Finding New Music

Now that I have no commute to work I've pretty much stop listening to the radio. Other than the 20 minutes in the shower (ok, probably closer to 30), I don't bother turning on my radio during the rest of the day. I've found that I just don't enjoy most of the DJ's in Boston anymore. They're either music snobs (which is a phase you should grow out of at 23), old guys trying to act like they're still back at the frat (dude, you're in your 40's with a kid - let go) or they're trying desperately not to offend anyone and get fired and thus are extremely bland and bring nothing to the table. And, I don't listen to sports talk because while I love talking sports with people, sports radio is like being in a one sided conversation where I can't add my two cents. Thus, it's pretty pointless.

But, as a result of not listening to the radio, I'm having a hard time discovering new music. I can only hear the same songs on my iPod for so long. Reading the list of Grammy nominees this year was startling because I knew very few of them. It was a long list of either people I had never heard of or songs performed by people I knew, but not for this music. So I went on a quest to hunt down some of this stuff with my computer (for the sake of copyright infringement we'll say it was using iTunes). For the first time in a long time, I was pleasantly surprised to find that there was good music nominated for the Grammy's this year. Normally they try and out-do themselves to pick music that was a sales thud, but they can claim is critically acclaimed. But this year featured some solid entries and a nomination for the Best New Artist Grammy may not end up being the kiss of death that it usually is (well, except for the Jonas Brothers. I've taken to calling them Hanson 2.0). Go ahead and look at the list of former nominees. It's a who's who? of one hit wonders. Seriously, Asia was nominated.

However, there is one problem with just downloading music and then hoping it's good. That would be the sneak-attack God song. It's really jarring when you are listening to a new song that you are getting into, only to hear them turn it into a song about God. Now, there have been lots of acts that have started out as Christian singers and then once they have started to get even the smallest bit of exposure they switch labels and pretend it never happened (Jessica Simpson, Evanescence and Creed spring to mind). So, it's not like these guys don't have talent or the music isn't well put together. You're just not expecting God to pop up in certain places is all. There was a song from the Transporter 2 trailer that starts out like any normal rock song and then the guy starts singing about Jesus. Did not see that coming.

I'll leave it to Boston boy Mike Birbiglia to put it into song for us: