Anogete's Journal

If you quote Eminem, then I reserve the right to rip you apart regardless of whether you are a friend of mine or not. I don't care if we've been through thick and thin together. I don't care if you're the coolest and most interesting person I have ever met. Quoting Eminem automatically moves you down ten notches in my mental hierarchy of people I admire and/or like. Fuck, I like some *N Sync songs, but I don't quote them in my blog and tell everyone how they just "totally express how I'm feeling right now". ::glares:: You're shitting me, right? Eminem is far from a prophet, wiseman, or worldly author with an insight into the human condition. He's a hack with a knack for brainwashing all of the weak-minded. You hear that? I'm talking to all of you wanna-be thugs with the baggy jeans and the I'm-a-badass-limp. I'll talking to all your white trash chicks with a baby on the way and crush on that worthless piece of shit. Anything he has to say has been said before and it's been said in a more eloquent and insightful way, even in a more biting and direct way. I have no time to listen to or room to accommodate posers in my music collection.

On another note, my day wasn't so hot. Random, buzzing annoyances that pooled their resources and turned into a roar in the back of my mind. I was feeling more than foul when I went to lunch, but got a bit of a pick-me-up on the way back. I had forgotten my daily wallet of CDs to soundtrack my driving. Seeing as how I can't drive to the ambient noise the road offers, I was forced to listen to the radio. After fruitlessly flipping from station to station and being inundated with yawn-inducing soft rock, yak-inducing country, and the laughably ridiculous excitement over some sort of concert in Albuquerque that has been deemed "La Bomba 3", I came across the R&B station that plays "yesterday's hits". You know the station - every city has one. It was the least offensive of what I had heard, so I stopped flipping. At the height of my desperation at my day, they play Doris Troy's "Just One Look". Oh God. I needed this. Thank you. Somehow everything melted away and life was beautiful again. "Just one look and I fell so ha-ar-ard. I'm in love with you. Oh, oh... I found out how good it fee-eel-eels to have your love. Oh, oh... Say you will be mi-in-ine forever and always." There was some major singing along on my behalf and even a little driver's seat dancing. Who gives a shit what that guy in the convertible next to me thinks? Think I'm crazy, baby. Maybe I am.

Which brings me to the question of why none of the current R&B/soul songs make me feel this way. None. Some of it I can respect for what it is, but it doesn't give me **that** feeling. I have a deep love of R&B/soul. A deeeeeeeep love of it. I sincerely appreciate all that those genres have brought to my life, enriching **me**. Listen to The Isley Brothers sing "This Old Heart of Mine" and tell me that you don't fall in love with it. I **dare** you. Jesus, that song slays me and makes me feel like I'm walking on air. Makes me want to get up and dance across the floor and NOT care how silly I look and how much a fool I'm making of myself. There's just something so wide-eyed and innocent about old school R&B/soul/doowop that I aspire to. Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of the down-n-dirty ditties as well - the sexual innuendoes and propositions. But it's got to have a little finesse, a little tease or flirt, and definitely that quality of smoothness that artists like Prince have perfected. Perhaps the tongue-in-cheek knowledge of the sexual connotations, instead of the earnestness of the stuff on rotation on the radio.

Don't tell me you like the blatant shit they espouse from your radio speakers on the hip-hop station, but you don't dig Marvin Gaye because he's just not hot enough for you. Sit down and listen to "Let's Get It On" - not the song, but the album. If that doesn't give you an auditory orgasm to blow your mind and leave you basking in the sonic afterglow for a good hour, then you're hopeless. And damn, how can you groove to shit like 50 Cent and not get off on the beat of Wilson Pickett's "Knock on Wood"? It's sex-say.

Maybe I was born in the wrong decade. Maybe I secretly (or not-so-secretly) LOVE Billy Ocean's "Get Out of My Dreams, Get Into My Car". That one will make you feel great. C'mon... You know you want to dance.