To expound a bit on the beginning of yesterday’s post, may I just say once again how much I cannot stand modern country & pop music? 

Why am I harping on this again?  Well, today I cleaned out my closet, something I’ve been meaning to do for a very long time, & took some clothes over to Plato’s Closet.  I was pretty sure they would reject most of the items & I’d end up taking most of them to the thrift store, but I figured it was worth a shot anyway.  While I was at the store waiting for them to look over my stuff, I was forced to listen to some of this godawful modern country & pop . . . And I am not exaggerating when I tell you that I became angrier & angrier the longer I was in that store! 

As I said yesterday, I haven’t listened to the radio in months so I guess I’ve been away from this kind of music long enough to forget just how bad it really is.  Stuff like this & this just make me want to scream.  I mean the lyrics, not to mention the music itself, are just so BAD!!  Then there’s Luke Bryan’s That’s My Kinda Night & Florida Georgia Line’s Sippin’ on Fire which to me are the epitome of everything that is wrong with modern country music . . . Yes, they’re catchy songs, but catchy in no way equals good.  More often than not I think the catchier a song is, the stupider it is.  If you really think about it, a song that is both lyrically & musically sound is probably NOT going to be super catchy at first.  Indeed most songs that say something worth hearing are NOT easily digestible, at least on first listen.  One could easily say the same for books & most other kinds of art.

Now let’s take a quick walk through the ever bizarre world of fashion.  As I was wandering around Plato’s Closet today, I kept experiencing the same phenomenon I so often do in stores these days: I kept thinking “Ugh, this stuff is just bizarre, some of it even downright ugly.  Who wears this crap?!”  And as usual I found myself wondering why anyone would torture themselves with the stilettos & other such uncomfortable fashions that dotted the store.  I might be only 26, but life is way too short to be uncomfortable for the sake of fashion, no matter how “good” something looks.  If that makes me lazy, I really could not possibly care less . . . Anyways, as it turned out, Plato’s Closet did reject all of my clothes, which was really not surprising considering most of them were pretty old AND considering I’ve never exactly been a fashionista.  So I just took the clothes to the thrift store & called it a day.

As I said, I’m far from a fashionista.  But that’s not to say I’m frumpy either; I certainly don’t go out in sweatpants & raggedy old T-shirts or anything like that.  But the older I get, the more I find that I am truly disinterested in following the trends of fashion.  For at least the past three or four years, it’s become increasingly difficult for me to find clothes I actually like.  This is probably because lately a lot of really girly clothes have been in style.  If something has frills, pleats, bows, or a large amount of sequins or glitter, odds are I’m not going to like it.  If it’s a crop top or skinny jeans, you can just forget about it.  And if it could be described as preppy, don’t even bother.  I don’t suppose I have a scientific reason for why I really dislike these fashions; I just do.  Maybe it’s because some of them strike me as rather childish & I for one am NOT a little girl anymore.  I’m a woman, even if sometimes I have to remind myself that, yes, I am actually an adult.  (The older I get, the more I realize no one ever really feels like an adult; we’re all just doing the best we can.  But that’s a whole other blog post right there.)

I guess what I’m starting to realize is, like so many things in life, when it comes to fashion I like things that will last, that is classics that never go out of style.  I love things like V-neck sweaters, boot-cut jeans, sheath dresses (I think that’s the right term), athletic-style tank tops, & leopard print (though I’m very particular about leopard print because it can be incredibly tacky if not done right).  None of these things is particularly trendy now or maybe ever, but they’re never really OUT of style either, if that makes sense.  Considering I’m married to the first man I ever dated, I guess it makes sense that my personality type would be attracted to fashions that will stand the test of time.

Unlike yesterday’s post this isn’t really supposed to be deep or super meaningful.  I’m basically just ranting about how disenfranchised I feel from popular culture, particularly when it comes to music & fashion.  At the end of the day, the music thing bothers me a lot more because the older I get (I keep saying that!!), the more I realize how powerful music really is & the more important it becomes to me in my daily life.  Gene Simmons might have proclaimed that rock is dead, but I for one know it is not.  I know I’m biased because I have a predilection for rock & metal, but one reason this kind of music speaks to me so much is that the vast, vast majority of rock & metal bands write all of their own music, both the lyrics & the music itself.  They aren’t just auto-tuned pop stars singing over top electronically produced tracks!  It just makes me so angry when I think about all of the truly talented musicians out there whose work isn’t getting a fraction of the airplay & attention that talentless idiots like Justin Beiber, Selena Gomez, Carley Rae Jepson, & Miley Cyrus are getting.

Again, this was just a rant.  I realize there are more important issues in the world today.  I can forgive the fashion industry for producing ugly clothes.  But I cannot forgive the music industry for producing & promoting so much blatantly BAD music.  And furthermore I cannot forgive the masses for consuming it & LIKING it. 

As Corey Tyalor so eloquently stated in his first book The Seven Deadly Sins (seriously, folks, you need to read it!), “Bad music is a form of murder to the true art of music in general.  Bad music forced on a child is abuse because it invariably forms that child’s taste in music. Bad music has raped an industry that was held up strongly by great expression for decades but now finds itself floundering, giving in to the lowest common denominator of music just to keep its panties around its waist. Bad music tortures the eardrums & kills little bits of your senses through prolonged exposure. Bad music steals money from shallow pockets, steals airtime from more deserving bands & songwriters, & steals the spotlight from undiscovered geniuses who have all but given up on a dream because of the mediocrity of popular radio. Bad music is a lie, & yet it is foisted on the public in an attempt to turn melodies & songs into hamburgers & fries. Bad music is truly a sin because you don’t have to be exceptional to make it in the music industry anymore. You just have to be good enough to stick around & be tolerated.”

To end on a positive note, let me share one of my favorite Halestorm songs that celebrates all of you freaks like me.And because I’m feeling extra generous, click here to check out the new track from Gemini Syndrome.  This is just one example of the extraordinary work this band produces.  Every song they write is both lyrically & musically fantastic.