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About This Author
I am SoCalScribe. This is my InkSpot.
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Blogocentric Formulations
Logocentric (adj). Regarding words and language as a fundamental expression of an external reality (especially applied as a negative term to traditional Western thought by postmodernist critics).
Sometimes I just write whatever I feel like. Other times I respond to prompts, many taken from the following places:
 "The Soundtrackers Group" 
"Blogging Circle of Friends "
"Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise"
"JAFBG"
"Take up Your Cross"
Thanks for stopping by! 
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"Blog Harbor from The Talent Pond" PROMPT (DAY 29): Genres and reading choices. How often, if at all, you choose to go out of the borders of your reading preferences and give a chance to a genre you usually don't find appealing? Do you read all sort of books of all sort of genres or you usually stick to one type? Additionally to this question, I have found a quiz that will show you your reader's personality. Take the test and tell me which one you got  https://abookandahug.com/reader-types/
My reading preferences are definitely varied and widespread. I get bored if I read one type of thing for too long and often move from genre to genre as I find things to read. For example, the 34 books I've read so far in 2018 include science fiction/fantasy (13), mystery/thriller (11), nonfiction (7), action/adventure (2), and classics (1). By the time I get to the end of the year, I'll probably add books in at least two or three more genres, and the nonfiction category alone will probably add some additional subcategories to the ones I've already been reading in.
It probably shouldn't be any surprise, then, that when I took this "Reader Type" quiz, my results were pretty evenly balanced. I am equal parts The Investigator, The Champion, and The Jokester (I literally got the same scores for all three categories), and only slightly less for The Team Player. I think it's an odd breakdown of reader types, but every time I take one of these online tests to evaluate what "type" of something I am, I almost always end up as a blend of the different types rather than distinctly one of them.
As far as going outside my reading preferences, since I like so many different types of stories, it's hard to go outside those borders. I suppose the only major genres that I don't read with any degree of regularity are romance/erotica, literary fiction, and western. I'll read maybe a handful of books in those genres over the course of a year, when a particular story stands out, or a friend recommends a specific title. Generally speaking, though, I tend to not be as interested in those stories as ones in the other genres I've listed above.
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"Blog Harbor from The Talent Pond" PROMPT (DAY 28): Opening lines/paragraphs are usually the very first hook to a book when you start reading. If you are a novelist, and if you handle your work with such care, you'll probably want to start your novel with something that readers will capture at first, something that will tickle their mind or give that sensational feeling of curiosity for everything you'll go through by the time you finish the reading. How often do you notice opening lines and how often you memorize those? Are they important to you as they are important to me? Do you have favorite opening lines and if so tell me what are those?
I generally don't pay much attention to the opening lines of a novel. Sure, I can appreciate a good one, but since novels are longform writing, I'm much more concerned about the character and story development in the first 20% of the book than I am the specific construction of any one particular sentence. When I write my own books I do put a lot of thought into the first line just as a general challenge to myself, but I don't agonize over it unnecessarily.
Opening lines are much more important to my short fiction. With so few words to work with, every one counts and especially when you're first trying to hook a reader. I try to pay really close attention to the opening lines of my short stories and those that I review from others; when you've only got a few thousand or maybe even a few hundred words to work with, making a good impression with a strong first line is critical.
One of my favorite opening paragraphs is from Patrick Rothfuss' The Name of the Wind: "It was night again. The Waystone Inn lay in silence, and it was a silence of three parts." It instantly makes you want to keep reading because you're automatically filled with a bunch of questions. How can a silence have multiple parts? What are the three parts? Mystery abounds!
Some other book openings that really piqued my interest right away:
"I'm pretty much fucked.
That's my considered opinion.
Fucked.
Six days into what should be the greatest two months of my life, and it's turned into a nightmare.
I don't even know who'll read this. I guess someone will find it eventually. Maybe a hundred years from now."
From The Martian by Andy Weir
"The galaxy is a dumpster fire.
That's not the way the Senate and House of Reason want you to hear it. They want me - or one of my brothers - to remove my helmet and stand in front of a holocam, all smiles. They want you to see me without my N-4 rifle (I'm never without my N-4) holding a unit of water while a bunch of raggedy kids from Morobii or Grevulo, you can pick whatever ass-backward planet garners the most sympathy this week, dance around me smiling right back. They want me to give a thumbs-up and say, "At the edge of the galaxy, the Republic is making a difference!
