In Continuum.

For some reason, my sister's boss decided that it'd be time for some spring cleaning in the office. The first thing he decided to clear away from the office was his CD collection, which was strange because nobody just throws CDs away like that. But that's exactly what he was doing when my sister came into his office, which was also when she decided to see if she could find something that she might want. She found a CD by Lisa Ekdahl, a Swedish singer-songwriter who sings in, well, Swedish. She grabbed that CD for my mother as well as something else for me just before she left for home, and the one she took for me is no other than the album I have above. For some reason, my sister thought that I'd appreciate Destiny's Child's (don't you just hate the fact that I had to type to apostrophe Ss back there) latest album, Destiny Fulfilled. Either this is the best album out of the collection that her boss used to own, or she really doesn't understand the kind of music I go for. Or, maybe this is a silent jab from her to me, like some kind of practical joke. Either way, the album is sitting in front of my iMac right now, three girls staring at whatever that I am doing. Everything from wiping my nose to scratch my hair - this is getting just a tad bit uncomfortable, and I really cannot care less if they are not wearing any clothes. 

It's kind of strange that the only sing from this girl band that I remotely like is not even an original song by them. Emotions is a great song, and their cover does the original justice I must say. However, that song is not in this album, which makes the placement of this album in my bedroom even more redundant and irrelevant. Looking at the back of the CD, I don't recognize any of the songs printed underneath yet another picture of the three girls supposedly naked. Perhaps it wasn't meant to be in any way sexual, but they are supposed to be nude I suppose. This is how long I have been out of touch with the rest of the world, these songs must have escaped me in the airwaves, just went straight over my head because I have been paying my attention elsewhere. To tell you the truth, I probably don't regret the fact that I don't know the lyrics to "Lose My Breath" or "Soldier", I really cannot care less. I think they are a decent band, but I'm not a fan of anybody that dares to feature someone like Lil Wayne. I mean, why can't these artistes spell properly, anyway? Should we pronounce his name as "Lil" or "Little"? It's all very confusing. Another thing that rubbed me the wrong way was probably how "Cater To You" was spelled as "Cater 2 U". Why is it so hard for these people to spell properly? This is the album track list, not a text message. What's with the laziness to type a few more letters? 

Maybe I am just nit-picking on the little details, but I suppose the same thing applies to most songs in my own library. I don't deny that John Legend's "Used To Love U" makes me cringe whenever I see it displayed at the top of my iTunes or on my MSN contact list. It is a great song, it has everything that a R&B song needs, and more. But the title just rubs me the wrong way, the way that he used "U" instead of "You". I never understood the logic of that at all, the way people just want to shorten every single word in every single sentence that they use. Very soon, our language is going to disintegrate into a series of short forms, and no one is going to understand each other because we'd all be using only the first letter of every word to communicate. That'd probably be the shortest form of a word, and it'd be sad if we ever get to that. Like, the word "Love" would probably be replaced by just "L", and it doesn't matter if it clashes with a million other words or not. It has already started anyway, with a television show called "The L Word". Wait, which word are you talking about? Lobster? I hate short forms if they are unnecessary, and especially in song titles. That is also why I go through the trouble of formatting the song titles in my library actively. I am just that meticulous, so sue me. Speaking of which, wouldn't it be interesting for a lawyer to be called Sue?

I think from the song titles alone, it'd be easy to tell if this album is mainstream or underground. I know you shouldn't be judging a song that way, but my theory applies for most songs out there. Turning to the back of this CD, we have songs like "Girl", "Free", "Through With Love", and "Love". They are pretty generic names for song titles, something you would expect from a semi-pop band, I'd say. On the other hand, I shall pick The Decemberists as the representative of relatively obscure music. We have song titles like "Yankee Bayonet", "Shankill Butchers", and "The Island: Come & See/The Landlord’s Daughter/You’ll Not Feel The Drowning". Yes, that is one single title of a track in the album, though it is really three songs joined together into one. My point is, though, non-mainstream song titles just tend to have this vibe about them. You can't help but scratch your head and wonder what in the world the song is all about. Sometimes it makes sense just by reading the lyrics, sometimes it doesn't. Death Cab for Cutie has some of the best song titles, in my opinion. "Styrofoam Plates" don't mean anything until you read the lyrics, and then you realize the significance of the title to the song as a whole. 

