Modern Music and The Future

I was thinking the other day about old people. I'm not too sure how I feel about the idea of getting old, it never looks like much fun. There is however, one particular facet which I am looking extremely forward to.

One thing the elderly seem to particularly enjoy is listening to the music of their youth. It must evoke memories of a long past hey day when the world was young and anything is possible. A once familiar sound, long since forgotten could suddenly awake new life into the winter years of these fine individuals.

This is all very well and good when the big hits are 'It's a long way to Tipperary' and 'We'll meet Again', but what about our generation? What combination of music and lyrics will bring us back from the brink of an endless grey reality?

Will THIS be a common site in nursing homes and residential care centres across the U.K. by 2075???

I SURE HOPE SO!!!!

When I Dance

When I dance....

It looks like I'm having a seizure in slow motion

Its a far cry from the intended result

O2 Y U no luv me?

I like to think of myself as a moderately social person. In my younger days you could often see me languishing about clubs in the early hours of the morning, surrounded by many a chum. My social activities at present are rather more tame, but get out and see people I do. When I don't feel like seeing people, I do what any respectable person would. Retreat to the sofa and watch TV until my eyes bleed.

Sometimes however, there is an incongruity between what I want to do and what my friends feel like doing. I would like to do something, and they would like to do nothing. This is a period of high personal vulnerability. Bearing in mind I also have literally no initiative when it comes to organising my social activities and tend to just wait for people to contact me. It's at THIS precise moment, when I'm sitting along in my house, waiting for my phone to do something, that this then occurs.

A FRIEND!!!!!!!!

 I scuttle over to my phone, imagining all the fun I am going to have with my as yet unspecified friend.

Enjoy a salad

Watch a movie

Partake in healthy, outdoor pursuits

Laugh at your friend's really old phone

Then I realise who wants to talk to me.

I don't know HOW O2 knows how I'm feeling like this, but they always do. Because of the already sad feelings brewing inside me, the blow is is particularly crushing. The pièce de résistance occurs when the offending text is informing me that I am out of calling credit. It's like O2 is saying to me 

'Not only are you a loner, you're broke as fuck too. Have a nice day :D' 

Motherfuckers. 

Musical Tumours

This may sound like a bizarre topic of conversation, but I swear it makes perfect sense and has nothing to do with real tumours. It could quite easily have been called 'Musical Fungal Infections' or 'Musical Tapeworms'.

In order to properly explain what a musical tumour is, first the 'Scale of Music' needs to be discussed. The Scale of Music is a simple way of classifying popular song and is comprised of two extremes. At one end you have your high brow thinking man's music; James Blake, The Knife, Bjork, Postal Service, anything by Laurie Anderson. The sort of bands you quote at people when you're desperately trying to impress them.

At the other you have your gratuitously cheesy bubblegum pop. The Venga Boys, Blue, The Glee Soundtrack. The sort of stuff you  sing along to at weddings and when your doing housework. Stuff at this end is hardcore guilty pleasure, you love it, but that love is tinged with self loathing.

In the middle lies the Twilight Zone, Top 40 bands which in no way are going to alter your perception of the Universe, but are a far cry from Gina G. Bands like Coldplay, Maroon 5 and the Arctic Monkeys. Inoffensive 'four chords and the truth' set-ups. It's within THIS zone that the musical tumour is born.

A musical tumour is an artist, band, or even a song that you DESPERATELY don't want to like but eventually do. They grow on you against your will; like a tumour. My most recent encounter with this phenomenon at the hands of the ginger haired guitar swinger Ed Sheeran. When he first began gracing the airwaves of British popular radio stations I was all like:

Three Short Months Later......

This pattern has repeated itself many times. Over the Summer I had to begrudgingly accept that I did like Coldplay, after a long period of solid scorn. 

The most bitter pill to swallow was my emerging love of The Smiths. For years I had hated the Smiths, and I had not been quiet about it.You could almost define me as a person by my hatred of The Smiths. You know how some people are good listeners, or enjoy painting? I hated The Smiths. It was universal and all encompassing. It's what I did. 

Not anymore......

It is a hell unlike any other. 

The Six Stages of Binge Drinking

This is a post inspired by many of the Friday nights since I turned 16.

As any of you who have passed  this prestigious milestone will know, around this time awakens a strange and unfamiliar urge in many young people. The urge to go round to your friends houses, persuade their older siblings to go out and get you booze, and get as shitwrecked as is humanly possible.

  Eventually I turned 18 and the party moved into clubs, dark rooms with  loud music where you think you can dance. But really you can't. These evenings invariably end up with me disgracing myself in one way or another, and waking up in a pile of broken memories and shame.