But the galaxy is a dumpster fire. A hot, stinking dumpster fire. And most days I don't know if the legionnaires are putting out the flames, or fanning them into an inferno."
From Legionnaire (Galaxy's Edge Book 1) by Jason Anspach & Nick Cole
"Tommy Wiseau has always been an eccentric dresser, but on a late-summer night in 2002 he was turning the heads of every model, weirdo, transvestite, and face-lift artist in and around Hollywood's Palm Restaurant."
From The Disaster Artist by Greg Sestero
"Nate Tucker found out about the apartment as people often learn about the things which change their life forever - by sheer luck."
From 14 by Peter Clines
"The circus arrives without warning.
No announcements precede it, no paper notices on downtown posts and billboards, no mentions or advertisements in local papers. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not."
From The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
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It's been a crazy week at work (we have this small little movie called Avengers: Infinity War that opened last night  ), so I'm way behind in my blogging. For the sake of simplicity, I'm going to combine the past six days of ~Minja~  's book prompts into one entry. Here we go:
"Blog Harbor from The Talent Pond" PROMPT (DAY 22): What is that one book that you have read only once in your life and think you'll never be able to go back to it again? Whether it's because of the strong emotional impact it left on you, or because it was so bad that you dread from thinking about reading it again, or because it was part of the school literature you just couldn't get away from, or whatever reason that particular book made you not wanting to go back to it again. Tell us who is the author, what was it all about, and why is it that you think you can't read it second time or more?
I read a lot of self-published writing and aspiring authors' manuscripts, so if we're just going off bad books that I never want to read again, the list would be rather... extensive. Same for the list of books in school that we were required to read and I just hated. Instead, for this entry, I'm going to focus on books that I was excited to read or thought would be really good and ended up being huge disappointments (so much so that I never want to read or think about them ever again.
It would be pretty hard for me to go with anything other than the Twilight Saga for this one (although 50 Shades of Grey is a close second). I read the Twilight books (all of them, unfortunately) at my wife's request because she wanted to talk about them. I listened to the audiobooks on my commute and, honestly, it was the most excruciating 65+ hours of book listening I've been subjected to. The story and characters are insipid, and the writing itself is shoddy. There were points during the last two books in the series, where I would actually talk back to the audiobook, replying to particularly bad dialogue or prose by screaming things like, "Oh, come on!" and "You stupid idiot!"
It's rare that a book riles me up enough to actually talk back to it, so I figure that's the one I have to pick for a prompt about a book I don't plan on ever going back to.
"Blog Harbor from The Talent Pond" PROMPT (DAY 23): As funny as it sounds, there are a lot of books that are being banned by the government in different countries in the world for some silly reasons. For example, Alice in Wonderland is being banned in China for its portrayal of anthropomorphized animals acting on the same level of complexity as human beings  . The censor General Ho Chien believed that attributing human language to animals was an insult to humans. He feared that the book would teach children to regard humans and animals on the same level, which would be "disastrous". Here is the list of some banned books, and another list of banned books. Did you read any and if you did, how many? Do you think those reasons are valid enough for the government to ban some of the most popular novels of all time? Is there a book that is not on the list but you think should be? Why? Tell me more.
From the American Library Association's list of banned books, I've read seventeen of them... and from the Wikipedia list I've read sixteen of them (including overlap from the ALA list). In a weird way, the fact that a book has been banned actually makes me want to read it even more. 
I'm fairly liberal in my opinions on reading. Short of works that encourage violence, hatred, bigotry, or the subversion of the rule of law, I'm generally of the belief that someone should be able to read whatever the hell they want. I definitely think it's ridiculous that some of these books were banned at all, let alone banned for the ridiculously overly-conservative reasons that were cited as the reason for the banning. Censorship is a slippery slope, and I'm always hesitant to go down that road for reasons as mundane as obscenity, indecency, portraying someone or something in a negative light, etc.
I can't really think of a book that I feel should be banned. Even though I've read some downright heinous stuff over the years, I just can't get behind censoring someone's authorial voice (again unless it poses a danger to civil society) just because I don't like the subject matter. If someone is offended by a particular type of writing, they don't have to read it. And just because they don't want to read it doesn't mean nobody should be allowed to read it.
