If you weren’t aware, I’ve put myself on a strict no-reading diet for nearly half a year now, and you can imagine that such a thing is terribly painful to me as I derive so much pleasure from sitting around discussing Bataille in coffee shops and trying to be the coolest person in the room. I’m not sure how kidding I am! But for certain, within these past six months is when I’ve finally started really growing to find students and professors fairly disgusting things–probably because I have a job. Anyway, that’s why I haven’t been writing about reading, and although I’ve continued to watch films, doing so has been entirely for the purpose of entertaining me during meals, and my strict no-reading diet is also a no-writing diet except for matters of business. So that’s been that. I have, however, been making quite an effort to listen to as much music as possible, and those songs that strike me I note, and have begun posting them on a different blog, which I’ve decided to move over here.
And I think I’ve finally torn down most of the walls I’d put up around music–I mean, yeah, pretty much everyone likes Britney’s “Toxic”–because while it’s a great pop song, it’s also a brilliant arrangement, so everyone is happy. But even people who say they like pop seem to choke at the mention of Justin Bieber. So I listened to his album. And “U Smile” is kinda one of my favorite songs now–I think it’s catchy and clever and pretty. But you want to know what’s pretty much my favorite song of all right now? This one. Words cannot describe how entirely perfect it is. Why it’s only a bonus track, who fucking knows, because I think it’s more solid than any other track on the album, even “Tik Tok”–seriously. Can you imagine if we took her cue moving forward, stripping arrangements down and forcing us to really focus on vocals like this? A lot of the past five years has been about really piling on the lushness, which I must admit I love, the lushness that’s difficult to tear apart because so much of it is built on delays and reverbs, infinite rooms–and what if you simply cut away just enough to leave an intriguing arrangement? I really can’t get enough of this song and I hope I never do.
arts & fetters 