an experiment in mediums

A friend of mine was showing me some photos and sketches they had done and I wondered if I could combine the two mediums in a way that didn't necessarily look natural, but at the least, well blended. This was the end result. I hope you like it.

From my collection

Tribute to Van Goth

Am I a music snob?

When the question was first posed to me as to why I only listen to female singers I thought the answer would be fairly simple.  My toss off answer was that if I wanted to listen to men singing like women I may as well just listen to women; but perhaps it isn't as simple as that.

Even before I (almost) exclusively started listening to female singer/songwriters I realized that most of my favorite songs were by women. Sure, there were some bands that I liked without women but they tended to be the exception and even then I listened more for the lyrics or instrumentation than for the vocals. I found most male singers had droning or nasally voices, or they tried as hard as they could to sing like Mariah Carey at some point in the song. Considering I don't like her screeching, why would I like some dude doing it?

 Breaking it down even more, however, I found that in each genre or style of music the songs all seemed to be about the same thing. This is particularly true about the traditionally male dominated Country Music field. They sing about the South and "Murika" and how great the U.S. is and other patriotic crap like that; They sang about driving, tractors and  farms, trucks, drinking, or women. Sometimes all in one song. Oh and lets throw God or Jesus in there just for good measure.

Well, I don't drive a truck and really have no interest in hearing anyone sing about how much they love their truck or how they need a woman to sit next to them in their truck, or how the women aren't good enough to sit in their truck. Frankly guys that drive big trucks to validate their masculinity are seriously over compensating. I don't buy into all the patriotic crap that just gives lip service to the South and how they'll "Rise Again." The South lost, get over it and move on. I don't go out drinking every weekend so I have no desire to hear about how drunk they got, how drunk they were going to get, or how hung over they are before going out and getting drunk again. I'm not saying all country music is bad, but generally speaking, Good Ol' Boys have no room on my radio.

Pop/Rock music is another thing entirely. Here everyone thinks they need to scream at you or do runs upon runs. I don't care how many notes you can hit in one breath. It just means that your lyrics are so bad and you couldn't come up with anything that rhymed so you would just do runs for 30 seconds and hope nobody notices the utter lack of subtly or craft in your songs. That is of course, provided anyone can figure out what your song was about in the first place. Honestly, sometimes I think you just handed someone with tourette's a microphone and let them screech whatever random words come out into an auto-tuner. Again, why would I want to listen to someone's verbal vomit?

As for Jazz and the blues, do I even have to explain it? I mean every single song is the same. Same tempo, same instrumentation, same topics.....unless its Modern Jazz, then it just sounds like someone pushed a bunch of musicians down the stairs and recorded it for posterity. Or, they want to see how long they can play the same three notes over and over again. Doodly doo, doodly doo, doodly doo, doodly doo.....no doodly thank you.

So, I come to female singer/songwriters. I find that their lyrics (for the most part) contain some substance and thought. They approach life and the world from different perspectives, they look inside themselves, they take on taboo subjects, they care about connecting with their audience and their fans instead of trying to get them into their tour bus for a quick shag. They are inclusive and non-judgemental. In general they don't go around screaming all their lyrics or sound like someone stuffed olives up their nose. They let the lyrics speak for themselves without embellishing it with runs and rills. They make me think.

Does this make me a music snob....well, I'm okay with that.