Alone in a quiet room.
Listen. What do you hear?
The empty, quiet room, is
not usually an experience I have very often. Recently, I either have
had the 37 year old radio playing, or as is more often the case, I
have the laptop playing music. Whether I am reading E. Phillip
Oppenheim, writing english, or something else, I generally am
listening to music at the same time. And most of the time, that music
is from the laptop, from my favorite band Linkin Park, as it is at
this current moment. A couple of years ago, I had a John A. Goldfine
(A term meaning to be in very little possession of knowledge about
current music- people defined by this term are often thought to be
quite fortunate by me) amount of knowledge on anything related to
recent music, but over the last couple years I have picked it up, and
am glad I did. And the one band that has really pulled away for me is
Linkin Park. In all of my listening to recent music, I despise
rapping. I just don't see the appeal it holds to some people. But I
like what little rapping Linkin Park does do. I like it a lot. Linkin
Park is queer, in that they are somewhat undefinable, either called
"rap-rock", or "nu-metal", or something like
that. They have one singer who raps, and another who sings. They also
are unusual in that one of their main instruments that one member of
the six man band does is 'Scratch', with a record player. They have
been very popular with songs like "In the End", "Numb",
"Breaking the Habit", "What I've Done", "Shadow
of the Day", and "New Divide." But what I have found
is that it took a long time of hearing them for me to desire an
affinity for their music, yet, once I did, it grew rapidly, to the
point where every song they have ever made is at least ten times
better than the best song made by anyone else. Linkin Park are
unusual in that they do really loud songs, with a lot of rap, like
"In the End", and really quiet ones with no rap, like
"Shadow of the Day". Also interesting, in spite of their
rap and sometimes raucous style, they did not have a single swear
word in any of their songs for their first two albums. They have
varying styles, but in the end, it seems that it is inherent to me to
enjoy their music. As I am right now while I am writing this.
I don't know Oppenheim, though I see on wikipedia he founded the 'Rogue Male' school of adventure fiction--and I can highly recommend 'Rogue Male' and anything else by Geoffrey Household.
ReplyDeleteI may even try an Oppenheim--but the chances of John A Goldfine listening to anything in music more recent than Johnnie Johnson are very very slim indeed.
Before I read this, LP meant 'Long Playing' to me--like a 33 LP record from the Dark Ages. Now I know....
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