When I Was a Kid: Music Edition

When I was a kid my mom would play Henry Mancini's Pink Panther album when I would go to bed.  I was  a restless sleeper, with an overactive imagination and for whatever reason those familiar sounds put the monsters and ghouls outside my window to sleep for the night.

I had forgotten all of this until Pandora gave me "Moon River," which I'm fairly certain was on that same album.  And then it all came back to me.  Funny how somewhere in my brain all those memories were locked away, until that song came and triggered them.  And then, like it was yesterday, I could visualize laying in my bed, looking out my door, snuggling with my cat Figaro as the music played.

Music is weird like that.  Music is as mysterious as the ocean depths.  How and why a series of sound waves resonating at certain frequencies can stir the human soul and trigger such long lost memories is far beyond my understanding.  I believe we are wired for music, for whatever reason.  And I'm glad some things in the world are still mysterious.

Beautiful Sadness. "Maps" by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Part of the power of music is its ability to touch the parts of us that make us human.  The irrational, illogical, and emotional.  When a song hits the right nerve, sometimes, I'm affected by this beautiful melancholy.  It's saddness, but it feels good, healthy, even joyous.

I can't explain the paradox.  Maybe it's one of those "there's no light with out darkness, no hot without cold" phenomena, and I need the sadness to feel happiness.  Or maybe its just because I'm human and we're weird and emotional, and don't always make sense.

Pandora dug me up this the other day.  I've heard it before, but this time it hit me.  I like how simple it is.  The instruments.  Her vocals, and the lyrics.  Her emotion is very plain.  Hope you like it too.  

Pandora's Box Rocks

For you music lovers I want to introduce you to Pandora. This website is an online radio station that adapts to your style.

The whole premise is ingenious. They call it the Music Genome Project, a vast database of songs cataloged by dozens of different attributes: male or female vocals, instruments, rhythm, and other more complicated things like orchestration and arraignment.

You start with one artist or song, lets say Blink 182. They'll then play for you Blink 182 and other bands with similar characteristics. You get to fine tune your preferences with each song by giving it a thumbs up or a thumbs down. And if you like different styles of music, say classical, classic rock, etc, it's no problem. You can make as many stations as you need.

It's incredibly accurate and sometimes eerie. I swear at one point Pandora just started playing my "most played" list off my I-pod. Its real benefit comes from its ability to introduce to new music. Once it dialed into what I liked, it played a lot of new stuff that I could really groove on.

The Good:

1. A station that finally plays what you want!
2. Discover new awesome music.
3. It's free.
4. You can find out that you like the song "Rooftops" by Lost Prophets because, "it features electric rock instrumentation, a subtle use of vocal harmony, a vocal-centric aesthetic..." and on and on.

The Bad

1. You can only skip so many songs per hour because of "licensing" or some other legal mumbo jumbo.
2. You can't repeat a song you really like over, and over, and over again. Which is how I like to listen to music.