Well, I decided I was going to write about my music each week while im down here in Nebraska. Don't know how long it'll actually last, but whatever.

Jon's weekly update, ed. 1!!!!

Well, let's start off with the big three albums of the week for me. You should definently check these out because I would not post them here if I did not feel they were worth sharing. As for the musical genres and content, those who know me know that I'll listen to
anything if it meets 2 criterion.

1. There must be talent, skill, and creativity involved. This immediately disqualifies most pop, country, and rap. I'm sorry, the music that is put out in these genres are just plain boring and unoriginal. And just adding -core as a suffix to a genre does not mean its original. More on this later.

2. There has to be that special power that can't be put into words, but is present in every good song. From the soft poetry of Iron and Wine, to the in-your-face power of old school He Is Legend, truly good music will bring out emotion in the listener.


First album of the week: Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? - Of Montreal!!!!

Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?

This strange indie music really caught me off guard at first. As i listened more, it turns out the songs are really catchy if you can get past the bizarre electronic sounds, concept album style, and odd vocals. This album is definently not for everybody, but its still worth giving a listen. Just don't see them live.

Recommended tracks:
Suffer for Fashion
A Sentence of Sorts in Kongsvinger


Second Album of the Week: Everything All the Time - Band of Horses!!!

Everything All the Time

I liked this band immediately. It's pretty much a lot of reverb guitar, high vocals, and slow paced put powerful songs. Its only downfall is that a lot of the tracks sound the same, but at least its a good and pretty original sound right? This band will be pretty popular soon, as they've gained a good amount of attention having their songs played on network TV shows. All in all, a quality, easy to listen to album.

First Song
The Funeral


Third Album of the Week: The Black Parade - My Chemical Romance!!!!

The Black Parade

First of all, shut up. Yes, I know, its My chemical romance. Now you know why I posted the disclaimer about my music earlier. Despite my intense distaste for emo music, I could not avoid listening to thier first single from this album, "Welcome to the Black Parade." And after enjoying the song "Dead!" on Guitar Hero, I decided I would give this album a fair chance. After reading up on its creation, its turns out the album is in fact, a concept album telling the story of "the patient," who is a young man dying on cancer. The album is MCR's musical interpretation of dealing the death. And in fact, its good. Very powerful music. After listening to the album as whole, I was impressed. I mean, they go through the five steps of dying and everything. So give it a fair shot.

The End
Dead!
I Don't Love You


There you go, the three albums of the week. I would also like to note that Bearshare screwed me with these albums, because they all have copyright protection on my computer so I can't burn them on CDs and listen to them in my car. Fury!

Now for the part you've all been waiting for:

JON'S BETTER-THAN-YOU MUSICAL OPINION!!!!!!

I thought it would be a nice idea to wrap up this post with a good opinion piece on whatever I want that has to do with music. This week, I write on music classification and the abuse of genre by stupid myspace people. As I look for new bands, I see ads saying "Check us out, we're a genre-defying band that wants to shake up the musical world," and its turns out to be another crappy emo or metal band. I don't care what you call it, you play rock. Thats your genre. Don't call it hardcore, emo, goth, punk, screamo, screamcore, metal, metalcore, midwestcore, electronicore (actually thats kinda catchy) its still crappy rock music. And just because you have a song with a walking bass line doesn't mean you can list jazz as an influence on your crappy music. Bands don't get to decide what genre the music they play is classified in, and the real fact is, it shouldn't matter!! Music history is full of genre-defying bands that were content to succeed with a simple label or "rock" or "pop." I mean, what would they call Queen today? Gaycore? Piano rock? Glam pop rock? No, they played their quite original music without caring what genre they were in, and still reinvented music. There are even bands today that do this, like Maroon 5, the Mars Volta, and the Flaming Lips. Rather than care what label people put on their music, they just play what they play best. And these bands are FAR more original than the bands that claim to have invented entirely new genres of music.


Well thats it for edition uno. I'll leave you with a shout out to Girl Talk and Margot and the Nuclear So and So's for making my car a good place to be.

Smash Your Head
Quiet as A Mouse

Until next week, ladies and gents!

-Jon