A New Direction

I'm announcing a new direction and purpose for this blog. I love writing about music and these past three months of getting my feet wet in music criticism have been challenging and exciting. I really want to get this off the ground and, accordingly, I've been trying to find a good, exigent niche for my blog to fill. There's dozens--hundreds, even--of music reviewing websites, blogs, journals, magazine, etc., and it's practically impossible as a one man band to compete with them in terms of volume of music reviewed or content posted.

I mean, we can't all be "The Internet's Busiest Music Nerd."

So, how can I stand out? The answer to this question has been sitting, elephantile, in the room of my mind for months now.

This blog, as will my music library generally, will henceforth be devoted to finding the best of uplifting, clean, vulgarity-free music. And by this, I don't at all mean purely religious or nauseatingly overdone "family friendly" music. I mean simply music whose messages and lyrical choices uplift and don't degrade.

I came to this conclusion while listening to a talk by a religious leader of my church, the LDS Church, this weekend. In the talk, Larry Lawrence (I know, why would you name your kid Lawrence, Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence?) spoke on the subject of drawing closer to God, asking a question a man once asked 2000 years ago: "What lack I yet?" For months now, as I've been delving into popular music after returning from my mission, I've felt a nagging at my mind that I need to cut out vulgar music from my life. These feelings particularly came after falling in love with Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp A Butterfly, which follows the unfortunate trend of hip hop being unnecessarily vulgar and crude, and Father John Misty's I Love You, Honeybear, which is a brilliant but incredibly crass album.

I tried to slip these thoughts under the rug because these albums, and several others similar, were so good, even if they were offensive.

But even if I don't mind being offended, I know God does, and where this language is, He withdraws. After all, I know songs like "For Free?" ("This d*** ain't freeee!") and "Nothing Good Ever Happens at the Goddamn Thirsty Crow" will not be played in heaven. So, why not get a head start and give them up now?

So, I went through my Spotify playlists and removed all of the vulgar music. I was amazed to find that this only require removing a dozen or so albums, and even fewer songs, from my "Favorites of 2015 (So Far)" playlist.

I know it may not seem important to my agnostic or atheist friends, or others who don't feel vulgarity makes any difference in art and entertainment. But for my friends who, like me, thinks it makes a big difference, I hope you'll find the blog a haven of refreshingly clean, cutting edge music.

As part of this change, I'll be adding a content rating to my scores (probably something like G, PG, PG13, R, or maybe A, B, C, F etc.) and I might even change up the name of the blog to better promote this aspect. Anyway, thanks for your support! Long live good music!