Drake – More Life: So Much Background Noise

So Drake recently released his latest…thing. Is it an EP? No, it’s too long for that. Is it a mixtape? No, there’s a bit too much production value from the multi-millionaire pop star for that. Is it an album? No, because that’d imply that there’s actually been a significant amount of effort put into it. It seems more like a collection of B-sides than anything. Y’know, those songs that don’t get put on an actual album ‘cos they’re a bit shit. Okay, that’s harsh, being a B-side doesn’t necessarily mean a song’s bad. But there is a higher chance.

To be fair, there’s nothing on this “playlist” (as Drake calls it, the pretentious git), that’s offensively bad. The production has a very smooth and laid back quality to it and it’s easy listening.  But there’s nothing that jumps out at me. There’s nothing that’s making me go “Oh fuckin’ hell that’s bloody good that is”. Nope. It’s just sort of…there. The instrumentals are at best pleasing to the ears, and at worst, are nothing-y. If you want to just have some background noise whilst you’re relaxing or doing something else, you could do a lot worse than this. However, if you want to actively listen to music, then I’d find something else if I were you.

Because if you listen to this actively you’ll notice that Drake is bizarrely trying to incorporate London slang into his music as well as his attempts at Patois. The word “wasteman” or “ting” sounds alright when someone like Giggs or Skepta uses it, but when it comes out of Drake’s mouth it sounds all kinds of wrong. I’m not against trying to incorporate bits of music from other countries, but do that by having features or just take purely instrumental inspiration. If Drake had been significantly involved in London street culture like grime artists have, then it’s fair game, but otherwise, nah. Sounds weird.

I would tell you in which songs he uses this slang, but in all honesty, I can’t remember (I think the ones which feature Giggs?), and I can’t be arsed to go through all the tracks again. They all blend into this amorphous mass of fairly pleasant but characterless rap/dancehall. Apart from the Skepta Interlude and KMT ft. Giggs, which come sort of out of nowhere. These are also two of my favourite tracks as they sort of move away from the anonymous vibe of the project and are basically grime songs (obvs). And y’all know this middle class white boy loves his grime.

I’m not really that fussed about talking about this anymore as there’s not really much else to say. I just hope Drake’s next project is something a bit more exciting.

Fave tracks: KMT ft. Giggs, Skepta Interlude, Gyalchester, Portland ft. Quavo & Travis Scott

Worst tracks: Since Way Back – PARTYNEXTDOOR, Glow ft. Kanye West, Lose You

Overall rating: 5.6/10

Would I recommend? – My response to this question is…eeeeeeeh? Like I said before, if you want something on in the background that you don’t really want to pay attention to, go for it, but otherwise…just wait for something more exciting.

Pitbull – Climate Change: God is Dead

This album is something really special. A true musical masterpiece. Do you want to know why I put “God is dead” in the title? Because even the Almighty one was so blown away by Mr. P Bull’s musical talent that he immediately suffered a heart attack. That’s how truly incredible this album is.

Ahaha just kidding, it’s a piece of shit.

If you’re wondering why someone with apparently such a discerning taste in music (yes I am a pretentious twat and what) would listen to something that is evidently designed for a broader audience who don’t really care that much about music, I’ll tell you why.

I was bored and I wanted something to rip into. That’s pretty much it. I also had some kind of grim curiosity as to what a Pitbull album would sound like, having never listened to one before. Obviously I’ve heard him on his countless features with other artists, but I was genuinely interested to see what he could do on his own.

That point was pretty much void as soon as I looked at the track listing and saw that all but one song had at least one feature. Woopy de doo. The featured artists include such luminaries as Robin Thicke (creepiest of the creepier dudes in the music industry), R. Kelly (a nonce), and Enrique Iglesias (Spanish). Now, there’s nothing wrong with having a few features on album, but if you have a total of 16 different artists featuring on 10 different tracks, what’s going to result in an incoherent mess with no one clear defined sound (apart from hearing MR WORLDWIIIDE at the beginning of every fucking song).

