The stuff kids listen to these days...

Last night Middlebrook Hall Council put on a pretty awesome Halloween dance for which I was the DJ. This was probably a good choice, given that the only music I dance to is folky Contra music so I was able to completely concentrate on my job. From my night in UDS I made some observations about the grim state of most peoples' music listening tastes:

• Music from this year or last year is cool. Anything older than this, except for a few "classic" songs that have been vetted by going multi-platinum, is terrible. Also anything that isn't a single. (Except maybe the aforementioned "classics")
• All popular music has the exact same beat. This beat has been decided upon by the Crazy Dance Party Cabal, which determined the optimal speed people like to dance at and the maximal amount of bass they can tolerate and set it as the gold standard of beats.
• Popular songs consist of this beat with singing and some melodic elements thrown on top so they don't all sound the same.
• Rap songs consist of this beat, maybe with a few other beats, along with rhythmically spoken vocals and slight melodic elements/sound effects.
• If the music for a song can't be generated in half an hour by a guy working in Garage Band on a MacBook, forget it. It's too complicated. Heaven forbid that your song incorporates real instruments!
• Most dance pop songs are about dancing to dance pop. If this is too self-referential to you, you have no taste.
• If a pop song isn't about dancing, most likely it's about emotional love/relationships/a past, present, or future significant other. We're not trying to break peoples' brains or anything.
• Teach Me How to Dougie is the most popular song in the world right now, despite not actually teaching the listener how to dougie.

If you desire to break free from the American musical mainstream, this blog is the place for you! (Or a place; i don't claim to know about or enjoy every alternative)