Music Good and Not So Good

It's Music Season at Gheorghe: The Blog. We upgraded from a mere Music Month to a full season, simply because we can. And because we aren't organized enough to consolidate everything into a month. We've got a humdinger planned for September (which we'll likely forget), but in the meantime here's a little tidbit with a lesson attached.

On college rock radio these days, you might hear a tune called "Darling Buds of May" by a band called Viva Brother. You might find it catchy.



If you didn't already know who the band was, you might also find yourself thinking, "Boy, Oasis really sucks these days."

If you strolled over to MetaCritic to see what the rock journalist collective thinks about their album, you would laugh. It's an average score of 33 out of 100. These comments come from six different publications' reviews:

• "might not be the worst record you'll hear this year, but it's certainly one of the most pointless"
• "nothing more than a thinly disguised, crass attempt to smoke latent Oasis fans out of hiding"
• "this debut is so lame, it makes the Beady Eye album sound like Let It Bleed"
• "eager for attention they don't merit, while the lyrics seem to be about nothing"
• "sets the cause of resurgent guitar rock back… ooh, a good 20 years"
• "little more than a damp squib"

So why do I bring it up? The catchy single actually had me going until the chorus:

Because her birthday's in May
It is what it is, It is what it is
Because her birthday's in May
It is what it is, It is what it is

Two years ago, long before these assclowns went into the studio, I explained to everyone how I felt about the usage of this and other terrible phrases. They didn't adhere to my warnings, and now they are being held up as a standard of pedestrian lyricism for the world's mockery. Please, good people, when it comes to rock lyrics, let's think outside the box (heh heh), lest your stupid words end up in someone else's song.

As for music I do enjoy, some time ago, the Zman hooked me up with The Grey Album, the Fab Four/Jay-Z mash-up that came out seven years ago. For whatever reason, I'd never given it a listen, but I came across his CD when I was going through some stuff lately. At long last, I heard the album, and I'm a fan. Here's a sample (no pun intended), it's "What More Can I Say?" with a boost from George Harrison and "While My Guitar Gently Weeps."



Thanks to Zman for broadening my horizons and putting up with me being old and out of it.