"Blog Harbor from The Talent Pond" PROMPT (DAY 24): Talk about your favorite novel being shattered by the film industry. In other words, talk about the novel or a book series who has the worse movie or TV show adaptation in your opinion.
There are so many bad adaptations to choose from! Since the prompt asks for novel adaptations I can't pick some truly atrocious comic book movies like the Ben Affleck Daredevil movie and the Jennifer Garner Elektra follow-up, or any of the Fantastic Fours that have failed miserably... or Nicolas Cage as Ghost Rider. (Now that I think about it, these were all Fox movies... .)
Runners up include The Time Machine from 2002 based on the H.G. Wells classic, and The Da Vinci Code which somehow managed to turn one of the most page-turniest books in the past two decades into a snoozefest. But even those two blights on the cinematic landscape pale in comparison to the almost painfully tortured One For The Money. Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum character is an instant classic as a big hair, big attitude New Jersey Italian amateur bounty hunter. The film was in development for over a decade, and the best they could do was Katherine Heigl? She is literally the opposite of who I imagine when I think of who could embody this character with Evanovich's trademark wit. Honestly, they could have gone with Kaley Cuoco, Drea De Matteo, Holly Hunter, Jennifers Lopez or Esposito, Callie Thorn, Marisa Tomei, Angie Harmon, etc. etc. etc. There are literally dozens of actresses who would have played a better Stephanie Plum than Katherine Heigl.
On top of that, the story was slow, the comedy wasn't funny, and the chemistry between Stephanie Plum and her colorful cast of supporting characters wasn't even a fraction of what was contained in the books, which led to a disappointment on pretty much every level. And since I absolutely loved the book and had followed the development of the movie through it's various iterations over the years, it was a particularly hard pill for me to swallow watching them turn a beloved book into a barely passable lowest-common-denominator movie.
"Blog Harbor from The Talent Pond" PROMPT (DAY 25): Grab the first book from your shelf, open the page number 67 and take out the most interesting paragraph from that page. No cheating  ! Tell us what is the name of the book, who is the author, what is it all about.
The key element of an optimal experience is that it is an end in itself. Even if initially undertaken for other reasons, the activity that consumes us becomes intrinsically rewarding. Surgeons speak of their work: "It is so enjoyable that I would do it even if I didn't have to." Sailors say: "I am spending a lot of money and time on this boat, but it is worth it - nothing quite compares with the feeling I get when I am out sailing.
From Flow: The Psychology of the Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Mihaly Csikszentmihaly (man that's a tough name to keep typing!) is a Hungarian psychologist who pioneered the concept of "flow," the state of hyper-focused consciousness that's also know as being "in the zone." This book is one I come back to time and time again because, even though it's dense, the book offers the reader a fascinating look at how to get into and maintain a state of flow. As a writer, it's an essential state of mind that's important to attain as often as possible, so I like to re-read this book from time to time to refresh my understanding of the topic.
As far as psychology texts go, it's an interesting read.
"Blog Harbor from The Talent Pond" PROMPT (DAY 26): Sometimes, when we read, we run into characters who have the same or similar personalities as ours. If you could relate to one book character, who would it be and why? Tell us also who is the author and what is the book all about.
I don't see myself in fiction characters very often. Bits and pieces of me in a character, or bits and pieces of a character in me, sure... but I rarely have a lightning bolt revelation where I so clearly see myself largely similar to a fictional creation.
Where I do see a lot of myself is in the individuals in nonfiction books. I see a lot of my own thoughts and hopes and dreams in the books other people have written about their own thoughts and hopes and dreams. The most recent example of this was probably The Disaster Artist by Greg Sestero. If you're not familiar with the book (which was also turned into a movie last year), it's a memoir about Greg Sestero's initial foray into the film industry befriending Tommy Wiseau and helping him make The Room, which is widely considered to be the worst film ever made. It's so bad they actually have midnight screenings in Los Angeles similar to the screenings they hold for Rocky Horror Picture Show.
A lot of Greg's initial overconfidence at the beginning of his career, followed by a career path that took much longer than expected and didn't quite pan out in the way he had hoped is definitely a journey that we both (and a lot of other people) share. As is the temptation to get involved in sketchy projects and stay with them much longer than is advisable because you're really pulling for it and hoping it'll be your ticket to success.
