Taste My Sad
I was hanging out on Tuesday evening with Stu at his apartment, and he kindly lent me some CDs to help me progress my non-classical music listening.
So I spent some time on Wednesday listening to Radiohead's OK Computer for the first time, and yeah, it's really good. I knew it was well known, but I didn't know it was so depressive. That's kind of a turnoff for me: the music's really rich, and creative, and sonically lush, but the emotional expression is all sealed off into this impregnable angst-bubble. And that's about the only emotional note they hit.
I think I could buy into it more if that depressiveness came along with a sense of vulnerability, or regret, or something. But it feels instead like an intentionally alienated kind of sad, maintaining a hip exterior.
But the music itself, yes, absolutely great.
Since I've run into a vein of fairly unthinky work at work, I was listening to Radiohead on headphones while doing a preliminary cleanup for a manuscript. If you listen to "Karma Police" while doing editorial work, it will sound to you instead like they're singing "Comma Police." Hey, that's kind of what I do! Haha. This is what you get when you mess with us: we fix your commas. And then it's fine. Really, it's okay, you can cheer up now.
That song is followed by a track where a synthesized robo-voice recites a corrosively ironic list of resolutions for better living. Weird, and even more depressive. Well, pardon me, I'm very sorry if Professor Sadface McSpeak-n-Read feels bad when I feel good. Nyaaaahh.
In other news related to Experiencing High Quality Pop Cultural Phenomena Well After the Fact, I'm having a great time going through the third season DVD of Arrested Development. Would be worth watching for the jet pack instructional video scene alone, but it's all deliriously good.
Taste my happy! It tastes kind of like sad.
Friday lunch lull update: Okay, listening to it again today while it's cloudy out: I take back what I said about the emotions being all depressive and one-note. Under more diffuse & overcast light it comes off as much more colorful and translucent. Now I get it.
I'm not sure why some music can feel so weather-contingent to me, but there you go.
So I spent some time on Wednesday listening to Radiohead's OK Computer for the first time, and yeah, it's really good. I knew it was well known, but I didn't know it was so depressive. That's kind of a turnoff for me: the music's really rich, and creative, and sonically lush, but the emotional expression is all sealed off into this impregnable angst-bubble. And that's about the only emotional note they hit.
I think I could buy into it more if that depressiveness came along with a sense of vulnerability, or regret, or something. But it feels instead like an intentionally alienated kind of sad, maintaining a hip exterior.
But the music itself, yes, absolutely great.
Since I've run into a vein of fairly unthinky work at work, I was listening to Radiohead on headphones while doing a preliminary cleanup for a manuscript. If you listen to "Karma Police" while doing editorial work, it will sound to you instead like they're singing "Comma Police." Hey, that's kind of what I do! Haha. This is what you get when you mess with us: we fix your commas. And then it's fine. Really, it's okay, you can cheer up now.
That song is followed by a track where a synthesized robo-voice recites a corrosively ironic list of resolutions for better living. Weird, and even more depressive. Well, pardon me, I'm very sorry if Professor Sadface McSpeak-n-Read feels bad when I feel good. Nyaaaahh.
In other news related to Experiencing High Quality Pop Cultural Phenomena Well After the Fact, I'm having a great time going through the third season DVD of Arrested Development. Would be worth watching for the jet pack instructional video scene alone, but it's all deliriously good.
Taste my happy! It tastes kind of like sad.
Friday lunch lull update: Okay, listening to it again today while it's cloudy out: I take back what I said about the emotions being all depressive and one-note. Under more diffuse & overcast light it comes off as much more colorful and translucent. Now I get it.
I'm not sure why some music can feel so weather-contingent to me, but there you go.
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