The Alarum Sounds
Had to set the alarm this morning, so I can have the possibility of getting my huge grading job done before Big Red draws first blood for the season.
I’m struggling through VH-1’s Top 20 video countdown. I heard an interview with Pharrell, who seems like he’s probably a jerk. He managed to style himself as both a modern Warhol and Willy Wonka. Maybe he likes names that begin with W. Props for “Drop It Like It’s Hot,” though.
Paging SCUM, anyone…?
Jessica Simpson amazes me because she doesn’t have to talk to look like an idiot. It just … happens. Her image now is so filthily, subliminally sexual it’s almost amusing to see the whole blond, brushed hair thing persist.
Snow Patrol sounds like Semisonic. My answer to that is to like Semisonic and ignore Snow Patrol.
Blue October just needs to go away. It’s almost like they’re trying to tell you something with “Hate Me.” Same goes to All American Rejects, which had all the listening pleasure of the dying cricket underneath my fridge.
The Fray and James Blunt are kind of doing the same thing, in the way of the whole piano band thing. The problem with piano bands is that they’re all trying to tell you they’re a piano band. Ben Folds Five didn’t have to do that, because they hit the first riff on “One Angry Dwarf” and everybody knew what was up, namely an incredibly awesome album that managed to be alternative-rocky with the only (principal) electric instrument being a bass guitar.
If Hinder blows up, we have a lower-octave Aerosmith teary ballad machine on our hands. Therefore, friends don’t let friends let Hinder blow up.
Lachey is now hacking his way through an aabb rhyme scheme. I don’t generally like aabb because it’s almost like your lyricist’s attention span is too short to delay rhyming gratification for at least one line.
I’ll close halfway through the countdown by saying that the Red Hot Chili Peppers need to retire (in California). This new one here sounds like a backtrack. Maybe they had another song about California in line, and bumped it so all their singles won’t be about California.