The worst of the Mr Men

Now, to structure this review, I thought I’d do a brief summary of each song in a list format, as most of them don’t offer much to talk about except their blandness or godawfulness.

We Are Strong ft. Kiesza – Shit

Bad Man ft. Robin Thicke and some other randomers – Shit

Greenlight ft. I can’t be arsed – Shit

Ok ok, sorry, I’ll try and take this seriously.

Instead of doing a list, I’ll talk about the songs that really raise the bar in terms of shite.

Bad Man ft. Robin Dickhead, Joe Perry, and Travis Barker – Uninspired, messy, painful instrumentation that underpin a song which is basically about a twat trying to pick up “a goody two-shoes girl”. Slightly creepy vibes. Quite creepy actually. But I mean, what can you expect from a song that features Robin Thicko?

Messin’ Around ft. Enrique Iglesias – Mostly unremarkable but thought I’d put it on here as I genuinely started developing a headache during the horribly noisy chorus.

Sexy Body ft. Jennifer Lopez – This is a cover of the Zara Larsson song of the same name, except with J-Lo instead of Zara and painful Pitbull rapping, which makes it a lot worse than it already was. Seriously, MR WORLDWIIIIDE has as much flow as a river of tar. And also there’s one bit where Lopez just squeals like a pig for no particular reason. Painful.

Freedom – Notable for being the only song which has no features. It’s also the shortest song, funnily enough (and not just by a few seconds, by a good 30-35). This isn’t particularly headache inducing, but fuck me if it isn’t cringey. “I’m free to do what I want, and have a good time” No shit nobcheese, you’re a multimillionaire popstar.

Options ft. Stephen Marley – I was quite interested to hear what the son of the late, great Bob Marley would sound like on this track. It starts off quite promising, with a nice little verse from Stevey boy himself, and the pleasant twanging of a guitar underneath. Unfortunately he then starts singing the chorus. Oh my God. I don’t think I’ve heard a chorus quite as painful for this for a long. His voice is as strained as the National Health Service (OOH, TOPICAL), and there’s definitely some auto tune applied to it. Seriously, if you don’t come away from this song with your ears bleeding after hearing “IGOTIGOTIGOTIGOT OPTIONS” screamed at you numerous times, you’re a stronger person than I.

Educate Ya ft. Jason Derulo – Mainly putting this one on here for the lyric “So sit back, relax and let me lick ya”. Ugh. The whole song’s basically about sex, and I’m surprised it manages to make something so enjoyable sound so fucking dreary. Probably because it follows all the tropes that pop songs about sex tend to encompass (oo ye I’m a bloke I’m good at sex oi maybe bring your fit friend so we can have threesome ehehe I’m not gross) but also throws a faux-romantic vibe on with the Derulo chorus.

Dedicated ft. R Kelly and Austin Mahone – Actually putting this one on here for something positive. I know. Shocking. I don’t mind the instrumental on this. It’s nothing special, it’s generic, but it’s not bad. It gets a B-. The song itself is wank, and R Kelly really can’t sing, but y’know, you’ve gotta find the positives in this big ball of shite.

Lastly of all, why in the name of ever-living fuckity fuck is the album called Climate Change? Is Mr. Bull trying to be edgy? There are literally no political statements on this record (or at least none that I could find) and it’s all just your standard garbage. No comprende, señor.

And that’s all I can be arsed to write for this. Although to be fair, it has been very cathartic. At least it’s easier than talking about an article that’s basically alright but nothing special, because you can rag on all the crap.

Favourite track: Dedicated (if I have to pick one??)

Least favourite tracks: See above, most detestable are Bad Man and Educate Ya

Would I recommend? – If I had a choice between listening to this again and performing a self-castration, the latter would probably be slightly more preferable

Rating: 1.6/10

 

 

Stormzy – Gang Signs & Prayer: Overrated?

Yes, this is a music blog now. I still might do the odd non-music related piece but I need to post more regularly and album reviews are probably the best way to do that. If you’re not that into music. Well. Sucks for you.

