I Want You To Notice When I'm Not Around

“What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?”

- Rob, High Fidelity

Happy Thanksgiving to my fellow Canucks! I trust you’re all ODing on tryptophan and pumpkin pie.

Now here's my post:

It’s funny that while Lauren, Tom and I were planning this project we kept joking about the song “Creep” by Radiohead and the overall depressing quality of the band’s music. Tom suggested we do a music topic this week and I think it’s fitting for this particular blog, as we all seem to attach emotion to music. We use it to feel something, or to distract ourselves from feeling something. We use music to cheer ourselves up, to drown our sorrows, to remind us of something or someone.

For my Monday post I’ve decided to share with you MY five categories of therapeutic music:

1. The Happy Dance - These are your top 40 hits that serve no function other than to cheer you up. These songs can, and really should, be super cheesy. I can’t help but smile when I hear “The Safety Dance” by Men Without Hats or “The Sign” by Ace of Base, or “Shiny Happy People” by

R.E.M.

2. The Angry Gurrrrl!!! - That scumbag loser needs to die, right? Throw on some Joan Jett, Ani DiFranco, Martha Wainwright, or even some classic Hole (I hate Courtney, but can’t help but love some old school Hole songs).

3. The Love Sick - He/she doesn’t like you back and that really sucks. Or he doesn’t even know your name or notice you at all. You think that stuff is high school, right? But it still happens and you know it! These are the days I put on Pinkerton by Weezer. “Losing My Religion” by R.E.M. is an obvious choice (for me, anyways). Bob Dylan also does the trick.

4. The Dark and Moody - Feeling...dare I say it...emo? This is when you bust out the big guns. Pretty much anything by Radiohead, “Hurt” by Johnny Cash, anything by Damien Rice works as well.

5. The Zone Out - This is the background noise that you hope will distract your mind from whatever is stressing you. I recommend some Broken Social Scene songs or Jack Johnson or

something chilled out.

“‘I bring myself into the song. I am an artist. People listening to songs are like people reading novels: for a few minutes, for a few hours, someone else gets to come in and hijack that part of your brain that’s always thinking. A good book or song kidnaps your interior voice and does all the driving. With the artist in charge, you’re free for a little while to leave your body and be someone else.'”
- Player One: What is to Become of Us by Douglas Coupland

Come back Wednesday to see what Tom has to say about music (he is from the land that

brought us The Beatles).

“You say Goodbye, I say Hello...”

In keeping with our trend of embarrassing photos.
Here's me pretending to be on Captain Planet.