i am the maker of rules

Saturday Aug 2nd 2008

The title of this bloggo is a lyric from a song I really like.

Speaking musically I haven’t done much in several months. Yeah I’ve done a few things here and there but nothing spectacular. More or less I’ve been trying to decide what to release next. Should it be synth? Classical? Rock? Metal? No clue. One of these days (hopefully someday soon) I’ll decide exactly what I want to do musically and just do it.

Something I said years ago (don’t know if on this blog or not) is that music revolves in cycles. That means whatever was popular then will be popular again in one form or another. As it turns out there are a few synthpop artists who have been breaking ground. This is an offshoot of new wave. It’s all the stuff that was popular in the early 80s that seems to be resurfacing now.

I checked out the Billboard top 10 right now and yeah, the scene is terrible at the moment. Lots of over-processed garbage with no feeling to with at all. It’s definitely ripe for new wave and synthpop to make a splash.

The deal with new wave and synthpop is that there’s a lot of “let’s be a fool and not care” attitude. Generally speaking it’s fun music and people really need that right now.

I’d say the best part about these styles is that it totally embodies the “wolf in sheep’s clothing” thing. What that means musically is that usually with a song of this style, the lyrical content is odd/weird but wrapped in a happy poppy sound. A classic example of this is 867-5309 (Jenny). If you read the lyrics, the song (on the surface) appears to be about a prostitute or some ex-boyfriend who wrote a number on a wall that a bunch of guys call. But then you hear the song and it sounds just like a normal pop song.

Another one is Little Girls by Oingo Boingo. That song is just flat-out messed up. See the video on that link and you’ll understand exactly why.

I’d never write a song like Little Girls, but the fact it got recorded and got airplay and got on MTV says something. It says that if you can write a catchy song you can pretty much get away with anything.

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