March 22, 2012

• Music and Me

  I kind of gave away everything about this the other day, and being extremely lazy this morning, I’m going to just re-post what I wrote then, here:

  I’m at it again!  Yesterday I realized that we are doing different books than I had on our school schedule, and that I have to fix that.  But as I went into Excel, I found that – every year – I made a new chart for art, composer, crafts… reinventing the wheel.  And if we didn’t hit something the year before, it got buried in my archives, never seen again.  Which isn’t… efficient.  Or good.  So I condensed all hymns to a master list.  All crafts are already here on my blog – I don’t need it twice – so I deleted ALL that from my files. 

  And then I was doing up a composer page… and realized that the book we’re working out of only has TEN composers in it.  It doesn’t even have Brahms, hello!  As a former music major, that is UNFORGIVABLE.  So I went to Amazon and found free e-reader resources that were far more comprehensive… and I had to fill in all these composers around my ten, and then I realized that the information stopped at 1910… so I did up the second half of the page as little ‘highlights’ – with the 12 most famous/groundbreaking musicians of each decade up thru 1990.  ((And then I ran out of room.))  I worked it so that each little box can be cut out and pasted right into our Book of Centuries.  I’ll have to upload that and share it with you.

  But the more I think about it, I don’t know that I did a good job of it.  See, I’m good thru 1970… in fact, I could’ve listed QUADRUPLE the artists, because the 20s to the 60s is my music of choice.  ((I didn’t like much from the seventies, outside of Simon/Garfunkle, Ann Murray, Neil Diamond and Jim Reeves.  Motown sucked and Elton John was a fruitcake and half the artists were high on who-knows-what.  And C.W. McCall was THE most abhorrent of all, and I swear, I gritted my teeth thru him on a regular basis.))  So after the 60s…?  Not so much.  First, my mother didn’t have music from the 80s or 90s, and while I was alive thru the whole of BOTH of them, we were hellfire n’ brimstone at that time (pretty much), and I spent my time listening to Amy Grant, Carman, Michael W. Smith, and Twila Paris during those years.  While reading books on the dangers of satanism in rock music and backmasking as the devil’s tool.  I was 16 and deeply certain that Mormonism is a sick cult, aware of how Mike Warnke escaped demon-possession, and Elaine Somebody-or-other had actually been a bride of Lucifer who had real werewolves after her.  I was busy annointing doorways and boomboxes with oil and putting on the armor of the Lord, piece by piece every day, to be sure to escape the wiles of the sulfuric, satanic host by way of devout christianity.

  Aren’t you glad Christianity mellowed out
  and became more ‘seeker sensitive’?

  So anyhow, I, um, kinda missed the secular music scene of those eras.  Aside from A-Ha, which was my ‘sinner music’.  We were in England during my tween years, and A-Ha was THE sha-zizzle in London, and my friend Wendy made a copy of A-Ha for me, and I listened to it thru my high school years, as my ‘rebellious’ music.  When I was mad at my mom I would go to my room and turn on A-Ha and… clean my room.  Take THAT, Mom.  ((<<< I had issues.))  And since A-Ha was considered a one-hit wonder in the US, I can’t in good conscience consider them important to music… but because we listen to them in my house (nostalgia and all that), they’re on my list.

  I’m just ‘xplaining so you don’t laugh when you see my list.
  Okay… ready?  Here it is:

  
  Click to enlarge, or get the .doc here.

  I’m pretty sure I missed some important ones, but I don’t know who should be included and who shouldn’t, so I took guesses.  Then in hindsight thought, “I should’ve put Boy George on there… or would it be ‘Culture Club’?” or “Crap, what about Metallica? I hate Metallica. And Joan Baez…!! I didn’t represent the 70s ballad… or does Peter, Paul, and Mary count?”  And “Leonard Berenstein?  Does he fit?”  And “what about rap?  MC Hammer… was he a rap forerunner?  And what about Vanilla Ice, and the white man’s rap?  I know nothing about rap… Snoop Dawg had his own language… is that noteable?”  As you can see, I’m not settled on my list. 

  And here’s where YOU come in.
  I need help.

  Who would you include on the list?  I did go online to a site that listed the top 100 songs for each year, 1920 thru 1990, and who performed them, but that doesn’t mean a whole lot when you get to the past three or four decades… because just about everyone has only one or two mentions.  When there’s a hundred songs, that’s over FIFTY artists to choose from!  So I picked the most widely known ones (by me)… which leaves a lot of room for error.  So if you have suggestions… I’m open to them.  Remember, I’m trying to represent ALL the styles and innovations of music – not just what was popular or odd.  For example, KISS is pretty famous, but not really landmark… but I was torn over the Rolling Stones.  And also remember, I don’t have a lot of room to work with, here, either.  But still… HELP, please.

  And more:  Music of 2000 to 2010.  What do you think?  I have Brittney Spears, Enya, Beyonce, Lady Gaga, Daughtry, Kelly Clarkston (the whole American Idol craze representation), Hannah Montana, Taylor Swift… but I really don’t know a whole lot.  Gwen Stefani?  Coldplay?  Katy Perry?  Avril?  Eminem?  Rhianna?  Ludacris? What about boy bands?  I’m not up on my more recent music.  So help, help, help!  It’s greatly appreciated… and maybe I can get this thing fixed up and acceptable.

  • 11:30 am
  • 14 Comments