Mainstream titles are just rather straight forward, though. The song "Love" is probably a song about, well, love. It doesn't really give room to a lot of imagination or interpretations. It's just a love song, whether it is love found or love loss, it doesn't matter. The song "Free" gives an equal amount of imagination, or lack thereof. It is probably a song about breaking free from something, a bondage of some kind in life. A bad relationship, probably, and checking the song lyrics up on a search engine proved me right. I am not saying that it is a bad thing of course, it all comes down to the content of the song that matters. After all, Death Cab for Cutie is also guilty of songs like "I Will Follow You Into the Dark". I mean, you look at a title like that and you won't be thinking that this song is about pancakes, right? I don't know why I said pancakes, but you get the point. I suppose the idea is that mainstream song titles tend to give you a very general and summarized picture of what the song is going to be about. Non-mainstream, maybe not so easy. Let's have a few more examples from the non-mainstream camp now. "Cozy in the Rocket" by Psapp, "Sweet Potato" by Sia, "My Favorite Book" by Stars, and "For The Widows In Paradise, For The Fatherless In Ypsilanti" by Sufjan Stevens to name a few. 

Then we have the album covers, there seems to be a great difference between mainstream materials as well as non-mainstream ones. Once again, this does not apply to every mainstream and non-mainstream album, but just majority of the ones that I have observed. Especially in the Asian market, having your face plastered on the cover of your album seems to be a must somehow. There is actually a rule that you have to have your face on the album cover in Taiwan, and I heard about it when a singer actually didn't want to have his face printed all over the front of the album. He actually wanted a picture of his study, with all the books and stuff on the front cover, but the record label wasn't very enthusiastic about that idea. According to him, they wanted him to put his face on the cover, as if his name isn't enough to sell the CD. So, that is exactly what he did, with his face all over the front cover, making him look just like any other CDs out there on the shelves. Non-mainstream albums tend to go for the obscure, and their album covers tend to have no meaning whatsoever. Take any album cover by Amon Tobin, for example, and you are probably not going to be able to decipher anything from it. Probably a stack of twisted metal, at least that is what I see myself. Or you could take any album cover by Beck and see just how strange the designs are. Really, they are. They don't try to make a statement most of the time. I have a feeling they just randomly throw together designs from here and there, then call it an album artwork. It's frustrating sometimes to have album cover like, say, Ulrich Schnauss' Goodbye cover, or The Campfire Headphase by Boards of Canada. But I suppose, more than the cover, it is the music that counts. 

Speaking of music, I hate it when people say that "music is dead", or that "good music is history". I think that is a very ignorant thing to say, to be honest. Sure enough, we don't have our Beatles, and we certainly don't have our The Eagles. This generation of music lovers are going to be remembered as the generation that head banged to hip-hop beats in clubs, choosing the same generic R&B songs over other quality music out there. It saddens me sometimes to know that my generation is going to be known to the next generation, to be the generation that supposedly brought music down to its knees. I mean, they are going to look at next year's Grammys nominees and then wonder how did Lil Wayne get so many nominations in the first place. The truth is, I think, there are great mainstream and non-mainstream music out there waiting for people to discover. In fact, I think the music business is more alive than ever before, but the life is just not captured underneath the public eye just yet. Record labels are too busy manufacturing the kind of artistes they want, so much so that they have forgotten the importance of distribution. It is sad that for the sake of some artistes, other better artistes are being left under the radar, and completely unheard of. It is as if you need to start plastering your face on album covers just for people to notice you, or to show more skin than you are comfortable with in order for people to buy your albums. It no longer is about the music that you make, but what people want you to make. Too much emphasis on the manufacturing and not the distribution, causing the lesser known bands to be swept under the rug despite their brilliance. How many of you know about Ulrich Schnauss, I mean seriously?

P.S. I am really starting to hate Christmas all over again. Apparently, television shows in America are all shutting down because the networks assume that everybody would want to watch Christmas specials rather than the regular shows like The Office and House. That explains the dead zone on the Internet right now, and I have no television shows to watch! The horrors of it all. Screw you, Christmas. 

P.P.S. The giant cupcakes on Orchard Road are lame.