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Greetings, loved ones. Let's take a journey. So says Snoop Dogg at the beginning of "California Gurls", the hit song from my birthday week this year.
That's more or less what I told myself in the wee hours of New Year's Day of this year when I embarked on this possibly-insane project of attempting to learn and memorize a pop song every day and writing about the experience. And here we are at the halfway point. Happy Halfway Point!
That's more or less what I told myself in the wee hours of New Year's Day of this year when I embarked on this possibly-insane project of attempting to learn and memorize a pop song every day and writing about the experience. And here we are at the halfway point. Happy Halfway Point!
So far:
My Perfectionazi still talks to me but I'm getting better at telling him to eff off. The Doubts are harder to deal with because there's the most infinitesimal chance that there's a grain of truth in what they say. I'm spending somewhere in the range of 15-20 hours a week on a project that doesn't pay, but it is paying off in other ways: I hear music differently now, I discover new music every day, I connect with people more often over music because now I know - or at least know of - the songs they're talking about.
My Perfectionazi still talks to me but I'm getting better at telling him to eff off. The Doubts are harder to deal with because there's the most infinitesimal chance that there's a grain of truth in what they say. I'm spending somewhere in the range of 15-20 hours a week on a project that doesn't pay, but it is paying off in other ways: I hear music differently now, I discover new music every day, I connect with people more often over music because now I know - or at least know of - the songs they're talking about.
I want to stay up and wax eloquent about what I've learned so far, what I think this project is about, what fresh geekery today's song has inspired, but I'm just too damn tired. If I've learned one thing, it's that I have to concede some nights to getting a semi-decent amount of sleep.
I've also learned how much I resent sleep. So just a tiny tidbit of geekery:
I've also learned how much I resent sleep. So just a tiny tidbit of geekery:
Aughto-tune: the sound of the Aughts. Pretty much every hit song today uses it. That hit home this morning when I was downloading "California Gurls" and I listened to the 30-second snippets of all the other current hits on iTunes. Little kids today will one day feel about the sound of auto-tune the same way I feel about 80s power ballads that modulate up a whole step at the end. Nostalgia.
Today's song is pretty straightforward, form-wise: verse-prechorus-chorus x 2, bridge (which is Snoop Dogg's rap), chorus, tag. The melody is really solidly in F; the bass never hits an F. In the end, the bass drops out and the treble resolves to an F to finish the song. One thing I don't miss about the 80s: repeat and fade on every song!
Onward - birthday month is over, have to figure out how I'm going to choose my songs now!
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