Houston, We Have a Problem

I have a love-hate relationship with pop music.

Love it: There were some bands back in the 70s I was absolutely nuts about. Their 8-track tapes took up a lot of space in my ’76 Honda Civic: Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Black Sabbath, and Led Zeppelin come to mind. Nowadays, The Killers and Alanis Morissette take up a lot of memory on my iPod. (Along with Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Black Sabbath, and Led Zeppelin.)

Okay, I'll also admit (sigh) that there's quite a bit of Enya on there too.

Hate it: Performers who lip-synch in concert. Boy-bands and Britney Spears come to mind. Yes, they do a lot of highly-energized choreography and, yes, it’s difficult to sing while doing that. But if you can’t sing while leaping about on stage, then don’t. Do your jumping around, then sing, but please don’t pretend you’re doing both. It’s a counterfeit performance.

Hate it: Rap and Hip-Hop “music”. I guess if you're angry, addicted to tattoos and have no ability to sing at all, then you become a Rap or Hip-Hop performer like Eminem or that Ice-Tray fellow.

Hate it: Whitney Houston: Yes, she had a nice voice (back in the 80s) but no better than thousands of other gospel choir singers. In my opinion, her biggest hit, The Greatest Love of All, was absolutely the worst song ever written. Ever. Don’t believe me?

Let's take a look at the lyrics.

I believe the children are our future
Teach them well and let them lead the way
Show them all the beauty they possess inside
Give them a sense of pride to make it easier
Let the children's laughter remind us how we used to be.

(A song about children. That’s nice.)
All of a sudden, it changes to:

Everybody's searching for a hero
People need someone to look up to
I never found anyone who fulfilled my needs
A lonely place to be
And so I learned to depend on me

(What? A complete change of subject. Now it's about society and herself. I guess she ran out of stuff to say about the children.)

I decided long ago, never to walk in anyone's shadows
If I fail, if I succeed at least I live as I believe
No matter what they take from me
They can't take away my dignity
Because the greatest love of all is happening to me
I found the greatest love of all inside of me
The greatest love of all is easy to achieve
Learning to love yourself, it is the greatest love of all

(Okay, now it’s a song for narcissistic losers to sing and feel better about themselves.)

So, there we have a mish-mash of themes with the opening bit about the children having nothing to do with the rest of the song. And what does the rest of the song entail? You just repeat the whole thing one more time, and end it.

Horrible, dreadful song-writing.

And poor Whitney. Yes, she’s had her years of drug addiction. Many of us have. Maybe she’s trying to make a come-back, but Whitney, bless her heart, has obviously passed up a few too many stopping points in her career. Here’s a recent performance as she crucifies Dolly Parton’s I Will Always Love You.

Brace yourself:



Umm, Houston. . . we have a problem. Frankly, she should have been encircled with crime-scene tape.
If Dolly Parton wasn’t the classy lady that she is, I’ll bet Whitney would be sued for millions.

Whitney, dear. A word of advice: If you're going to pass up this stopping point in your career, you might consider becoming a Rap performer.

Music

I remember as a teenager, just being completely obsessed with a few, select record albums. (That term, alone, dates me). I would find an album I liked and listen to it over and over and over, getting to know every note of it, every word, and every nuance.

That just doesn’t happen anymore. I wish it did. I received a piano scholarship to study music and whenever I go home to Texas, I still have piano lessons with the same teacher I’ve had for thirty years now.
Maybe I’ve become jaded.
Maybe I’ve just grown up.

Here are some of the albums I was totally obsessed with as a teenager.

Tubular Bells by Mike Oldfield. It was also the theme to The Exorcist and I identified with everything “Linda Blair” when I was fourteen. (Our birthdays are actually just a couple of days a part) I thought it was the most brilliant piece of music ever written. I learned to play the main theme on the piano and wanted to play it on a recital. I knew that if I ever met Mike Oldfield, we’d be soul mates. I had it on an 8-Track tape, played it every moment in the car and drove my mom absolutely insane with it. I listened to it a couple of years ago, and it’s the most infantile piece of crap ever written. You know those gold records that are awarded to recording artists? They’re not gold, but are actually spray-painted vinyl LPs; probably unsold Mike Oldfield stock.

Brain Salad Surgery by Emerson, Lake & Palmer. I first encountered this album on the bus to church camp when I was fourteen. This really cool guy on the church bus was listening to it on a portable 8-Track tape player and he was swaying his shoulder-length blond hair to this really far-out music that had lots of synthesizers. We became friends and would listen to Brain Salad Surgery over and over and over. I would play air-keyboards and he would play air-percussion. I was so obsessed with this album that (I’m really embarrassed to admit this) I actually read some of the lyrics in a high school poetry contest!
Cold and misty morning, I heard a warning borne in the air about an age of power where no one had an hour to spare. . .
God! That was lame!

Sabbath Bloody Sabbath by Black Sabbath. Also a church camp 8-Track tape. I would have been a Goth but this was waayyy pre-Goth. I was ahead of my time.

Janis Joplin Live by Janis Joplin. This was my introduction to dear Janis and I’ve been a huge fan ever since. “Be yourself, and then some” became my motto only I was too insecure to actually do that. But Janis did.

“The Fourth Album” by Led Zeppelin. The album was actually untitled because Led Zeppelin was so popular by then. It’s the one that has Stairway to Heaven on it. I listened to this during my “wild year” in high school when I was sixteen. Once, I scored my first joint, drove my mom’s car out on a back country road, got stoned out of my freaking mind and drove back home at 10 mph listening to this album the whole way. I liked this album much better with vodka or tequila. Grass just wasn’t my thing.
Good times. . .

Oh, and remember the cool guy with the long blond hair? We’re still friends. 35 years now.