I was planning on doing a Top Ten Tuesday music list, in conjunction with revealing my current favorite songs/artist but holy cow, how do you narrow it to just ten?
My dad raised me on Bob Marley and Queen (and I was so annoyed when Bohemian Rhapsody went mainstream).
My mom raised me on hair bands and the Beatles.
I was all over the map right from the start.
Along with listening to my parents' music, I started out life as a pop girl, like most kids do. I loved Madonna, Cyndi Lauper,Tiffany, Milli Vanilli, Wham, and Michael and Janet, of course.
I still like some pop music but I had to draw the line when New Kids came out. All my friends were all over them and I was disgusted. Lame lyrics, lame voices, over the top manufactured, yuck!
I started listening to Guns and Roses and remember being laughed at, but who's laughing now? When you are driving around and hear Sweet Child O' Mine you know you crank it...I doubt you crank The Right Stuff anymore. Please tell me you don't.
Through the years I have collected music by what interests me (musically or lyrically) and not by genre. I even listen to country which I swore I would never do. I like musicals, and alternative (old alternative), and pop, and church music (grows on you when it is ALL you can listen to for 18 months). I like rock, and love songs, and well, you name it.
I guess to name a few all time favorites...
Bon Jovi, Michael Jackson, Tracy Chapman, Guns n Roses, Bob Marley, Boy George, Prince, Matchbox 20, Jewel (first album only), Miss Saigon soundtrack, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Collin Raye, Garth Brooks, No Doubt (way back when, not since they got famous), Til Tuesday, Sarah McLachlan, The Smiths. What am I forgetting? Lots, I'm sure.
I really do like a little bit of everything and my favorite, favorite is probably Elvis.How can you be anything but happy when you are dancing around to some Elvis?
I will make a playlist of some favorites, but not today.
Today I am just here to talk about my favorite current song/artist.
If you have your volume on then you are fortunate enough to be jamming along with Pink, or P!nk, if you will.
I never would have guessed that this would be my favorite when Pink first came out, and I doubt that suburban Mormon mommies are her target market. I did not like her early stuff at all. Her voice is cool but her songs were annoying, at least the ones that were released on the radio. Then she split with her husband and her songs started to sound so raw. I love when people are real. She sang what she felt. The first song I remember stalking was Who Knew? It exposed the sadness and shock that she felt at splitting up. Then she got angry and I cranked up So What. I loved that she took us inside the different dimesnions of what she was going through. Now that she is reunited with her hubby (hooray) we have Please Don't Leave Me, which is desperate and beautiful. I love that Pink sings with so much emotion in her voice. She lets us inside the story.
But my FAVORITE Pink song is probably Sober. For a couple years now I just can't get enough of that song. I think it is exquisite and I feel it. I scream it out like it is my anthem. I love when music speaks to me individually. For me this song has nothing to do with literal sobriety. It is about overcoming, taking control of your life and changing your story. I feel like I am that girl, who has laughed the loudest and talked too much in an attempt to mask myself. It is an amazing feeling to arrive at a point where I am happy exactly as I am. I have found myself asking, "how do I feel this good?" I pinch myself sometimes because I am so grateful to have made it to this point. Just me, as me.
Words like "if I ever still fall I'm the only one to blame" speak to me. I accept my own decisions as mine, and if I mess up it is all me. I don't need a crutch or a scapegoat. I don't want one. It is liberating to accept accountablitiy, for better or for worse.
I also love the words, "I don't want to be the girl that has to fill the silence, the quiet scares me cause it screams the truth." I laughed the first time I heard that because I am definitely the nervous talking girl. If I am quiet with other people around, I will be uncomfortable, or I will be over thinking and worrying about how the people in the room feel about me. Quiet makes me very paranoid, but I feel so blessed to have people in my life who I can sit silently with, and the truth contained within the silence is acceptable to me.
Anyhow, I could break the song down line by line and go much deeper in to what it means to me, but I am sure this means a lot more to me personally than it would if I shared. Bet you didn't know I even overthink my music. The point is, I LOVE this song.
