Musical Slumming
It's fairly safe to say that I tend to be a music snob. I'll listen to the radio when that's the best option, but I like the music I like, and that almost never includes the Top-40 stuff. My computers at work and at home are chock-full of the folky and funky alternative stuff that I like to listen to, and I seldom have to subject myself to the whims of the twelve-year old listening public.
When the iTunes Music Store first came out, it was fairly empty of the kind of music that I like. Over time, the selection has gotten much, much better, but it was slim pickings in those early days. So when I found the music video selection of the iTunes store, I wasn't terribly hopeful. And truthfully, the first videos they streamed were often genres I don't care about, like hip hop, rap, and r&b. Over time, they've posted a lot of really great videos there, like Rachael Yamagata's Worn Me Down and Mindy Smith's Come to Jesus, along with a lot of not-so-great Top 40 stuff with catchy videos.
I'm addicted to this service, I swear. Why else would I have (repeatedly) watched the JoJo Leave (Get Out) video? It's not like it's a good song, but it's catchy as hell. I'm in love with the live video of Curbside Prophet, by Jason Mraz, and I've discovered the incredible voice of Hayley Westenra, who's a teenager from New Zealand. I spent weeks watching No Doubt's cover of It's My Life on constant loop, and I discovered the awesomeness that is the Scissor Sisters.
Don't get me wrong, there's some laughably bad stuff there. There should be a rule against actors like Lindsay Lohan, Robert Downey, Jr., and Minnie Driver recording albums, and I'm convinced that one of the later circles of hell has that awful, awful Easy Breezy songs playing in a continual loop. But sometimes, even the awful stuff is catchy.
God help me, I'm addicted to Kelly Clarkson's video, Since U Been Gone. This is wrong on so many levels. First and foremost, she's an American Idol, which means she exemplifies everything that's wrong in music today, the innate embodiment of twelve-year old whim. Secondly, I have a moral opposition to songs with "U" in place of "You" in the title. On principle, you understand. But I've been watching this video, over and over again. I've picked out all these brief moments that I like, in the same way that I scope out a scene for a photograph. I know that if I had heard the song on the radio, I wouldn't care at all, but there we are.
iTunes is evil.
In somewhat related news, I had that godawful Easy Breezy song stuck in my head all afternoon. It was horrible -- torture. The song that finally ejected it from my head wound up not being one of the iTunes songs at all; it was the song that went along with this goofy Flash movie that Jael posted a link to. The first time I saw it, this weekend, I didn't think anything of it, but I watched it again tonight with subtitles and realized that the song was in Romanian.
I'm sad that Claudia isn't around for me to share this piece of information with. I'm not sure she's even been reading lately -- she hasn't left a comment in a while. But I think she'd find it amusing that I'm walking around the house singing, 'nu ma, nu ma iei, nu ma, nu ma, nu ma iei...'
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You know, if you want to listen to some great streaming music, head over to http://xpn.org/ and tune in. The station is home to the World Cafe with David Dye, and the rest of the stuff they play is pretty great too. Lucky me, it's my LOCAL radio station! Yee-haw!
Holy shit, Rachel, do you know what that song is? Do you knooooooooooooooooow? Do you remember when we were in the Sighisoara train station, on a crappy terrace, drinking something under some trees, and they were playing this song over and over, and I said to you that some of the words make absolutely no sense, like "Chipul tau si dragostea din tei/Imi amintesc de ochii tai" (meaning "Your face and the love from the linden trees/ remind me of your eyes") WTF? I can't belive that song made it to the US.
Here is the story: They are some boys from the Republic of Moldova, well educated (Conservatory and stuuf), lots of money (rich famous parents, etc). they had some songs out last year and two years ago, and "Dragostea din Tei" was the most successful one. So successful that a group (one girl from Romania and one guy from Italy) remixed and launched it on the European market. great success! The boys from Ozone thought they want a piece of that, since it's their song, after all, so they promoted their version, too, and it caught on. This is what Europe has been listening ad nauseum the entire summer. It was no one in almost all countries, and in Germany the two songs held first and second place at some point.
It is a catchy song, I admit it.
maybe I'll translate the words for you when I get my internet back.
Cheers,
Claudia