The book is an absolutely fascinating read about one of the craziest movies anyone's ever produced. It's random, wildly inconsistent, and both technically and artistically bizarre. But in addition to all the stories of a weirdo filmmaker and his insane process, it's also a story about an aspiring actor struggling to find his way in a difficult industry. And even though I went for the writing/corporate side of things in the same industry, we share a lot of similarities in our thoughts and hopes and dreams about work and life in general.
"Blog Harbor from The Talent Pond" PROMPT (DAY 27): Books are the sweet escape from reality and one of the cheapest ways to travel. If you could take the train to your favorite fictional world, what would it be? What would you do once you get there? Here are some of the most famous fictional worlds to give you an idea but, of course, you can write about any other that isn't listed here : Narnia- C.S Lewis novel, Hogwarts- J.K. Rowling novel Harry Potter, Neverland- J.M.Barrie novel Petter Pan, Westeros- George R.R.Martin novel A Song of Ice and Fire, Wonderland- C.S. Lewis novel Alice in Wonderland, Oz- L.Frank Baum novel Wizard of Oz, Middle Earth- J.R.R.Tolkien novel Lord of the Rings
As tempting as the world of Harry Potter would be, I think I'd want to live in the Star Wars universe. I think it'd be amazing to travel around in hyperspace from planet to planet, seeing everything the galaxy has to offer. There's the war between the Rebellion and the Galactic Empire to keep things interesting, the Force to lend a little philosophy and mysticism, and enough planets and different races to ensure that you could spend your entire life traveling around and never have to visit the same place twice. Sure, you can probably say the same thing of any one planet (including Earth), but how much cooler would it be to have a whole galaxy of options to choose from?
I was tempted to choose the Marvel Universe to live in, but that would require me to be different than the person I am right now... because having a super power would be really, really awesome. But if I'm still just myself, then I'd be in a world where other people have super powers and that seems... less exciting. This is the same reason I didn't choose Harry Potter. Star Wars seemed like a good option because I could still be me. Even if I weren't a general in the Rebellion or a Jedi Knight, I could still be just me and exploring a whole galaxy of possibilities.
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April 21, 2018 at 10:38pm April 21, 2018 at 10:38pm
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"Blog Harbor from The Talent Pond" PROMPT (DAY 21): Free Day! You can write about any song you want, for any reason you want. Tell us something!
For the final day of music blogging, I'm going to go with one of the songs in regular rotation for me these days. "This Feeling" by Abby Anderson is a song that I think I discovered just listening to a random Amazon Music playlist one day and it's stuck with me ever since. I'd never heard of Abby Anderson before; apparently she's only twenty years old and got her start on Glenn Beck's show of all places, singing a rendition of "My Country Tis of Thee" (her version is titled "Let Freedom Ring") that became so popular it landed on both the Billboard and iTunes charts.
As she works on her debut album, she's released a handful of songs, covers, and other performances to get her career off the ground. Most of them are pretty good, but "This Feeling" is still my favorite:
I think it's a fun song and she's got a great voice for such a young performer; she's already made a handful of "up and coming" lists, especially in and around Nashville where she moved after graduating from high school early to focus on her music career. I'm really interested to hear her first album and see what she comes out with next, but in the meantime I'll be enjoying this song on repeat for a while longer.
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"Blog Harbor from The Talent Pond" PROMPT (DAY 20): It's Karaoke Night! When it's your turn to go up on stage, what song will you perform and why?
I am not a karaoke person. Mostly because, unlike those crazy audition people on American Idol, I fully recognize that I'm a terrible singer and I'm completely okay with that. Which means that choosing karaoke songs gets a bit complicated because I can't pick a song that requires any sort of decent vocal range to perform, but I also refuse to pick cliched or bad songs. Which means that I can't really go with songs like "Hello" by Adele or "How Will I Know" by Whitney Houston but I won't pick easier songs like, "Build Me Up Buttercup" by The Foundations or "Stay" by Lisa Loeb.
I was tempted to go with something ridiculous and over the top. I mean, no one cares how bad you're singing when you're performing "Baby Got Back" by Sir Mix-A-Lot or "Ice Ice Baby" by Vanilla Ice. They're supposed to be bad songs. And even though there are some true classics that are always crowd-pleasers, I wouldn't want to be the fifth person singing Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" or Taylor Swift's "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" that night.
For a long time, I thought my karaoke song would either be "I Love Rock & Roll" by Joan Jett, or some kind of a hip-hip song with fun lyrics... so I figure why not make the best of both worlds and pick a hip-hop song that samples the Joan Jett classic? "Mind on the Road" by Rev Run.
Joseph Simmons a.k.a. Reverend Run from Run-D.M.C. fame is a talented rapper from a talented family (he's also the brother of Def Jam Records founder Russell Simmons), and there's no question about the influence he's had on the hip hop world. He's also an actual ordained minister, although I'm less enthusiastic about his Christian leadership, mostly because he's a proponent of the controversial prosperity gospel (which has widely been criticized as promoting idolatry and exploiting the poor). That said, he's still a hell of a rapper!
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"Blog Harbor from The Talent Pond" PROMPT (DAY 19): Pick a song that brings you back to a specific event in your life. But the catch is... LOVE SONGS ARE NOT ALLOWED!
Even though it's kind of a romantic song depending on how you interpret the lyrics, the reason I picked this song is most definitely not romantic. Mostly because it involves several male teachers in my high school's history department.
For years, our high school had problems with its pep rallies. Not much enthusiasm, pretty bland and predictable activities, etc. Imagine your stereotypical high school from any teen show; they have the marching band play, the football players and cheerleaders pump up the crowd, the class president making some announcements... literally, it's every stereotype you could possibly imagine.
One school year (I think it was my sophomore year), the school hired a bunch of new history teachers. It was a weird situation where a few had left and a really large class was coming in, so they needed extra teachers in all departments but especially history. Three of the new history teachers talked two of the existing ones and convinced them to put on a little skit. Unbeknownst to pretty much everybody (even the administration who thought they were going to do some kind of boring history presentation), they instead dressed up in the all-white outfits from this video and lip-synched "I Want It That Way," complete with choreographed dance moves and a handful of female student they conspired with to scream and cheer and hold up signs and throw flower petals at them.
It was definitely one of the more memorable pep rallies at our school and the best part was that it actually kicked off an unofficial competition among the departments to come up with increasingly "out there" stunts to keep the students interested and excited to show up at pep rallies. The chemistry teacher blew up a piñata in the middle of the football field, the physical education teachers had a "strong man/woman" competition. It was the tipping point that made the last couple of years of high school go from dull and uninspired to really fun and entertaining.
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"Blog Harbor from The Talent Pond" PROMPT (DAY 18): What cover version of a song do you think is better than the original?
I can't help it. This time I'm doing a two-fer. I can't pick just one cover song!
First up, is "Burning Down the House" by The Used (previously by Talking Heads). As much as I hate to admit that I discovered this song watching Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, mostly because I don't ever want to admit that Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen has any redeemable qualities whatsoever, this is actually a really good cover. Talking Heads' version is a classic, but I really dig the industrial sound The Used were able to get on this track. It feels retro and modern all at the same time.
Second, I can't in good conscience talk about covers versions without mentioning Jay-Z's cover of the Beastie Boys' "No Sleep Till Brooklyn" from the All Points West Music & Art Festival in 2009. If you're not familiar with the story, 2009 was the year when Beastie Boys vocals/bassist MCA (Adam Yauch) was diagnosed with cancer. They ended up having to pull out of their Friday night headlining gig at All Points West and the festival got Jay-Z to fill in as the last-minute headliner. He thought it would be appropriate to open his set with a tribute to the band he was replacing and it... is... amazing.
There aren't many people that can pull off the energy and rhythm of a Beastie Boys track, but Jay-Z handled it like a pro. Maybe it was his practice doing rap/rock mashups with Linkin Park on their amazing Collision Course album in 2004... or maybe it's just the fact that Jay-Z is an incredible entertainer. Either way, he nailed it. I don't necessarily think it's better than the original, but I think he did a really great job trying to pay tribute to the Beastie Boys at a time when they were really struggling.