So anyway, if you haven’t been living on a different planet for the last month, you’ll know that Stormzy’s released his debut album and everyone’s been pretty much going insane. It’s reached number 1 in the UK charts and everyone and their mums have been raving about it and becoming apprentice roadmen.

I was very excited to give this album a listen, as the last grime record that I gave a try was Wiley’s latest album, ‘Godfather’, which was incredible. Seriously. If you’ve got a friend that’s never liked grime and doesn’t get it, tell them to listen to that album. Pretty much every song on it’s a banger.

I was expecting something similar from ‘Gang Signs & Prayer’, hence my excitement. However, I came away from it fairly disappointed. And I’ll tell you why.

But first, the good stuff. Now I won’t lie, there are some excellent cuts on here. The first single to be released from the album, ‘Big For Your Boots’, is punchy and aggressive (which, in my opinion, is what Stormzy does best) and also had a great music video which provided an insightful social commentary of modern day Britain (more specifically, London). ‘Cold’ is along the same lines, with a fast paced and catchy instrumental the compliments Stormzy’s style very well. ‘Bad Boys’ is slower in pace, but not anymore laid back. The trap influenced instrumental combined with the holy vibes of the low pitched choral backing really brings out the grittiness of this track. J HUS’ and Ghetts’ features are much appreciated, especially the latter with his very distinct voice and staccato delivery contributing to the overall vibe here. ‘Mr Skeng’ is another banger much along the lines of ‘Cold’, with a slightly less high-strung instrumental. ‘Return of the Rucksack’ is another great tune (the line “Then I blow on the riddim like ISIS” never fails to make me chuckle a bit).

I don’t know why, but this annotation cracks me up.

Yet the majority of songs on this release leave me wanting for more. Stormzy seems to be going for this more deep and personal vibe, romantic in some cases. However for me, it just doesn’t work. Of course, he can do personal very well, as we see in ‘Big for your Boots’, but in these other cuts, it just sounds corny. The instrumentals are all very slow paced, which in itself is not a bad thing, but they feel lethargic when you know that Stormzy is better suited to going at a fast pace. On tracks like ‘100 Bags’ I keep on expecting him to start speeding up and the beat to actually, y’know, move a bit. Alas that doesn’t happen and subsequently I want to go to sleep. In ’21 Gun Salute’ the instrumental is so minimalist. Which isn’t inherently a bad thing. But here it’s just. So. Boring. On the other hand, ‘Blinded By Your Grace’ has an instrumental that feels so bombastic it’s ridiculous. There’s some sort of soulful vibe going on I think? Yet it just feels silly. Speaking of silly, the song ‘Cigarettes and Cush’ makes me cringe. I’m not sure why. It could be the clash of the subject matter (smoking weed ‘n’ all that) and the saccharine instrumental which would be best suited to a slow dance at some crap bar somewhere. Not a rave, not a club, not anywhere else really.

There’s a soulful vibe going through most of this album. However, it doesn’t work to Stormzy’s strengths. I can understand why people like it, and it is interesting that the big man opens up and gets a bit more emotional, rather than threatening to beat people up all the time. In my opinion however, overall, this album is just a bit boring. It’s definitely a disappointment in my eyes but I also look forward to what Stormzy’s going to get up to in the future. He’s got shedloads of talent and that was evident in some of the songs in this album. Again, like I said before, Stormzy is best suited to punchy, fast, and violent grime that buoys people up, as opposed to this slow, uninteresting stuff that makes up most of this album. The lyrical content is interesting, don’t get me wrong. But the instrumentals? Nah. Not my thing.

Before I finish, I would like to say that I am glad that the album’s reached number 1 in the charts. Unlike pretty much everything else on there (with notable exceptions such as Rag ‘n’ Bone Man), it has personality and character. As opposed to the processed garbage that’s being thrown at us by coked-up millionaire pop stars who couldn’t give less of a fuck about producing quality music. Mini rant over.

Especially the Chainsmokers. Boring bastards.

