Getcher “figgy pudding cannons and claymores” set up early to drive off the toxically tuneless carolers who won’t go away until they get some. Give it to ’em, but good.
Trials of the Season. . .
Oh, goodie! It’s time for me to break out some noise-canceling earbuds and crank up some decent Xmas music to drown out the disgusting crap that tone deaf, tasteless, auto-lobotomized producers slap into the Hallmark Xmas shows that a *cough* much-beloved someone *cough* likes to watch.
Really? Do Tell. . .
I saw a social media post recently cursing at God because one of the writer’s musical icons has COPD. It’s God’s fault, apparently, that this musician’s lifestyle, which includes some pf the leading risk factors for COPD apparently contributed to his health problems, but apparently God made him engage in risky health practices. *shrugs* ‘S’all right. God has big shoulders. Curse Him if you will (for all the good it will do anyone, which is zero). *sigh*
The main causes/risk factors of COPD are:
Smoking
Air pollution
Occupational exposure- Intense and prolonged exposure to workplace dusts, chemicals and fumes
Genetics
Infectious diseases such as AIDS and tuberculosis increase risk of COPD
Heck, even the musician himself “blames” an occupational hazard, viz.,
[Ian] Anderson noted that he has not had an exacerbation for a while, an improvement he puts down to living in the pollution-free English countryside – and blamed on stage smoke machines for his ill health.
“Today they’re (smoke machines) referred to as ‘hazers,’ as if they’re somehow innocent and not damaging to your lungs,” he fumed. “I really do believe that’s a very significant part of the problem that I have.”
It Is Neither Pretty Nor Is It Art.
I have (more frequently than I care to think) heard folks argue that Psalm 100:1-2 (“Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before His presence with singing.”) is a perfectly good excuse for execrable congregational singing: off-pitch, raucous, muddied rhythms and lyrics, and worse. Betcha most of those who use it as their excuse for their laziness and lack of care in approaching their worship expressions don’t use the KJV (the “noise” translation in Psalm 100:1) for other things. Other translations focus on joyful shouts and joyful songs. Painfully raucous croaks ain’t what springs readily to mind when I think of “joyful.” Maybe it’s just me, but off-key, or even atonal, grating, muddled, and altogether ugly sounds just do not comprise “singing,” IMO. (And no, “Their heart is in the right place” just doesn’t cut it. If their heart were “in the right place” they’d not submit “sacrifice[s] of praise” that were crap. Just sayin’.)
Of course, much of the problem may be simply because something approaching 90% of people nowadays apparently cannot hear and reproduce pitches with any degree of accuracy. Not my fault: theirs, for playing crap into their ears and pretending it is music, corrupting any possible embryonic musical ability they might have.
Educating Medical “Professionals”
Annual “permission slip” Dr. visit last week: ears so plugged up with gunk I almost didn’t mind having the same questions asked again. . . and again. . . by two different forms and three different people. #gagamaggot
At least something educational came of the visit, though. Nurse dropped in to ask the SAME QUESTIONS as on the form in her hand that I had just filled out and noted that she didn’t have to ask if I were depressed, because she assumed that anyone whistling a “happy” tune was in fine spirits.
“That’s a fallacious assumption,” I told her. “I’m simply whistling a tune I am listening to ‘between my ears’ in order to drown out the dreck y’all are playing on your sound system. It doesn’t mean I am ‘happy’ but that I’m listening to something better than that stuff that would gag a maggot.”
“Oh. So do you have feelings of depression?”
“Oh, yeh. That ‘music’ y’all arer playing makes me want to end it all.”
“Oh, OK. I’ll see if we can turn it down then.”
“Thank you. Now THAT makes me happy.”
*heh*
An Inclusive Eclecticism Can Go Too Far…
…and become simply a mish-mash, a hodgepodge, a collection ruined by a few real stinkers. Witness my failure to exclude John Prine from my Christmas playlist:
[audio:Silver-Bells–John-Prine–excerpt.mp3]If the dude were at least able to reproduce pitch accurately, it’d almost be as good as some Helmut Lotti stuff (at least instrumentally). As it is, it’s nothing less than painful to listen to, cruel to inflict on others and a canker on the butt end of my 2012 Christmas music playlist. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve heard worse, but it’s bee a while since I had a stomach strong enough to play anything worse than this.
Thank me for just playing an excerpt.
Contemporary “Music”
Since The Guinness Book of World Records just made up a couple of new “world records” for Taylor Swift, I thought I’d once again comment on the state of popular so-called music:
By and large, it’s crap.
Swift has set records in, urm, record sales, etc. with sort of rhythmic, off key renditions of crap like this:
Well, it was kind of cold that night
She stood alone on her balcony
She could see the cars roll by
Out on 441
Like waves crashing on the beachAnd for one desperate moment there
He crept back in her memory
God, it’s so painful
It’s something that’s so close but still so far out of reachOh yeah, all right
Take it easy baby
Make it last all night
She was an American girl
Oh, please. High school glurge in grade school vocabulary. Simply crappy in every way. And I refuse to post a clip of the nearly atonal crap its rendered in. And that’s the GOOD stuff from Swift, a cover of a Tom Petty piece of crap! *sheesh!* I absolutely refuse to post “lyrics” supposedly “written” (in crayon, perhaps?) by Swift herself. Lobotomizing my reader(s) isn’t a Good Thing, IMO.
Why am I picking on Taylor Swift? As I said, because of her new records demonstrating that it is she who is now the standard bearer of manufactured pop “music”–the best reflection of where the money from brain dead listeners is going. But she’s only a typical example. Most of the crap being excreted from the mouths of performers nowadays is eagerly lapped up by coprophagic morons.
OTOH–and this just occurred to me–perhaps Swift is a brilliant satirist of “kiddie music” and is making atonal existential metacommentary. Is this possible? In a word, no.
Cultural Illiterates Rule Society
One small data point and I’ll rest my case: the Cheetos “chopsticks” commercial. The dumbasses are playing the thing wrong. No, not just a wee tad wrong, no, massively, hugely, inescapably wrong. They misss the frickin’ TIME SIGNATURE and add a really stupid, amusical duple that screws the thing beyond massively screwed up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBoImLUbaoE
That the producers of the commercial could do such a thing is beyond cultural illiteracy all the way to cultural lobotomy.
Now, this guy goes beyond merely elaborate variations, but he does cite the tune correctly.
Bonus brownie points to those who can identify three or more of the composers or performers he gives homage to in the course of his variations. 🙂 (No, “Loonie Tunes” doesn’t qualify as a guess. *heh*)
Actually, TV commercials, political speech and anything uttered by Mass MEdia Podpeople, Academia Nut Fruitcakes and assorted members of the Loony Left Moonbat Brigade all qualify as evidence that José Ortega y Gasset was right. (I highly recommend reading “Revolt of the Masses” in its entirety. Just sayin’.)
Coal
Here’s some “coal” to put in the stockings of really, really (REALLY) bad boys and girls. WARNING: This thing will make you want to poke your own ears out! It’s worse than even rap “music”…
[audio:NoHolyNight.mp3]*spit-gag-hurl*