Musical Rambling. (Character limit check)
Posted on: March 31, 2009, at 10:01:09pm

I'll check... I hope it can actually contain something longer than a simple sentence. Let's find out. What to incoherently and randomly rant about today? Twilight? Nah, too simple. No vampires, terrible writing, and much better romances exist. I guess that kind of rules out any fads doesn't it? Huh. I could do the close mindedness of people when confronted with music. Yeah, sure let's go with that. Alright, I may have been set up for musical tolerance as a kid because of the artists I initially listened to. I grew up listening mostly to Disney boy bands until I was about six simply because I was expected to and knew of nothing better. Then when I was about 6 my dad got me interested in Rush and I've listened to them all my life since then. I really regret not having gone to that concert when I was 9 though. Whatever, anyway, I was caught up in my musical world that was limited to about 3 artists at the time. NSYNC, Weird Al, and Rush until my uncle sent word that his death metal band would be playing on a local radio station. I listened to that and then found one of his songs from one of his bands called Shadow_Breed and even at the age of 8 I was able to listen to the growls. It was simply new to me and I ended up listening to the single song over 100 times.

(in the interest of not making a typed wall of china here I've made a new paragraph) Anyway, I then got into Green Day and Linkin Park when I was about 9 years old thanks to my dad and the radio. They were popular at the time and as such I was drawn to them because of both the music and the fact that I could talk to other people about them. Then when I was 10 I discovered Disturbed thanks to HMV Hell in which I hear Meaning of Life by Disturbed and instantly tried to buy as much of their work as possible. I then discovered other various nu-metal through AMVs and HMVs. This continued for quite some time. Then, when I was 14 I discovered Dream Theater right before summer break and they instantly became my newest favorite band (a postition currently occupied by Into Eternity [I think]). Then a recurring phenomena happened. They got onto a random rhythm game (this had happened for me with DragonForce, Disturbed, Slipknot, and My Chemical Romance) right after I discovered them. That's pretty dang cool. Anyway, sometime around December last year (08) I decided that I was listening to too many similar things and disliked certain genres for little reason.

So, I made many threads on random forums asking for people to suggest artists of any genre to me so that I might discover new sounds I enjoyed. I then listened to all sorts of new and strange music and discovered that I enjoy not just a few genres, but rather all of music. I listen to music that ranges from Classical to Jazz to Rap to Techno to Rock to Metal to Prog to Death Metal and so on. I listen to anything that is presented to me and yet I can't understand why other people don't take that journey of musical expansion themselves. Instead most around me limit themselves to Rap, Metal, Classic Rock, or other such limited areas in music. Why they do such I don't understand, but nonetheless, I try to give others a bit more music that they may have never heard before simply to try and get them to be more tolerant of music. At this point in my musical life the only things I refuse to listen to are Mainstream rap that is killing the entire genre of hip-hop (Soulja Boy/Lil Wayne are a good example) and Disney Pop...

Now, Disney Pop is just bad music. Why? Because of a few simple reasons. There is no soul in that music, they are manufactured artists and sounds being pushed by Disney because they have a decent voice and can play basic 1st year guitar and (most importantly) have a pretty face and image that Disney can sell. There is nothing put into that music except for what Disney thinks that prepubescent children want to hear and what their parents will tolerate. If they're openly religious and act like little angels in front of the public then you've got a Disney idol. They're quite simply cash cows for Disney to milk for a year or two until they end up doing something bad or grow stale. Then the newer idols come in to take over. Artists such as Hannah Montana, and the Jonas Brothers will almost certainly be dead to pop culture by next year.

Now, seeing as music is subjective there really is no real thing as bad music. There is simply music that doesn't fit your tastes. The only things I call bad music are the songs and artists that are produced or produce music simply to make money or for an image. As such the two things I still dislike are the aforementioned Mainstream Rap and Disney Pop... I suppose I'll just say this now. My favorite genre of music is Progressive because of the obvious thought and soul put into the music combined with the technical prowess that generally accompanies artists in the genre... Well, this seems like the character limit is actually unlimited and I can certainly use this to my advantage. That's all for now.