Word: listen
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Personally, I was a vehement pop music hater in high school. My conception of good music included Dave Matthews Band, alternative rock, ska-punk and little else. (Alright, so I did always have an 80s fetish). I didn't listen to much besides that, resulting in constant radio-control battles in the car with my rap-loving younger brother. Watching TRL was like being assaulted by singing Teletubbies. I couldn't tell N'SYNC and the Backstreet Boys apart, in pictures or on the radio...
...maturity that the band worked tirelessly to express in this new album. "Time" is not only well crafted with memorable hooks and excellent production, but also the first song in which all the boys had song-writing involvement. Constructed with the melodies that stand out prominently on the first listen, "Time" has the makings of a single that may finally establish the possibility of boy band autonomy from the Swedish music factory...
...when it's in its originally intended context. Beethoven didn't write his symphonies for musicologists and critics; he wrote it for prospective ticket purchasers. Those were his people. The other aspect is the reinforcement of how exciting performance is. We have CDs, and this is great. We can listen to whatever we want whenever we want. Before 1920 or so, if you wanted to hear music, you had to make it yourself or go to where someone was making music. Music existed only when someone was performing. If a CD performance wasn't good, the CD wouldn't have...
...performance at their premiere. And they've now been performed in many different ways. There are jazz versions of Handel's Messiah, there are Christian Rock versions also. Things become a masterpiece by subsequent people acknowledging them as such. Other things are masterpieces because you can just look or listen and say, "This is a masterpiece." The Rite of Spring was hated at its premiere. But it was still a masterpiece then, in absolute terms...
...When the Supreme Court speaks, people listen. And if the decision comes down for Bush by any score, Republicans will be baying with renewed ardor for Gore's head. A 5-4 decision, and it's pretty much just another partisan shouting match, albeit with both sides striving for the appropriate hushed tones when speaking of the Court itself. Make it 6-3 or 7-2 or more, though, and the buzzword on cable-news correspondents' lips will be "supermajority." And then it starts to echo...