FINAL RATING: 6.2/10

Favourite tracks: Big For Your Boots, Mr Skeng, Cold, Bad Boys (ft. Ghetts & J HUS), Return of the Rucksack

Least favourite tracks: Cigarettes and Cush (ft. Kehlani), 21 Gun Salute (ft. Wretch 32), Blinded By Your Grace pt.2 (ft. MNEK), Blinded By Your Grace pt.1, Velvet/Jenny Francis – Interlude

#JustMoscowThings

HAVEN’T DONE THIS IN A WHILE.

Let’s just ignore the fact I’ve not written anything for 3 months and get right into it.

One of the reasons I haven’t written anything for a while is because I’ve been busy settling into Russia after I moved here in early September for the academic year.

“And how’s that going?” I hear you ask. Well I don’t hear you actually, because that’d be strange but you catch my drift.

Well, uh, let’s just say there’s been a few…”teething problems”.

Despite problem, I am now become true Slav, da?

First of all, the original accommodation we were meant to stay in (the main building of Moscow state university) was full, so we were told, 2 days before we set off to Russia, that we would be in a separate university accommodation. That was fine. I could deal with that. A bit short notice but oh well.

However, when we arrived in the Motherland, we found out our accommodation had been changed. Again. And what was this new accommodation?

A bloody hotel. In the middle of pissing nowhere. Complete with terrible Soviet architecture and slightly very suspect clients. Who would get very pissed in the hotel bar whilst we were there and then have a tendency to ask how much the females of our group “cost”. Creepy Russian men were certainly not a positive of living in the hotel.

This is the very hotel. If you show this picture to a Leeds Russian student, they will scream and run away.

Then the visas. My word, the visas. If you remember, my last post was a whinge about the bureaucracy required to get the initial visa required for Russia.

Then when we arrived, we would have to then acquire a multiple entry visa. The following interactions ensued with the university administration:

“Hey our visas expire on the 10^th October and it’s already October, when do we get our new visas?”

“Oh don’t worry they’ll arrive soon enough.”

“Okay.”

 

“Yo it’s the 5^th now and we still haven’t got our visas, are they nearly here?”

“Don’t worry about it, you’ll get them.”

“Fine.”

“Eventually.”

“What?”

 

“Um okay it’s the 9^th now and our visas expire tomorrow, will we get them tomorrow?”

“Oh yeah probably.”

“WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN PROBABLY?”

 

“Right it’s the 10^th can we get our visas now?”

“Nope.”

“What!?”

“Don’t have ‘em”

“But you said..!”

“Weeeellllll…we lied.”

A rare glimpes of one of the administrative staff at Moscow State University

So we lived as illegal immigrants in Russia for one day, and picked up our visas on the 11^th. Which didn’t make me paranoid at all. Not one bit. Nope. Wait did you hear that? I think someone’s listening…

Another issue was moving out of the hotel. The novelty of living in a hotel room wore off after approximately 3 days so people started to look for flats to move into ASAP. However, because I am incredibly lazy, it took me and my two prospective flatmates a while to get started on a flat search and it was getting awfully close to having to pay for another month’s rent in the hotel (24 500руб – £300ish? Not sure about exchange rates). Finding a flat in Russia’s really fun. Reaaaaally fun. Lots of cancelled flat viewings, people managing to rent their flat out to someone else even though you only viewed it two hours ago, and general faffing around. Oh and also lots of talking on the phone, which is bad enough in English, let alone in Russian.

Literally me. Except I’m not bald.

However, we managed it, and are now the proud tenants of a flat that is the definition of the term “Soviet chic”. Everything works though, so all good.

Now for my last whinge today. The deposit. An innocuous word for many people but for me and my coursemates here, it is the definition of bureaucratic hell.

So we had to pay a deposit when we arrived at the hotel, equivalent to one month’s rent. Then when we moved out the hotel, we were meant to get the deposit back. Y’know. Like how a deposit’s meant to work.

However, the hotel seem intent on keeping it. Some of us here have been trying to get it back for basically two months now, and they won’t budge. They just refuse, at the moment, to acknowledge how deposits are meant to work. But we’ve all filled out a form now so hopefully that will sort itself out soon.

