Champagne Symphony

I was talking to someone about writing a rap, and their response was, "oh, sure, why not, everyone can rap."  It kills me to hear comments like that.  It's the equivalent of saying, "oh, everyone can play the piano, you just hit the keys."  It's not as simple as that.  There's so much to rap both rhythmically and lyrically that people don't pay attention to.  Let's just deal with rhyming.  Take the chorus to Eminem's Without Me, for example. Now this looks like a job for me So everybo dy , just follow me Cause we need a little, controver sy Cause it feels so emp ty , without me There was a comment on a reddit thread deriding this chorus for being incredibly rudimentary, rhyming "me" with itself twice.  Now, that's true, but it completely misses the big picture.  The three "me"'s also rhyme with "everybody," "controversy," and "empty."  On top of that, he throws in

Demo of a song I just finished about graduating.  Thanks to Alec Leverette for the guitar solo.  Someday I'll actually learn how to play that damn instrument myself... http://soundcloud.com/felix-lin/boring-life Lyrics: [Verse 1] Camel lights on your breath and mine Talking ‘bout spring break this time Memories made in dim lit bars Troubles lost in speeding cars Hearken back to halcyon days When we had time to go astray Heady times for dashing thoughts ‘Fore our souls could all be bought [Chorus] Oh I long for the time when life could be boring Now we’re all being blown from our moorings Adrift for now Setting out searching for El Dorado ’94 Camry, no wheel, no throttle No wonder there’s doubt [Verse 2] The doomsday clock is counting down Striking fear without a sound Three more months till that day when From childhood we must wake The caps and gowns they’ll come in June Childhood gone away too soon Cheers in hope of

A decade ago, the U.S. experienced a dance pop renaissance.  The Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, *NSYNC and Christina Aguilera broke big and sold records on a scale today's teen idols can only dream of.  They had good looks, MTV-ready personalities, and flashy, choreography-heavy music videos, but, above all, they had great tunes.  Take Britney Spears.  Each of her first two albums had three classic pop songs.  Her first had ...Baby One More Time, Crazy, and Sometimes, and her second had Oops!...I Did It Again, Lucky, and Stronger.  You might still be embarrassed that you know these songs, but you have to admit they are all very good at what they were meant to do. Today's teen pop stars have no such luck.  They're lucky to get even one good song.  Justin Bieber has Baby and Miley Cyrus has Party in the U.S.A.  Luckily, the Koreans have been working hard over the past couple years to plug the gap.  If the U.S.'s teen pop explosion is Michael Jackson's

Pitchfork has this running feature called "5-10-15-20" where people write a little blurb about what music they were in to at 5 year intervals in their lives.  I figured it would be an interesting exercise to try and do this myself.  So here goes: Age 5: Vivaldi - The Four Seasons I can't say I remember much about being five.  I mean, I'm sure some of those scattered memories I have from my earlier childhood were from when I was five, but it's been so long now that they're all jumbled together.  Anyways, it's not like I listened to much music as a kid.  In a stunning display of restraint, my mom had yet to make me a part of the great Asian tradition of classical music education, and my parents were hardly the most musical of people.  I can't remember the last time I heard my dad listening to music, and my mom's musical knowledge barely extends past what shows up in the Yahoo! homepage. However, for as long as I can remember my dad