My first chosen, Marf, recently started a BLOG.. It's funny -- was talking with her yesterday online, and it's strange how much people forget things over 5 years.. well, no, actually, it isn't. We were talking about classical music (harp music in particular) and I remembered a conversation we had about mathematical versus romantic themes in classical music, along with the rough surrounding events, from about 5 years ago, while she had forgotten that I ever liked classical music. It has been awhile, I guess, and in fact in time, I guess people who were once as close as could be will eventually forget each other entirely. I remember there was some of this oddity when Debb and I got back together last December -- so many fine details had faded then.. but of course, people don't change *that* much -- talking with Martha reminds me that she's really very much the same person, and I'm sure if I were still in contact with the two other lovers I've had, I would notice the same things. When I get together with my closest friends, from ages ago, it's like this... But it's also kind of like trying to start a car with a low battery -- the context, the fabric, the familiarity that smooths relations is always a bit gone when this happens, and always the faint scent of fear of a stranger who I'm trying to open up to is there. Once that initial hurdle is gotten over, all is good..

I continue to "banish" music I dislike from the pool of random-eligible playing into the other directory of non-random music (that eventually may be deleted). Occasionally I banish it for a different reason than I don't like it -- some of my mp3s/oggs wern't ripped properly, and a scratched CD yields bad sound. My most recent irritation -- there's a song by Queen called "Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy" that I really like, but my mp3 of it sucks. It's especially bad because I haven't seen that CD in years -- it might be in a box in my parents basement, or may even have been tossed. I find myself wondering what exactly would happen if the government came in and got my computers -- would I need to produce the actual CDs for all my music to show that I'm licensed to have them? That would be very bad -- my music collection is indeed a big mix of things that are legal, and things that arn't. Stupid copyright laws... Ahh, yes, back to Queen. I really find Queen to be a strange band -- they remind me of a strange mix between the Beatles, TMBG, and Zappa, and .. they actually have a lot of influences/similarities I can't identify. It's hard to classify them into being either 'low' or 'middle' music, meaning how pop-versus-sophisticated their music is -- it varies per the song. Bohemian Rhapsody is very artistically interesting, with incredible variations in style that still, amazingly, fit well together. Weird Al's parody of the song, Bohemian Polka, shows him capable of producing middle-sophistication music too, although his regular faire is simple (but amusing) parodies of pop music that are on the low end of low-sophistication music. Here's an example of things that fit in each genre:

Very Low - Music that's pure candy Aguilera, Pink, Aqua, Brittney Spears, Boy bands, Daler Mehndi Low - Most punk, pop, hiphop, etc. If it's pretty repetitive, it's probably here TMBG, Chumbawamba, Firewater, Eels Middle - Some of the more complex popular music, some jazz Oingo Boingo, Spike Jones, Beatles, Jamiroquai, most Klezmer Middle-High - Some classical music, some reinterpretation of folk music Plaid Tongued Devils, Frank Zappa, Red Army Choir High - Some classical music, Some folk music, rag, some jazz Vivaldi, Scott Joplin

You'll notice, I think, that a lot of people never learn to appreciate the more refined types of music, and only end up listening to the pop stuff. At the same time, some people will only listen to the more complex stuff. They're usually music snobs, and I used to be one of them back before I went into High School. Candy has its place, figuratively and literally. Apart from Brittney Spears and the boy bands, I like and recommend you check out all of the above, to broaden your musical tastes, whatever you like.

How dare you call Daler Mehdi low? For all you know, there could be a profound message in the lyrics, which you haven't bothered to translate.

Well though...

The Beatles, frankly, were pop-- Their day's equivelent to a Boyband, during their early years. It was only later that they came to be somewhere in the middle. You may want to consider different eras in your classification process.

--LJW