I feel like I've been missing from the blog forever. And then, looking at it, I kind of have been. Golly.
Xmas was good, New Years was good, let's move on from there, shall we?
I have two things to talk about today. One is very short and deals with how awesome my mother is. The other is a little more involved. But not much, because I have a pile of other things I need to be doing, not the least of which is showering and going to work tonight.
Over xmas, I met The Guy's family. He has a small family, consisting of himself, his parents who are aging, his brother-in-law, his niece and nephew, and his brother-in-law's new partner (and her kids, and her mom, and the BIL's mom, but you get the drift). (Yeah, that sounds weird, doesn't it? The Guy's sister died a few years ago, after a rather prolonged fight with cancer. But the BIL is still close with the family, in no small part because of the kids.) There's a boy and a girl, both preteens. On Xmas eve, they had a book they were looking through called something like "The 500 Most Amazing Rock Bands EVAH!" And it was complete and utter shite. Like, bad bad bad. Linkin Park? Seriously? No real music critic would put them anywhere close to the top 500 of anything.
I started thinking that, because I have some musical history knowledge, and access to a WIDE variety of tunes, I would 'throw together' something for the kids based on a much better top 500 list. Thus, last week, I dug through the interwebs and found Rolling Stone magazine's top 500 albums of all time. So yes, less than 500 bands, artists, whatever, but with a far wider range of musical types and eras and NO FUCKING LINKIN PARK. (I would insert a disclaimer here, apologizing to Linkin Park fans, of which there are many. But I refuse to do so based on the fact that I firmly believe that, in this musical decision, these people are wrong wrong WRONG.)
Of course, nothing can be simple or easy for me, so I also decided that I would cull said list into a 500-song compilation for the kids, picking one song off each album.
[Can I just throw something else in here? Complete aside really. Because the kids are, I think, 11 and 12, I'm trying VERY hard to not include songs with "inappropriate" language. Thus, the F-bomb is right out. And for the most part, I can do this. Songs with sexual innuendo are OK with me, so long as it's just that, innuendo. And if the songs are 30 years old or more, that's pretty simple. But there's some modern stuff on the list. There's some Rage Against the Machine. OK, I can find a song without the F-bomb in there. But there's some rap. Have you ever listened to a rap album and paid attention to the language the first time through? Jay Z's The Blueprint for example? And tried to find a song with the fewest possible occurances of 1) the F-bomb, 2) the N word, 3) the rest of the really bad stuff? Because wow is that hard to do. I had to find a radio edit of a Biggie Smalls song to cut out the bad stuff (thanks, Jock Jams for censoring your music!) And I fear that the Outkast album listed, as well as perhaps the WuTang stuff might just have to live a life outside of this compilation. I'm not a fan of censoring music, and if they were my kids there would be a conversation and then the music would be available. But they're not my kids, and I DO want them to be able to listen to what I send them. But it's a pain in the ass, really.]
And surprisingly, I have the vast majority of the albums already on itunes.
My shame, however, is that there are some I've never listened to all the way through. It's the pain of digital music. You can get a lot of it, and then just ignore it. It's not like the black vinyl circle staring at you, daring you NOT to drop the needle. Instead, it's just more ones and zeros hiding on your computer.
And so, in an effort to make myself even more knowledgable about the history of twentieth and twenty-first century music, I am going to listen to every single album on the list.
In doing so, I've started with the Eurythmic's Touch. It dropped in 1983, and I can safely say I've never made it past "Here Comes the Rain Again." And in just the first few songs, I am reminded that the radio hits from an album can hardly be considered the best songs.
So, there's my new project for the new year. Since I didn't get through the Jane Austen reading fest as quickly as I had hoped (I forgot that the act of taking college classes kills my desire to read books), this may or may not fall off my radar as well. But listening is a lot less time consuming than reading. And who knows? If I get excited enough about albums, perhaps I'll throw something up here about them.
As for my mom, she's awesome for a number of reasons. But the following conversation was had by the two of us on the phone this weekend.
*At lunch with the guy...
Me: Hold on, I'll call my folks and ask.
*Ringing*
Mom: Hello.
Me: Fort Apache, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, and what's the other one?
Mom: The Searchers.
Me: Right. Thanks.
Mom: OK. Bye.
Me: Bye!
And that was it.
And I'm so glad I did that, instead of just checking the internet on my phone. So much more rewarding.
Yes, you're right world, these three movies do not go together as a trilogy. The point is that she knew what I was talking about. But, if you're a purist, go find Rio Grande instead of The Searchers, and you'll be all set.