I also love Pink's newest song, Glitter in the Air. She performed it at the Grammy's this year and I have been hooked ever since. I could break this one down word by word too, but I love the vulnerability in the words and in her voice. I can feel that "breath before the phrase, have you ever felt this way?". Remember the first time you put yourself out there and told the love of your life what they meant to you? I remember that breath. Or when you loved so deeply that you could look right at your fear and still walk through that door, because it was worth it. Or that last verse about wondering if it will ever get better than tonight. Chills! Being in love is really the best drug in the world.
Have a listen....I'll post both songs.
And since you're here, what are your favorite songs, past or present?
Second Week of School
3 years ago
11 comments:
I love Pink too! I loved her performance at the Grammy's although I kinda wished she had more clothes on. She is awesome.
Elvis is one of my all time favorites too.
As are No Doubt back in the day..
So we agree on quite a few although .. ahh I have to say it.. I LOVED New Kids on the Block.. which is really odd since at the time my other favorites were Janes Addiction and Nine Inch Nails.
And yes I still would crank it up on the right stuff just for fun!
I think I need to find some old CDs of theirs on ebay and get you to go somewhere with me so I can torture you with their silliness.
My music tastes are quite diverse as well. I went through the major pop phase with Mariah Carey and Britney Spears back in the late 90's but that only lasted a few years.
I love eighties pop though and European pop that sounds eighties still.
My favorite bands are MUSE and THE KILLERS!!
I was somewhat annoyed with the Twilight popularity bringing out Muse so much because now everyone likes them and people find out I like Twilight and Muse and think it's because of the movies. My favorite Muse song is even in the baseball scene of Twilight. No, it was my favorite LONG before that movie and I've loved them for SO long! Okay off my soap box...
I also love Coldplay and 30 Seconds to Mars, Paramore. I like my music with a little edge to it. I love it when it's something I could rock out to in black eyeliner and black nails and combat boots or something like that.
Throw in a little Taylor Swift, some Bread, and YAnni and you've got my range.
I'm right there with you. I love Pink.
I wish I was the lead guitarist in a band. Of course I'd have to learn how to play the guitar first, but I love music, and have secretly always wanted to rock out with the best of them. I've been singing into my hairbrush, and a wooden kitchen spoon for years.
I finally broke down and bought a real microphone and a tambourine.
I love Janis. She sings her heart and heartbreak out in, "Piece of my Heart."
I also love Melissa Etheridge's rendition, as well as so many Etheridge songs.
Alanis Morissette's, "You Ought To Know," is my Favorite-favorite angry female song.
The best songs are the ones they pour all of their feelings into.
Anyway, I had to chime in and list a couple of my favorites.
I loved reading yours, too.
Ok, I have a question. Who laughed at you for liking Guns 'n Roses?
I love 'em.
"Welcome to the Jungle" is my favorite of their's.
I found the video she had Carey Hart in that pokes fun at her divorce and bitterness("So What")...pretty funny. The song I like is "Who Knew."
I love music and I also connect it to sometime in my life. I can never understand how Dave doesn't care for music.
I like all of your music favs, but disagree with one thing...No Doubt was ALWAYS good!
Cheryl, I was going to link to the Grammy performance but she was slightly naked so I thought I'd leave it out. Cool performance though! I also loved Jane's Addiction and NIN. My neighbors in college asked me not to play NIN on Sundays when I was in college. Oops! I love 80's pop and Euro pop sounding stuff, like early Depeche Mode and Erasure. It just has a cool sound. I know what you mean about when your favorite music goes mainstream. It cheapens it. Oh, and I love Coldplay. That is Seth's favorite band.
Leslie, I agree that you can feel Janis' pain too on "Piece of My Heart". I love when people sing what they really feel. It doesn't have to be sad and angry, just real. As for Guns n Roses, in Junior high I gave a friend the "Appetite for Destruction" tape at a b-day party and everyone just stared at it, and told me it wasn't there thing. And we proceeded to listen to New Kids for the duration of the slumber party. Then when "Use Your Illusion 1&2" came out together in high school I locked myself up and listened for days until I knew every word to every 15 minute song. And then November Rain hit the airwaves and my friends FINALLY got it. Better late than never, I suppose.