And of course, said form was filled out in blue ink, in perfect handwriting, and with no spelling mistakes whatsoever. Because otherwise, according to Russian bureaucracy, if it doesn’t fulfil those criteria, it doesn’t exist.

This isn’t the most detailed list of my complaints, but I doubt anybody wants that, because a) it’d get boring and b) it’d be about 7000 words long.

Now looking at all these problems, you probably get the impression that I’m having a terrible time in Russia.

But that ain’t true.

I love the country, I love the culture, I love (most) of the people, I love the language, and I love Moscow. It is a truly fascinating place, and I am very glad to be here. Also, Moscow is probably the only place where you can go to a club and see someone propped up at the bar, vaping (unironically) and playing Pokemon on his DS, and also in the same club, a man coming in limping on a crutch and then, 10 minutes later, jumping around the dancefloor waving his crutch about like he’s trying to fight off a swarm of angry locust.

“I love Moscow”. Это правда.

There are many more stories like that, and I’m sure there will be many more to come. I might write about them. Might not. Depends on whether I can be arsed. Big factor that. Arsedness.

Пока пока!

James

 

Thanks Harriet for the couple of photos I’ve nicked off your Facebook, your photography skills are much appreciated fam.

 

Getting a Russian Visa aka The Franz Kafka Experience

Всем привет!

Today I thought I’d give you an insight in the Russian visa application system, seeing as I’ve recently had to go through it to get a student visa for this year. To do this, I thought I’d just provide you with some quotes from the last couple of weeks of faffing about.

So without further ado, let’s begin:

“Oh Jesus Christ they want an HIV certificate”

“Where do you even get that from?”

“Oh bloody fantastic I have to go up to London”

“Why do they need FINGERPRINTS!?“

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGH”

“Oh my God just let me into your bloody country already”

“I have to go up to London AGAIN!?”

“Sorry that costs HOW much!?”

“Are you having a laugh!?”

“Oh wonderful, another vitally important document that I desperately need has been delayed again”

“No it’s fine I’ll just try and get in illegally, it’ll probably be easier than this bullshit”

“Oh no, don’t worry, I know my passport number off by fucking heart at this point”

“I mean, the Russian border force will probably waste less of my time than the Visa office”

“They want to know EVERY country that I’ve been to in the last 10 years!?”

“Lord above, I can’t remember what I had for breakfast this morning and they want me to remember my family holidays from when I was 8 years old”

“WHY!?”

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGH” (I said that one a lot)

“I swear to God if I ever meet the Russian immigration minister I am going to hit him”

“Oh my God the Embassy website is straight out of the 1990s”

“I am going to either cry or hit someone in a minute. Or both.”

“Why did I even pick Russian?”

“Oh yes, because I’m insane.”

“And now I’m even more insane because I have to recite my passport number AGAIN!?”

I could probably go on but I’ll leave it there. The next blog posts are probably going to be about Russia so if you’re interested in hearing about that keep an eye out. And if you’re not interested, read them anyway. Please. I live for views on my mediocre blog.

До свидания!

James

 

Is Modern Music Too Well-Made?

Hello you,

I thought I’d move away from political topics because a) I can’t be arsed and b) current politics can be pretty much summed up with the words “shit’s fucked, yo”.

Now if you’re confused about the title, you’re probably asking how music can be “too well made”.

Well let me explain rather than interrupting me. God. So rude. Learn some manners. Especially you. Yes, you in the corner. Don’t act all shocked. Where are you going with this James just get on with it you nob.

Yes, anyways.

Today’s music is very well produced. We’ve made huge leaps in technology and you can definitely hear the difference that it’s made. The instruments are perfectly clear, with no faults or distortion to be found. The vocals are perfect, crystal clear, hitting every note with perfection. At the moment, the top two singles on the UK singles chart are 1) Cold Water by Major Lazer with appearances from Justin Bieber and MØ (of Lean On fame), and 2) Perfect Strangers (unfortunately not the brilliant song of the same name by Deep Purple) by Jonas Blue (yeah I’ve never heard of him either). These are both perfect examples of what I mean. Produced to oblivion with angelic vocals and squeaky clean beats. They are, technically, musical perfection.

