SAY, WHAT?

I have always made a concerted effort to keep up with the goings on in the world, including fashion trends, entertainment and the arts. The internet and the world of blogging have aided greatly in these efforts to stave off being considered a relic. At times, as difficult as it is, I study why people like what they like, even when I don’t. If something appeals to people there must be a reason why and in my pursuit of being worldly, it behooves me to at least take a cursory look at their viewpoint.

One of the sources I occasionally peruse in my quest is reviews of entertainers. Here are a few I have come across from the printed media and internet blogs.

•Best overall set: Zakk Wylde's Black Label Society, exiled to the dusty Second Stage. The newly sober Wylde displayed no loss of radness, singing like a bear, tearing up a five-minute guitar solo and nailing the doom-laden riffs and bulldozer tempo changes.

•It’s a big leap, but if cracking open a thesaurus and large time investments are your bags, then Aesop Rock fills them to the brim with hyper-literate imagery, layers of spastic, tempo-shifting vocals (think mildly epileptic comic book collector), off-balance beats and scratches, and samples ranging from jazz to Eastern.

•By and large they can’t anymore, and the kind of songwriting mind that tosses off perfect, playful choruses now takes to Dr. Luke’s gum-snapping technopop instead.

•Butler’s lyrics come and go as they please and, like some sort of subterranean, acid trip jazz combo, the song structures burst open and tear off on their own at a moment’s notice. An improvisationally drugged out atmosphere pervades the album, but not in a crutched way, more in the way they play fast and free with form.

Say, what? What in God’s name did they say? I realize my music roots go back to Tony Bennett, Dean Martin and Fats Domino but over the years I have not hit the musical wall. I love the earthiness of country music and the harmonizing of the Beach Boys, Eagles and Simon and Garfunkel. Rod Stewart is one of my favorites as is Elton John. To show you I am not completely living in the oldie-but-goodie world, Kid Rock, Katy Perry and Shakira are among those I enjoy today. Like everyone else, I was saddened by the loss of Michael Jackson, my personal choice as the best total package entertainer of them all. There are surely better singers but no one moves like Michael. At the top of my Bucket List is just once in my life I would like to step on a dance floor and cut loose ala Michael Jackson.

I got a little carried away there but my point is can’t these critics write like they at least studied some English as well as music. If they had, I doubt if there professor would have told them to write their reviews in words that make no sense to any human being not stoned. They must have sat at their computers thinking “How can I put this so no one of sound mind will have any clue as to what I am saying?” Seriously! It’s as if being on the fringes of the entertainment business gives them an artsy license to throw words in a blender and see what pops out.

I’m just sayin’.