The type of Music that surrounds me

Being born in the mid to late 1990's, I am in a gap between two different music generations, where I am greatly exposed to a lot of 90's rock and rap, such as Nirvana, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Tupac, etc. and exposed to a lot of 21st century pop, rap, modern rock, dubstep, and absolutely horrible music, like Brittany Spears, Taylor Swift, Kanye West, Justin Bieber, Skrillex,  Lil Wayne, One Direction, and a lot of other crap. I mean, I don't listen to that music, but it's impossible to escape from it because it's always around me all the time. And not all the music in the 21st century sucks, I'd say there's almost or just as much good music recently as there is crappy music, but there sure is a lot of crappy music. Having growing up in this time frame I've been exposed to extreme amounts of some of the best music that was inspired by the 90's, and some of the worst filth that corporations come up with such as Boy Bands. And Rappers currently only talk about how much money they have, how many drugs they do, and how many "bitches" they get, and can't even rhyme two different words. This is some of the worst, most degrading crap I've ever heard, but in the 90's rap was actually good and they had meaning to their lyrics. I don't know how rap is going so downhill like that.

Hard Days Night

The movie "A Hard Days Night" by Richard Lester, according to time magazine, is one of the best and most influential movies of all time, that inspired numerous spy films, The Monkees' television show and pop music videos.  I really don't know how it was THAT inspiring or great, other than the fact that it was about the Beatles and everyone went crazy for the Beatles. I mean, the Beatles weren't actors, so the acting wasn't near the best, the filmmaking was pretty good especially for the time period, but the reason I think it was so inspiring and so influential is because the Beatles music was some of the most inspiring and influential of all time, not because the film was great. I mean yeah, it was funny and witty at times, but it wasn't THAT great, though it was entertaining. I'm sure that if I grew up in the 60's I would've thought that the acting was amazing, the filmmaking was extraordinary, the humor was absolutely hilarious, and probably that the movie was the best I've ever seen. But the fact that I'm living in America in the 21st century probably negates a lot of what was fantastic about that movie.

Music vs Age

I remember when I thought the lead singer from Smashing Pumpkins sounded like a dying hyena caught in a really loud high pitched blender, but now they have got to be one of my favorite bands. Then I wondered to myself, "How could this possibly happen? How could one of my least favorite bands turn into one of my favorite bands of all time?" My guess is that music sounds different to you as you grow older. Some music you used to really like sounds like fart noises, and music that used to sound like fart noises turned into something you really like. This probably has to do with our maturity and maybe how our ears change and hear different frequencies. They must have something to do with how music sounds to us. Many girls I know absolutely adored the Jonas Brothers and High School Musical when they were 12, but now I hear them say, "How could I possibly have liked that crap?" I just hope that when I'm older I'll still like Nirvana, The Beatles, Smashing Pumpkins, Run DMC, and everything else I like, but I'm sure that some of my favorite music will change.

Stereotypes

People from all around the world are generally thought of a certain way just based on where they are from, what they look like, and what their culture is like. Texans are thought of as dumb, redneck, cowboys that want everything to be big, and are behind technologically (ride horses to school). New Yorkers are thought of as pretentious, rich, cocaine-snorting jerks. Japanese are thought of as Dolphin-murdering, people without souls, that are extremely good at math. Germans are thought of as mean, nasty schnitzel-eaters. French are snail-eating cowards. Middle-Easterners are all terrorists. Polish are just... Polish, nobody takes them seriously (same with Canadians). But the fact is that, yes there are people like this in these areas, but there are people like this everywhere, not just in a specific place. The world is so diverse and so are the people, so there is no possible way that all people of a specific race/country can all the the same. There are pretentious, cocaine heads in texas that eat snails. There are terrorist cowards in Poland. There are Japanese that are terrible at math and have souls. The point is that people are people everywhere, and everyone is different in some way. Sure stereotypes got here because they are true, but there are so many cases in which they are not even close.

"27 Club"

As you know, many of the best rock star legends died quite young, and the most common age of death was 27 years old. Some of these who died at this age are Jimi Hendrix, Brian Jones, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Layne Staley, Peter Ham, Gary Thain, and Kurt Cobain. Their untimely deaths have often been connected with uneasy lives and psychological issues, with a lot of physical neglect in between, usually due to alcohol or drug abuse, or both. Probably 90% of rockstars up to the 90's had problems with drugs, and even bigger problems when they stopped taking them. I also read that peoples personality stopped changing much after they hit 30, so it seems, then, that getting old is a major threat to our creative enterprises, especially if you are a rock star. Most people become more conforming, more adjusted, more boring, less creative. So that's why I think most rock stars die at age 27, because they're in the middle ground of being young, rebellious, and hardcore into drugs to cope with their troubled lives, yet being creative geniuses, and being old boring, non-creative geniuses. This probably troubles the rock star inside immensely, and they can't find what to do with their life, so they just end it. 