You would have thought that I'd have learnt by now, but unfortunately not.  However this un-goldy repeating pattern has allowed me to cast my scientific eye on it, and breakdown the process that leads to me making a twat of myself.

There are several 'stages' and 'phases' involved. We will begin at the beginning.

The Predrinking Phase: 

Stage 1: Initial alcohol


This is a very insidious stage. You have gone round your friends to predrink. You pour out some liquid death and mixer, and throw it down the hatch. Nothing happens. Repeat. Before long you will be at stage 2. (See Below)

Stage 2: Bullshit 


In an IDEAL world, you would stay at this stage of drunk all night. You can no longer taste the alcohol, and instead are making very good lifelong friends with whoever is within earshot of you. The title of this stage comes from the subject matter of which you are discussing. Bullshit. Mountains of it. However you're so drunk that not only is what your saying making sense to YOU, it also seems to be having a positive impact your new friends. You're having some of the most profound conversations of your life. Your discussions have all the philosophical pannaz of a Morgan Freeman narration, and a wit that rivals that of Oscar Wilde. To YOU, your conversations feel like this:

Other people may view it differently:

After a couple of hours of this, it's off to the Club of choice to let the REAL bad decisions commence.


The Clubbing Phase 


Stage 3: The Lethal Phase 


***WARNING*** AT ALL COSTS AVOID THIS STAGE ***WARNING***

Even though you put down your last drink 15 minutes ago, you want more, you NEED more, you can totally handle more. Off you trot to the bar to buy some booze.

The full impact of this decision won't be felt for a couple of hours yet, so in the meantime, it's off to watch your primal instincts go into overdrive.


Stage 4: The extreme emotion Phase 


At this point in our journey, your brain hits a road. Three pathways wind in front of it, each with it's own strange and marvellous outcomes. These pathways direct you into becoming a rampaging pinnacle of a singular emotion. For more information, see stages 4a-c.


4a: Sexy You 


Dear GOD you're attractive. The fates were certainly smiling the day YOUR features were arranged you dapper son-of-a-bitch. And what's this? EVERYONE in the surrounding area is attractive too! Have you stumbled into heaven? Have you gone mad? How did you not notice that you were a God among Addonises until this moment?!? Quickly! Somebody needs to know! You spot someone. Sweet Jesus they're beautiful. You can lure him in with your Beyonce-esque dancing skills and sexy sexy eyes. Oh God they're coming over! Your not fussed. Your as cool as a cumber. In a fridge. With mad dancing skills like you've got, where else would they go? Your not going to beat around the bush. Who's got the time? Your Just going to tell it like it is.

4b: Angry You 


A number of things can induce this stage. Maybe the drinks offer you thought was on, wasn't on. Maybe your mate got kicked out because he was drunk and pissing against the D.J. Maybe the taxi cost £1.50 more than you were expecting and you had to go to the cash point. Granted, all of these things are annoying, however when you this drunk, they're not just annoying. You feel like the Incredible Hulk must feel while wading through a Nazi-Paedophile convention. An unholy injustice has been dealt and the only way to combat it is to yell loud personal insults repeatedly.

4c: Sad You 


This is an ethereal stage. It cannot be pinned down by any description or diagram, and it's causes are one of the seven wonders of the modern world. I can only humbly recreate the stages of events. Using Microsoft Paint.

Stage 5: The Reality Apocalypse


Remember all those drinks you ordered earlier? Me neither. Which is why this stage is so horribly confusing and upsetting. The shots that you consumed hours previously, the ones that have the power to take down a stallion have finally caught up with you. You go from this:

To feeling like you've been shoved in a washing machine and kicked down the stairs. Up becomes a strange concept and gravity is on the run.

It's like being on the least fun roller-coaster ever and YOU CAN'T GET OFF. Your only hope is to cling perilously to something and pray that the world rights itself sufficiently for you to get the fuck out of there.

Stage 6: Gorging 


Once 3:30 am rolls around and if you managed to avoid stage 3, and by extension, stage 5, the lights will come on and you'll belt out Robbie Williams 'Angels' while clinging to a bunch of people you may or may not know. After this it's time to stagger out the doors and find a taxi. But an important stop must be made along the way:

I've never been able to fathom WHY indeterminant meat and fat congealed in a Styrofoam case with enough salt to give a walrus a stroke is so appealing at 4:00am. All I know its that it is. You would step on a puppy with cancer for a kebab at 4:00am.

That'll Do Pig 


Stage 7: Pass Out 

                              The END