A: Depressing music actually makes you feel depressed
This may surprise you, but there is actually music I don't like. Alright, that's not super surprising, but I mean music I really REALLY don't like, and almost all of it is sung by girls.
I know that might be a pretty horrible thing to say, but I can't help it. Its true! I cannot tell a lie! I'm not saying I don't like any female singers/ female-led bands (Kate Nash, Metric, Of Monsters and Men, The Ting Tings, Laura Marling, the list goes on!) but there is a certain kind of girl-with-guitar music that just makes me want to claw my ears off. Many people disagree with me (many many people I'm sure) and that's fine! They are entitled to their opinions (you, if on that side of the fence, are entitled to your opinion!) but I am also entitled to disagree with you. Because it isn't a sexist-based opinion, it isn't one born out of some deep seeded anti-songwriter ethos or overarching opinion on what music 'should be,' it is a gut reaction. Or a heart reaction. Or one brought on by whichever gland it is that makes you feel frustrated and angry and sad all at the same time.
Tonight I was listening to Sarah Harmer. Not my usual cup of tea, but I like some of her songs (more specifically some parts of some of her songs... even more specifically "Its late now and there's only four hours 'till I get up again. You know I'd wait somehow if I thought this was something that a little time would mend.") and my roomate was in the mood for a listen. It started out alright. It was just on in the background, I sang along with a few of the radio-played ones... then the inevitable happened- it became un-background. I started listening to all the lyrics, I started hearing the minor chords, the over-abundance of songs about wallowing in break-up sadness, and it started to get to me. it REALLY started to get to me! I became frustrated. I became annoyed. I became sad, and angry and upset. I started to think of all the ways in which my life makes me feel all of those things. and then I couldn't do it anymore. Either the music had to go, or I had to go!
Luckily it wasn't really that dramatic as there was only one song left on the album and my roomate was perfectly happy for me to switch it to something else. But it was the after that got me thinking. Because once we put on a different band, all of those feelings fairly quickly went away. No more frustration, no more sadness or anger, even the art piece I was working on suddenly started going right again.
I don't know if its the weather (I can handle much more frustrating music when the sun is shining- hell I can sometimes listen to Sarah McLaughlin in the summer! Well, in the car. On the highway. With the windows down. ok, ok I don't usually make it through a whole song, but still!) or the time of night or the key of the music or the tone of the voice, but something about girl-with-guitar-break-up-music just really gets to me. REALLY gets to me. In the worst possible way.
I don't mind lyrical rap and I kind of like wall-of-sound. Screamo is a bit loud but alright, and ska doesn't always do it for me, but sit me in front of a stereo with a song about how-much-you-still-love-someone-even-though-they-were-horrible-to-you played by a well-meaning songstress with a high voice and an acoustic guitar... Give it a whole album and apparently I am ready to do anything to get away. Like walk to the grocery store in minus twenty five (with snow), at eleven o'clock at night.
Apparently I really really don't like girl-with-guitar...
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