The Beatles

The Beatles were undoubtedly one of the most popular and influential bands of all time. You can hear their style in so many bands after them that were inspired by them, such as Oasis, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, The Byrds, Radiohead, The Verve, Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, The Beach Boys, Green Day, R.E.M, Deep Purple, U2, The Rolling Stones, Soundgarden, Queen, and pretty much every boy band to ever have existed. And because they were so powerful; so inspirational to almost all of my favorite bands, I think they are one of the greatest bands to have ever existed. Even though many of their songs aren't the greatest, quite repetitive, and always somewhere in every song they say "I love you," who knows how music from the 70's to today would be different (Ignore the 80's). It certainly wouldn't be nearly as good (Once again ignore the 80's). Without The Beatles, music as we know it would be drastically different, and not in a good way. Therefore I love The Beatles and think they are one of the greatest, if not the greatest, bands of all time. Also I like hippies and they inspired them too.

Glitch Mob

Now, I am not a huge fan of dub-step, but some of it is unavoidably fantastic that I just have to listen to it constantly. The Glitch Mob, if you haven't heard of them, gave me hope in dub-step again, because recently I've been listening to the new dub-step these days and it all sounds like pure unadulterated shit to me. Like if you've ever seen the south park where the adults are listening to the new "tween wave" bands that all the kids are listening to, all the adults hear are farting and shitting sounds. This is EXACTLY what i hear to some of these dub-step songs, just a drum beat, and someone taking a steamy wet crap with some obnoxiously loud bass. But not long ago I discovered the Glitch Mob, and I was blown away. I now have faith in dub-step even though a lot of it is shit. The Glitch Mob is so great because they don't do overkill on all those electronic "wub wub" crap. They actually have a very enticing tone to them that even gets addicting. I don't know how to describe it that well because it's mostly electronic but here are some of their songs. And Mr.A, if you haven't already heard these I strongly recommend you do, it's the bomb.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbAUwi4D3Ew
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-k_Eg7zXuc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejXSiMa9M4c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17PM-UMVud8      .....for animus vox i'd say skip to about 1:20 is where it starts getting interesting.

Elvis

Elvis was probably one of the inspirational musicians of all time and definitely the most inspirational artists to rock and roll. Before his time, there was really nothing, which John Lennon even says himself. All the music before him in America, personally, I believe kind of sucked. It just all sounds the same to me, with the same rhythm, same style of singing, same everything, and it gets old really quick (which is ironic because it is old). So yeah, old music gets old fast. But Elvis comes along, and shows the world something they've never been exposed to, rock and roll. That is why I love Elvis, but don't like his music. I love him because he was the founding father of my favorite kind of music, and all rock bands if you go far back enough, were inspired by him. Now his music, not so much. It's just a really early form of rock, so it still kinda sounded similar to the music before him. I've just been exposed to so many better versions of rock that his just doesn't sound so great to me. But I'm sure if I grew up in the 40's and 50's he would be one of my favorite artists, because I would have never seen anything of the likes of him. So, this is why I don't like his music because I've heard so much better rock than him, but I love Elvis because he is at the root of all of my favorite music.

Grunge

Own Topic-Grunge

Grunge is my favorite genre of rock, and the reason is because of its uniqueness and mysteriousness, of which perfectly advocates my mood, no matter what mood i am in. Grunge has a very distinct sound, that can sometimes be unsettling or nerve-wracking. Many grunge songs are about discomfort with ones self, being a misfit, being ugly, or having something go very wrong, which is why it appeals to people who feel that they're different from everyone else or are in a bad situation. This doesn't apply for all, of course, it's just a common theme with grunge, due to the intense sounds. Nirvana is one of the most popular grunge bands, because of the revolutionary way his chords were arranged together, giving a tone of mysteriousness that is very different from all other genres. 

Swing

Class Topic-Swing

During the 1940's and some of the 50's people from all age groups, ethnicities, gender, and many parts of the world all listened to the same music, swing. This is probably the only time in history that this phenomenon occurred, and thankfully, the last. The reason this most likely occurred was because swing is a very upbeat, happy, and optimistic sounding genre, which was very important because the world was going through a very tough point in history. We just came out of the great depression, and were fighting in a war that affected nearly everybody, almost every single family was in some way touched by the war, so we needed some happy tunes to help us cope. But personally, i think that all swing sounds the same, and therefore, think it is a lousy genre of music. I could maybe tolerate a song now and then, but not much more, it all sounds the exact same to me, with the same beat, rhythm, and crappy trumpet melody in the background of someones crappy voice. I don't know how everyone back then liked it.