Popular music annoys me. It all sounds so very drab and uninteresting, and bores the hell out of me. I’ve repeated this ad nauseum to poor Dena. Pop rock. Pop rap. Pop country. Pop pop. It’s all poop to me.
I never understood why the music that the majority of people like bothers me like it does, until I came across this video from comedian Rob Paravonian.
Almost everything in the grand ol’ banks of human knowledge was based on previous ideas, and music is no exception. However, sometimes inspiration results in duplication. On the Dean Blundell Show severals months ago, they frequently poked fun at Sum 41’s “Pieces” sounding eerily similar to Coldplay’s “The Scientist”, often playing the two songs simultaneously to illustrate the point. They then moved onto that crappy “Girlfriend” song courtesy of Avril Lavine sounding an awful lot like “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend” by the Rubinoos. Recently, while listening to the Dean Blundell Show, I heard the latest single from Linkin Park called “Shadow of the Day”. I’m not sure if anybody else has noticed this, but it totally reminds me of a slightly sped-up rendition of U2’s “With or Without You”. With the exception of U2, I normally wouldn’t listen to any of these bands if they weren’t played during the Dean Blundell Show. I like to prepare for work every day listening to their jokes about vaginas, farts and the combination thereof, so I’m willing to suffer through horribly boring music.
Paravonian is definitely on to something. I think the reason why I find most popular music so boring is because I’ve heard the same song too many times, regardless of whether it apes Pachelbel’s “Canon in D Major” or not. While I’m a fan of many bands who play the verse-chorus-verse variety of music that undoubtedly owes something to “Canon in D Major”, I now realise why bands like Sonic Youth, Boards of Canada, Butthole Surfers, Mogwai, Holy Fuck, Do Make Say Think and My Bloody Valentine are often part of my daily playlist.