Val,"Who Knew" was her first one that I loved. It broke my heart because it felt so sad and lonely. When she says "what happened?" with so much desperation in her voice it makes me want to cry. No one thinks that will happen to them when they fall in love. I haven't seen the video for "So What" but the song is awesome. I will check out the video. I wonder if they shot it while they were apart or after they reunited. Imagine asking your ex to shoot a video with you. Oh, and No Doubt. You know there best stuff was before they ever got big. I told my friends in Utah about them for years and played them old stuff, from the self titled album. Then right before "Tragic Kingdom" came out we went and saw them in a club in SLC and then they blew up. The more people found out about them the more they moved away from their original sound and started making junk like Hella Good and Hey Baby. Her voice is still so unique, but I wish she would get away from the crap like B-A-N-A-N-A-S and Wind it Up, but I admit my kids LOVED Sweet Escape. So did I. I just want to see them doing stuff like Sometimes, Doormat, Trapped in a Box, Sinking, Sad for Me...way way back. Some of their best stuff never even got played and I loved that album.
Okay, excuse the fact that I used "there" where I should have used "their" more than once in that last comment. I couldn't even understand my own incoherent comment when I read it back.
I was a little turned off from No Doubt for a minute when they first got big and went mainstream, but I got over it. I have all their albums and favorite songs from each one. I'm not talking about the bananas and wind it up stuff though...I thought her solo albums were horrible!
As for the "Who Knew" video, they were split when he did it. I saw an interview where he said that it was awkward, but he did it anyway because he loved her.
Room here for comments from another generation? I have so lost touch with music that's out there it's almost embarrassing - but only almost. Sometime back in the middle of diapers and driver licenses for maniac teens, I got hooked on the romantics - as in classical music from the Romantic era: Dvorak is one of my all time favorites. Just thought I'd say since you asked. I could listen to New World Symphony nonstop. And anything Tchaikovsky (even if I had to google to figure out how to spell his name).
By the way, thanks for giving me a tiny bit of up-to-date on Pink. Love both the songs you posted. I, too, love Miss Saigon. Well, I love most musicals, actually. I could go through life (do some days, but that's the crazy in me)singing my reaction to everything kind of like a Simpson episode I saw once. I just love music. I love that one song can evict an emotion more completely than any other method. Yes, music has to be the language in heaven.
Long live rock and roll. Stranglehold by Ted Nugent, one of my top favs, maybe my number 1. All of Appetite for Destruction is great (GNR), too bad that's almost all they had to give. Female artists are not allowed in our house (neither is country) but I love Janis too, gone too soon. Top band - ADHD.
Val, I went and watched the video for "So What"...Carey Hart rocks! While I was watching videos I watched a few more since I don't think I have watched videos since MTV stopped showing them, like 20 years ago. The "Who Knew" video was about a drug overdose. Every word of that song screamed break up song to me. I went on to Wikipedia and sure enough she wrote it about a friend who OD'd when she was 14. Crazy! Gorgeous song and I actually think the two interpretations are both so fitting. Also I looked up Sober on Wikipedia and she says she wrote it after leaving a party where everyone was drunk but her BUT that the song itself was not about sobriety, but identities, about choosing and about and feeling good with who you are. So at least I read that one right. Crazy that she meant so much of the same things that are in my head when I hear that song.
Julie, I am not too up to date on modern music. I know the songs on the radio but I don't follow too many artists anymore. I think we all prefer the music from our era, whenever that may have been. We should go to a musical sometime. That would be fun!
Mom, no wonder I am sexist...ha,ha. I used to tell people I didn't read female authors. I do now but most of my favorites are still male for some reason. But when it comes to music I love both because men and women bring such different emotions and interpretations to the table. That is what finally hooked me about country too, the words, the feelings. Oh, and long live ADHD!
I think the only female Glenn has in his massive music collection might be Carly Simon. No female artists, no female comics. Very sexist. ADHD is planning a reunion tour this summer. Stay tuned.
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