Music

Dirty little secrets

So I would consider myself a music snob, what with the constant whining about DRM and shameless plugs to indie music from eMusic and all.

As a matter of fact, my music collection starts to thin out at about 1994. It’s pretty rare for me to get into a current group (and it’s not that I like that- nothing is more frustrating than getting really into yet another band that has already broken up).

And when I find that I like a current, mainstream group that has songs on the Top 40, I start to wonder if I’m getting enough sleep (in case you were curious, I’m not.)

If, by some freak collision of parallel universes that forms some kind of quantum anti-sonic-judgment irregularity restricted to the boundaries of my body, I like a current pop artist…

Well, you get the idea. It usually involves getting calls from Sheol about something being wrong with the heat.

So anyways, I haven’t admitted it on this blog in almost three years, but I have a dirty little music secret, and her name is Avril Lavigne (please hold your laugter until the end of the post.)

Yes, I know she can’t sing live. The computers that process her voice in the studio sing very well. Maybe I just like her producers. But anyways, back to the point: Avril Lavigne’s new CD, “The Best Damn Thing”, came out.
And it totally sucks. It feels like she took 4 years off of her age and started thinking that boys are all that matter. In other words, she betrayed whatever it was that I saw in her in the first place: a pop artist that showed potential to, in time, be tolerable. Nothing beats the chorus from her first single:

Hey hey, you you
I don’t like your girlfriend
No way, no way
I think you need a new one
Hey hey, you you
I could be your girlfriend

Hey hey, you you
I know that you like me
No way, no way
You know it’s not a secret
Hey hey, you you
I want to be your girlfriend

Or maybe the intro to her album’s title track:

I hate it when a guy doesn’t get the door,
even though I told him yesterday and the
day before…

I hate it when a guy doesn’t get the tab and I
have to pull my money out and that looks bad! (to fully appreciate these lines, you must sing them with the most bratty, preteen whine possible.)

So yeah. If this is a sign of things to come, I’m done with Avril.

But by complete coincidence, I happened to be downloading e-Sword,  an excellent free bible study tool. The project is handled by one guy named Rick Meyers. So I’m poking around his link page to see if there’s anything else worth downloading. And he drops this bomb:

OK, a shameless plug for my daughter 😉

Krystal’s debut album was released June 7th 2005 and had 4 top 10 hits including a #1! Her latest CD promises to do even better.

Click on the CD to the left to visit her web site…

I think, um… #1? Top 10 hits? I might not listen to top 40 radio, but I recognize the names… And Krystal Meyers is not one of them. I decided to click out of pure curiosity. (The last time I saw a “Christian” site link to their daughter’s CD, it turned out to be some freaky Neo-Nazi thing with three blonde-hair, blue eyed girls singing about white supremacy – creepy.)

So enter Krystal Meyers:
Krystal Meyers
(I know. Blonde hair. Blue eyes. But this one has no known ties to the third reich. And she loves Jesus.)

So one thing led to another…. A few streams and myspace visits later, I downloaded her latest album.

It’s poppy. It’s not “high art” for music by any means. She probably doesn’t write most of her own lyrics, and I hear that she can’t sing live either. It’s another Christian album that thinks a “Christian album” is made up with The Magic Formula: 50% songs about dealing with typical teen temptations, 40% general, nonspecific songs about how God is her only reliable foundation, and 10% songs about just having fun.

But for some reason that defies all paths of logical reasoning available to me at 1:50 AM, I like it.

And then I see the fan reviews and press hype… Yep, she’s being marketed as the “Christian Avril Lavigne”.

Crap. I fell for it.

Please don’t tell Steve Kimock. Or Spearhead. Or Ozomatli.

3 comments Dirty little secrets

Alan says:

Hey, I like Avril Lavigne too…
Do you recommend I download Krystal Meyers’ album?

Zeke says:

hmmm…. maybe.
She has a bunch of long previews on her website, check those out first. My opinion is that she’s like, “meh”, but in an addictive way.

Adam says:

The Nazis loved Jesus, but in a Catholic sort of way.

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