Listening to HOLD ON TIGHT by Hey Monday. It's fun. Rock & Roll was designed to be fun. Richard Dreyfuss illustrates this perfectly to Alicia Witt's character in MR. HOLLAND'S OPUS before coaxing her into not screwing up while playing the flute. People often get caught up in the technicality of "creativity" - how much can one twist and contort the shape of passion and life as we as humans know it before it becomes an emotional and/or spiritual freak?
The music on it can be described as peppy, guitars are light and low impact, very processed sounding, like some music engineer took a bottle of soda and poured it over the tape to make it sparkle and blot out the jagged edges of the guitar playing. Or, maybe the jagged edges were never there b/c the guitarist(s) are top notch guitar players? Doubtful, but whatever. Cassadee Pope has a little girly voice that is often compared to that of Paramore's Haley Williams. Paramore's 2007 breakout RIOT! is a better album, tho. It's more complex, I guess? It's more thoughtful. It's got the boom and grandeur of a praise and worship song. Except I don't listen to P&W songs b/c I don't know what to listen to and, wrong as it is, I don't thank God enough - I don't feel thankful. I know God wants me to. I know I should be repaying him with the passion of a 15 year old me being re-born into a new life of hope, but I just don't feel it. So, p&w just doesn't resonate w/ me. Paramore's music does, tho and, having lived the classic modern day self absorbed teenager life with other high schoolers, I can see a certain nostalgia in Hey Monday's one and only full length (so far).
But then didn't I just say rock and roll is SUPPOSED to be fun? No. I said it was DESIGNED to be fun. If rock music hasn't adapted to reflect the somber state of this sorry ass excuse for a free country, I'd be on another ship. You can't make music of any emotional value that's just 100% HAPPY. The absence of pain is not real. There's pain. There's loss, there's sadness, there's all of it. Even 16 year olds go through that, which is why half the songs on HOLD ON TIGHT say stuff like "I miss you" and "why did you do that" etc. Heck, "Josie" is about a passed-out-every-dam-night drunk-as-a-skunk party chick whose trying to get a grip on or come to terms with her puke-infused lifestyle. Words of encouragement are there ("Josie - don't you worry/It's just a phase you're going through"), but everyone knows words of encouragement don't change anything. Insecurities and doubts linger like the dirt from generations past.
Yep. It's not a happy album. It's a FUN album. Paramore's RIOT! is a fun album. It just so happens that many people think thinking is a downer. I guess it is, I just don't care b/c I'm like 1/10 Irish? Conan O' Brien and Dolly Parton were on the CO'B late show and talking about how Irish folk tend to enjoy sadness. I used to suspect I suffer from what I heard described in MARAT / SADE (1967) as "melancholia", but then I got less self centered, as I got a little more and a little more older-ish-y, and now I'm just lightly depressed, which is OK. I don't value anything on this planet, at least not materialistically. Music I value, floating from great song to really good album to another one and, ya know, "this album is so awesome!" and then feeling let down when I hear it again later that day and/or the next. There's images that resonate w/ me, but if it all burned to the ground, what difference would it really make?
Not sure if I'm melancholy these days or just stuck in a moment I don't know how to get out of. I feel happy sometimes, but it's usually brief and kinda low-voltage. I'm not even sure what happiness is technically. But as my pastor noted -- the pursuit of happiness is the bedrock of our constitution, and thusly everyone feels entitled to pursue it, but: the more you pursue it, the less you find it. I can't speak from experience, but, from a sketchy sense of theology, if you're married w/o God in your life, you may have been fortunate/blessed to have found your soul mate and be living a life of rich love, but for most of us, God, being the very embodiment of Love, brings everything worthwhile together, including people and their feelings for one another.
[sigh] -- I guess I'm just uneasy giving this album 5 stars -- I was about to give it 5 @ Amazon.com's customer review forum, then narrowed it down to 4 and my review got to be so off topic with all these points of reference and blogginistic comments. I don't know what the lyrics are about specifically b/c I haven't analyzed them. But it seems that Hey Monday's music has that "girlmeetsboy"/"boymeetsgirl" sensibility while lacking any substantial theology. I guess I just get reminded of the secularity of modern day high schools and their students for the most part b/c of the Disney movie channel YA feel of the album and my experiences @ that age, combined with the occasional updates I see on the web [Until 6 or 7 years ago - yes, yes; I know... - I had no idea modern day YA novels are chock full of sex; the legal age is still 18, not 8, right?].--- Personal apologies to Ms. Pope for any burnmarks that probably never happened for lack of personal insecurity --IT TAKES GUTS to speak out publically, even more so when what you're saying is not some idea or song that's been pre-screened for approval. New Radicals ("You Get What You Give", the quasi-theme song of 1998/1999) got booed at by a few people opening for The Goo Goo Dolls here in my town of residence during their tour in support of 1998's DIZZY UP THE GIRL. [This town is a safe haven for nitwits due to the lack of variety on ALL of the five or six radio stations that routinely air music in and around this town.]. Also, for her sake, I hope Ms. Pope has better things to do read my schiz-tastic blogposts. Which reminds me, why are YOU reading this? NO, PLEASE DON'T LEAVE ME!
Note: This post has been edited 1/20/15 to avoid tedium & repetition and to add cohesion [yes, I know it still comes off as a giant rambling spazz; but believe it or not, there was a time when it was a lot worse...]
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