time too many, or even a single word sometimes.

Just about everything related to love has already been said through lyrics, in one way or another, using old words and using new ones, however love songs seem to occupy the vast majority of all music produced nowadays. With “love songs” I obviously mean anything related to relationships and break-ups. And it’s obvious that the reason is that people relate to these songs in one way or another.

I mean, just study the names and content in Justin Beiber’s latest album for example.

When every single song in an album is about the same general topic, it gets me thinking… Why? Why not talk about the city life? Why not talk about freedom? What about politics? Money? Drugs? (Oh well, that’s pretty much covered by Hip-hop anyway). I mean, it doesn’t even have to be a topic like these. It could even be a love song, but at least the quality of the lyrics could be superseded with a higher level of creativity. There is so much you can do with poetry and words, and we limit ourselves to the most basic of words in this kind of songs.

Now take this song for example, Ndakuvara by Oliver Mtukudzi:

It has nothing to do with mainstream lyrics, yet it is a beautiful song, and its lyrics can mean a million things, or they can mean one thing, but at the end of a day it is thoughtful, creative, and different. Now how hard is that? Not much if you dedicate a bit of time into it.

To end this, I believe that those who write lyrics should act sometimes like poets, and those who write poetry should act sometimes as lyricists. No harm in that.

Lampshade – Kashmir

Posted by in Lyrics on Aug 6th, 2008 | 0 comments

In my honest opinion, the last part of this song features unmeasurably intriguing lyrics, my sincere respect to the man:

you’re a vanishing image of what i thought I knew
but it comes to show
that the man I know
has a fading glow
in a white lampshade

tell me lamshade the truth did you cover his soul
did you protect all the horrible
I shall tear you apart so that everyone knows
what he’s been carrying around

tell me lampshade what is it you’re trying to hide
under your stinky old corduroy
I shall rip and be shattered by the shrapnell of light
that I’ve been choking on always

there’s a dog barking close within the range of my ear
sounds like he wants to escape the chain
he would probably bite me to death if he could
but the chain lets me spit in his face

like the dog has a chain clinging tight to it’s neck
this man is tied to his secrecy
I would like to have killed him off in this last verse
but instead I removed his lampshade

Sólo por miedo – María Salgado

Posted by in Lyrics on Aug 6th, 2008 | 3 comments

For those of you who understand Spanish, the lyrics to this song are quite impressive, give it a read (and if you have a change, listen to it):

Que bonito es el miedo cuando es sincero
que brillante el futuro cuando es oscuro
que exquisito el delito cuando lo grito
cuando lo grito.

Una vida más tarde comprenderemos
que en la vida perdimos
sólo por miedo.

Que belleza la vida cuando se olvida
que profunda la herida si está dormida
que segura una barca a la deriva
a la deriva.

De qué sirve la calma si no me salva
cúanto vale mi alma si no cabalga
dónde va la esperanza si no me alcanza
si no me alcanza.

Que bonito es el miedo cuando es sincero
que salvaje el deseo cuando te veo
quíen pudiera decirte lo que te quiero
cúanto te quiero.

Wilco – Misunderstood

Posted by in Lyrics, Music on Jul 21st, 2008 | 0 comments

When you’re back in your old neighborhood
The cigarettes taste so good
But you’re so misunderstood
You’re so misunderstood

There’s something there that you can’t find
Honest when you’re tellin’ a lie
You hurt her but you don’t know why
You love her but you don’t know why
Short on long term goals
There’s a party there that we oughtta go to
Do you still love rock and roll?
Do you still love rock and roll?

It’s only a quarter to three
Reflecting off your C.D.
You’re looking at a picture of me
You’re staring at a picture of me
Take the guitar player for a ride
He ain’t never been satisfied
He thinks he owes some kind of debt
Be years before he gets over it
There’s a fortune inside your head

All you touch turns to lead
You think you might just crawl back in bed
The fortune inside your head
You know you’re just a mama’s boy
Positively unemployed
So misunderstood
So misunderstood

I know you’re gotta God shaped hole
So misunderstood [x4]

I’d like to thank you all for nothin’
I’d like to thank you all for nothin’ at all
I’d like to thank you all for nothin’
Nothin’ [x4]
Nothin’ at all
Nothin’ [x3]
Nothin’ at all