Radio, Radio

No matter how much I tweak my Pandora Bell Biv Devoe station, they keep trying to sneak in some Taylor Dayne, who I have hated relentlessly since I was eight. I give her songs a thumbs down every time, and it just keeps happening. "Are you sure you hate Taylor Dayne?" they seem to ask. "What about this song?" That they won't let you ban an artist's entire catalog from a station is not the only problem I have with Pandora, but you see my point.

Pandora is not without its charms. It's fun to see the elements they've broken a song into. Like this:

Artist: Make-Up
Song: Black Wire Pt. 1
electric rock instrumentation
punk influences
repetitive melodic phrasing
extensive vamping

One thing I have learned from the program is that I apparently love a lot of music that contains "extensive vamping" (how do they decide whether it is extensive or not? who makes that call?). Either that, or they are just way too liberal with the term "extensive vamping."

Y'know what it is? it's the same kind of thinking that leads to shit like The Pick-up Artist. With something as human as music (or, um, humans) it simply can't be broken down into a formula. Also I hate robots.


So this got me thinking about music I really, really love, which got me thinking about songs that are so good I am bummed out that I didn't write them because then I would never feel pressure to do anything ever again. This led to me making a playlist of such songs, which I have shared a link to below. It's not complete, but it's most of them. Give it a listen, and tell me what songs you wish you had written in the comments.


My Rhapsody Playlist