musing about music

TheMoth asked me on tuesday if I was the type of person who needed morose music to accompany a morose mood. I told him I never really stopped to think about it. I am a big ole Christian nerd - if I am in the pits, I search for a christian song to listen to to drag me out of depression. But yeah, I guess I do pick more morose or sober sounding christian songs to go with a sombre mood - like It is Well With My Soul, There is a Higher Throne etc. Sometimes I pick deliberately sad martyr type secular music to luxuriate in self-pity - when I was nursing my very first pummeled heart, I listened to Karen Mok's whiny "Ta Bu Ai Wo" (He doesn't Love Me). It was pretty useless in terms of making me feel better but it sure gave me a kick to whine along with the chorus!

Rust said that listening to a sad song when he was sad helped him to really Hear the song's essence - which he felt was pretty cool. I guess songs are like little time capsules. Songwriters try to capture the elusivity of personal feelings, memories or moments through tone, beat and lyrics. We hear their human experience radiate through the song, and something clicks and resonates with our own human experience. We connect with strange people, strange events and strange lives through music. From music, we get a notion of what it means to be human.

When people ask me what music I listen to, I am at a loss - I listen to all genres, all types.

I like hiphop's insidious booty-shakin' beats - Hollaback Girl, It's Like That, It's Getting Hot In Here, H To the Izzo,
I like clever mash-ups - LOVE the reimagined Deftones classic surfer anthem in Black Eyed Peas' Pump It and give me any of those bhangra infused dance tunes and I go mad.
I like cheesy memory-drenched retro - the Say It With Music vibe just gets me. Ooooh the era of the synthesiser.
I like the melodramatic over-the-topness of musicals - i have a soft spot for men singing major anguished paens on stage whether its to God (Les Mis), their nation (Chess) or to their elusive lovers (RENT)
I love the slow-burning growly cooler-than-thou of Brit Pop - beats American frat rock any day.
I like the whimsical fragility of folk - Fairground Attraction, Edie Brickell, Natalie Merchant, Damien Rice, Kings of Convenience, Mazzy Star
I like the machismo-on-steroids screaminess of Rock - come on, it's just FUN to sing Love Hurts, Bad Medicine, and of course, rock the microphone ala Axel Rose for Sweet Child of Mine
I like the poetry of slice of life tunes - Billy Joel, Tracy Chapman,
I like torch songs, slowburning and intense or light and romantic - grande dames Billy Holliday, Etta and all.
I like humourous, self-aware, frivolous pop - any Barenaked Ladies, any Britney, Madonna's Vogue, NSync's POP

I realise I love buying and listening to soundtracks, compilations or albums that sound like they could be soundtracks/compilations. I think I like albums to be a good mood scape that unconsciously spins a story within its tracks. When I hear songs, I like attaching images to them and wondering what moment in some imaginary film would this song be a good backdrop to. Pink Martini's Sympathique and Hang On Little Tomato make me imagine a giddy fling in Europe ala Before Sunset. Fairground Attraction's albums make me visualise a coming-to-age film for a young girl and her childhood guy buddy, with a romance-inducing carnival as its centrepiece.

I guess I like people. I like stories. And the closer a song makes me feel to the person who wrote it, or the character who it is about just gets my groove going. Which reminds me...man, I am so dying to go dance. Been ages since I went to a good club with kickass tunes! Anyone in the know of good places with danceable music let me know. Am soooooooo out of it. Got live music lagi best. :)