The Music

Freed from the reel today : The Music.

I have never really been one to care what I listen to, my musical tastes extend far beyond my comprehension. I listen to music that you need to know different languages to understand, music that doesn't have lyrics but still has a meaning to it. As many say, music is a universal language, much like dance. You can communicate to other people with song and dance, and I do believe this is true. I've come across many people who I found that I connected really well with, in light of the language barrier, just by playing some of my favourite songs which they happened to know.

One of my all time favourite bands since I started caring about music; Puffy Ami Yumi

Some may be looking at the band wondering, well I don't think I've heard of them before, and that's perfectly fine. I mean, there's probably others who look at them and say ew, japanese music, definitely not for me. It's really funny when you realize that a lot of music is connected to each other when you really open your mind to it. Just a few days ago, one of my big R&B enthusiasts was having a conversation with me about my tastes in music and after mentioning that I have a bit of a soft spot for R&B he proceeded to ask about my favourite artists. He was flabbergasted by the names I was listing as none of them sounded English.

"Hold up a second there my nigga; you can't make R&B if you can't even speak English."

Ignorant, I know, but rather than start a big argument about it, I thought I would just show him some CLEARLY R&B sounds from another one of my favourite artists.

Utada Hikaru; another one of my all time favourite artists.

Until recently, I was unaware of the tracks that Hikaru had made before I started listening to her, some of her very early tracks which were all in English. Rather than attempting to educate my friend, I pulled the first track that I could that screamed R&B and told him to take a listen. Wouldn't be such a bad idea for any readers to take a listen as well.

Lover Boy - Utada Hikaru (Cubic U) - Precious

After hearing this, he understood what I was talking about; music doesn't know race, gender, or any discriminatory attributes. Even if the song weren't in English, he said just listening to the Rhythm and Beats in the song, he approves of it. That must have meant something because it was his first time listening to 'foreign' music and he really enjoys Hikaru. Last I talked to him, he was using some useful music tools like Last.fm to locate artists similar to Hikaru and has had a lot of success with it.

So, where am I going with this some of you may be asking. I am asking my readers to take a chance with the music they listen to and to expand their grasp on music by trying a different genre that they don't typically listen to. I started listening to music with JPop, and it extended into Metal, then to R&B... it continually jumped from point to point on a music spectrum, that is from one extreme to another. You will be quite amazed by what comes from the songs you find.

If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music.
- Gustav Mahler