Saturday, February 14, 2009

The Music vs. The Misery

What came first - the music or the misery? Did I listen to music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to music? Do all those records turn you into a melancholy person?

People worry about kids playing with guns, and teenagers watching violent videos; we are scared that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands - literally thousands - of songs about broken hearts and rejection and pain and misery and loss. The unhappiest people I know, romantically speaking, are the ones who like pop music the most; and I don't know whether pop music has caused this unhappiness, but I do know that they've been listening to the sad songs longer than they've been living the unhappy lives.
- Nick Hornby
Buy: High Fidelity: A Novel (1995)
The book takes place in London, England, and follows the life of Rob Fleming.
Buy: High Fidelity DVD (2000)
The movie takes place in Chicago, USA, and follows the life of Rob Gordon.
They are both great, but, an as American who once lived in Chicago and who has had a crush on John Cusack since Say Anything (1989), I like the movie better.


The Smiths - Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me.mp3
Buy: Strangeways, Here We Come (1987)

Crazy Horse - I Don't Want To Talk About It.mp3
Buy: Crazy Horse (1971, reissued 1994)

Nazareth - Love Hurts.mp3
Buy: Hair of the Dog (1975, reissued 2008)

Bee Gees - How Can You Mend a Broken Heart.mp3
Buy: Trafalgar (1971, CD out of print, buy MP3s only)

Colin Hay - I Just Don't Think I'll Ever Get Over You.mp3
Buy: Transcendental Highway (1999)

Two Dollar Pistols - You Ruined Everything.mp3
Buy: You Ruined Everything (2002)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

so Aimz, are you saying that Valentines Day is not one of your "Top 5 all-time favorite holidays?"

-alt.mobius

Anonymous said...

Wayy to eloquent to be a drunken rambling