However, they’re both shit songs.

The only word I can think of to describe them is ‘soulless’. Actually ‘generic’ fits quite well. Also ‘passionless’. ‘Garbage’ is another one. But the main term I’d use is soulless. These songs have no character, no life. If they were a living thing, they’d be a shark. Efficient and tuned to perfection, but with a tendency to eat baby seals a ruthless killing machine. In that they will make a killing commercially. Yes I know this metaphor is a stretch, fight me about it.

Bet you that shark’s listening to Justin Bieber.

I can just imagine it now, the producer making the beat at their workstation, dollar signs flashing in their eyes as they know their song will have so much mass appeal and be so inoffensively mediocre that it’s bound to make a killing. The singers standing behind the microphone in the studio, drugged up to their eyeballs and…wait a minute what am I on about, if they were on drugs the songs might actually attain some level of character. Let’s change that to sedated up to their eyeballs, practically reading off a script written for them by some nob in a business suit who thinks he’s all that. Either that or they wrote it themselves, but whilst they were half-asleep and losing the will to live. Even though the video for Perfect Strangers shows two young people travelling about the world, falling in love, etc., they still manage to make that generic as fuck. To be fair though, it’s so overdone that probably wasn’t a hard thing to do.

“OK guys, I’ve got this really original idea, we make a song featuring two popular, inoffensive artists that have less soul than Beelzebub himself”

I just cannot imagine a different creative process for these kinds of songs. You can’t imagine the artists doing anything that involves some sort of character or creativity. They weren’t all sitting about in the same room,  brainstorming ideas, engaging with each other, using their souls (“Oi, James, stop writing like a ponce” Oi, you, stop interrupting me). For God’s sake, this music could’ve been produced in a factory, it certainly feels like it was.

The thought process of everyone in the pop music industry.

Some may disagree with me. And I wouldn’t blame them, I’m probably quite the music supremacist when I think about it, but when I listen to songs like Cold Water, something just feels off. It’s too well made. It’s too perfect. The subject matter is too vague and generic. You just know it was made to cater to the largest audience possible, and thus get the largest amount of revenue as possible.

This doesn’t necessarily go for every mainstream artist. Let’s take Miley Cyrus for example. This argument could be quite a challenging one to try and put forward because her music is, to put it politely, fucking awful, but hear me out.

You could perhaps levy the same accusations about Miley’s music being too well produced, but there is some sort of bizarre character to the vocals at least. She’s not the best singer, in fact, she sounds like a running washing machine with a brick inside of it, but hey, it’s better than sounding like a machine that was specifically designed to be absolutely pitch perfect. And she chooses topics that would not necessarily be chosen by a soulless producer looking for a quick buck, mostly involving sex and the like. I mean, it does come off as rather try-hard but she is trying. Bless her little, slightly completely mental heart.

The saviour of the music industry? Maybe not. Definitely not actually.

I know the above argument isn’t the strongest, but what can I say, I like a challenge.

Of course, you can listen to whatever you want, I ain’t gonna stop you, but I feel like this is the way mainstream music has been going for a while now, towards this huge, black, abyss of nothingness, blandness, and Major Lazer. And I don’t want it to carry on going down this path, because then more and more people will only hear this overproduced tripe, and will only find out about good, soulful music by actually having to search for it, which, to be honest, most people do already. So that’s kind of a null point. But you catch my drift yeah? Good.

I could go on but that’ll probably suffice. I might do more stuff on this topic. I’m definitely gonna do more music stuff. I like music. It’s great. Sounds ‘n’ shit. Top notch.

I bid ye, adieu.

James

 

The Language of Music

Y’alright. I’m James.

Welcome to a blog where I ramble on (coherently and incoherently) for an indeterminate amount of time about either a) a random topic about which I feel very strongly or b) the less likely option, something that’s happened in my life recently that’s interesting enough to talk about. I’m mainly doing this because I wanted to have a platform on which it would be possible to give some opinions on things but it’s too much effort to start a YouTube channel. Like, seriously. YouTube costs money. Buying a camera and stuff is expensive and you have to learn how to edit and urgh. Basically, I just can’t be arsed.

I’ll introduce myself now I suppose. Is this how blogs work? I don’t know. Blog’s a funny word when you think about it. Blog, blog, blog. Sounds like the name of a troll who lives under a bridge.

What was I talking about?

Oh yeah, me.

I’m 18 years old, studying German and Russian at the University of Leeds. I’m just finishing my first year and will be going on my year abroad in Moscow in September. My permanent residence is in the village of Bum-fuck-nowhere in Kent, as southern as can be, to where I’m going back soon for the summer. I’m 6’ 3”, have green eyes, like long walks on the beach, have a penchant for custard creams and…wait am I going into too much detail here?

Me, “studying”.

I think that’ll do it for my introduction, now let’s get into the actual blog bit.

One thing that’s very important to me is music. Whatever mood I’m in, wherever I am, I’m probably listening to music. And it doesn’t matter what genre either, I can go from listening to Eminem to obscure Russian techno to Rammstein quite easily. This leads on to my next point, that, as a linguist, I’m a massive fan of foreign music.

Yet my multilingual love for music is not commonly shared by my friends.

I am rarely put in charge of the Spotify playlist at any party, even if it’s my own party (true story), because, for some reason, 90% of my friends just don’t go for grimy Russian gangster rap and shit German dance music. Unbelievable I know. The only time I’m let loose with the music is when everyone, myself included, has had a bit (see: a lot) to drink and couldn’t care less what’s playing in the background because they’re too busy being absolutely spannered.

But this begs the question, why don’t more people enjoy music that’s in a different language?

The only foreign music that’s been super popular in the English-speaking world is absolute shit stuff like Gangnam Style and the Macarena, which were passing fads and were only popular because they went along with some god awful dance move, plus in the case of Gangnam Style, a ‘quirky’ music video. Anything else that’s in a different language seems to be shunned by most people. But I have to ask myself: why?

We let this happen.

I don’t know why I’m asking myself because I don’t have a clue.

In my opinion, the language can vastly improve a song depending on the genre. German metal is fantastic, mainly because German, being a fairly harsh and blunt language, works well with a genre that’s generally going for the same sort of vibe. The same goes for Russian and rap. Russian, spoken in a certain way, can sound like the scariest language in the world, even if you’re just asking where the train station is, and that’s the style that gangster rap goes for. They want to sound harsh and unforgiving like a Siberian winter, and the Russian language can capture that essence perfectly. That is not to say that these languages don’t work in other genres, of course they can (Russian pop in particular is gloriously cheesy), but they work particularly well in the ones I’ve mentioned.

Terrifying.

“But I can’t understand what they’re saying! WAAA!”

Boo-hoo, suck it up.

For me, the meaning of a song’s lyrics is just a bonus. Sure, some lyrics, no matter what the language, can have really deep and emotional meanings, there’s no denying that. However, I feel that the majority of the feeling in a song is conveyed by the sound of the song itself (and the music video on occasion), rather than the content. I have a song in my library that’s in Turkmen, which is spoken almost exclusively in Turkmenistan (yeah you might need to look that one up on a map, I had to) and I can’t understand any of what the singer’s banging on about, but it’s one of my go-to songs when I’m in a good mood because it’s so upbeat and just goddamned pleasant to listen to. Call me weird but hey, what can I say. Ha, that rhymed.

It’s basically in Narnia.

Overall, a piece of music could be in the most obscure language ever but if the singer’s got a nice voice and the music’s good, I’ll listen to it. And you should too. But you don’t have to. You have a right to your opinion. Even if your opinion is WRONG. Just kidding, your opinion isn’t wrong. But it isn’t right either. Or it might be. I don’t know. I told you some of my rambling would be incoherent.

Anyway, that’ll do it for my first blog post thing. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it, and if you have any feedback, positive or negative, let me know! Make sure you join me next time when I’ll be discussing…something. I don’t think that far ahead. I live for the moment don’t you know.

See ya ’round.

James