There are actually a ton of cover versions of songs that, for various reasons, I like more than the original. Some other finalists that were in close contention for this blog entry include:
 "Tainted Love" by Marilyn Manson (previously by Soft Cell and Gloria Jones)
"Smooth Criminal" by Alien Ant Farm (previously by Michael Jackson)
"I Fought The Law" by The Clash (previously by The Crickets and The Bobby Fuller Four)
"Landslide" by The Dixie Chicks (previously by Fleetwood Mac)
"Twist and Shout" by The Beatles (previously by The Isley Brothers)
"Blue Monday" by Orgy (previously by New Order)
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"Blog Harbor from The Talent Pond" PROMPT (DAY 17): Moment of truth time. If someone were to put your entire music collection on random, what would be the most mortifying song to come up? In other words, of all the songs you own, which one is the most embarrassing to admit to? C'mon... fess up!
Yes, I purchased this song on iTunes. Yes, I'm one of the 119 million people who have viewed the YouTube music video. No, I am by no means proud of it. Actually I own two versions of this song; the original and the cover from the cast of Glee. Which is actually an interesting existential question, if you think about it. Is it worse to buy a terrible song? Or a terrible song covered by someone else? I mean, I suppose the Glee kids at least have decent voices...
The best part of this song (and video) is that it's produced by ARK Music Factory, a label created by Clarence Jey and Patrice Wilson (the latter of whom also features in the song but insisted on not being credited) which is clearly in the "I'll produce any album you want as long as we get our fee" music space. What I love more than anything is that this is - by far - the biggest hit these two guys have ever had and I'm pretty sure it was completely unintentional. Not that it's stopped them from subsequently claiming to be geniuses and taking other people's money...
While I do grudgingly admit it's a little catchy, this song abuses Auto-Tune like it's going out of style. Auto-Tune was "originally intended to disguise or correct off-key inaccuracies, allowing vocal tracks to be perfectly tuned despite originally being slightly off-pitch" (Wikipedia). Or, you know, apparently it can be used to engineer a terrible voice within an inch of its life until a robotic, overly-processed version meets the bare minimum of what could be technically considered music. Using Auto-Tune in this manner is like using the drive assist feature a lot of cars have these days and, rather than correcting for minor curvatures in a relatively straight road, expecting your car to drive you around town while you run errands. That's not how it's supposed to be used, and it's going to result in a wreck!
And yet I still bought the song. Twice. And at least a dozen of the video's views are mine, if not more. So who's the real idiot here? 
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"Blog Harbor from The Talent Pond" PROMPT (DAY 16): Soundtrack songs. Which song from a movie/TV/game/etc. soundtrack has the most emotional impact on you? What song, when you hear it, brings you right back to the scene in question and gets you teary-eyed, overjoyed, amped up, etc. all over again?
It's pretty hard to top the iconic Kenny Loggins song "Danger Zone" from the action blockbuster and allegedly homoerotic fantasy film Top Gun. From the opening montage (which is actually the "Top Gun Anthem" and another iconic song), you're immediately thrown into the world of fighter pilots. Later on, when "Danger Zone" kicks in while jet engines ignite and fighters taking off from the deck of an aircraft carrier, you can almost feel the adrenaline coursing through your veins.
I always forget how much fun it is to watch this film until I catch a glimpse of it on TV or catch some clips on YouTube. It's delightfully over the top in the way that only an 80s action movie can be, and so most of the iconic moments only get cheesier and cheesier with time. I was a little too young to catch this on the first run in theaters, but I remember watching it on home video years later and being amazed at how they shot all of the plane stuff. It's kind of a cliche these days that a movie should show you a world you never knew existed, but it's a cliche precisely because of movies like these where audiences were awestruck at the idea of actually getting a sense of what it's like to be a fighter pilot. Or, in the case of Backdraft, a firefighter. Or, in the case of Lethal Weapon, a renegade loose cannon of a cop who plays by his own rules. 
Enjoy the video for this song too; it's 80s Kenny Loggins at his best, back when music videos for movie soundtracks were basically clips from the film intercut with the artist singing in one of the film's cheapest-to-recreate scenes. I mean, seriously, is the idea here that Kenny Loggins is singing from the same bed that Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis boned in? I guess so!
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April 17, 2018 at 12:28pm April 17, 2018 at 12:28pm
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"Blog Harbor from The Talent Pond" PROMPT (DAY 15): Songs you hate. Tell us about one or more songs that you would be perfectly content to never hear again in your life, ever.
The irony of having to find (and therefore) listen to a song in order to link a video to it in a blog post about songs I hate and would be happy to never hear again is not lost on me. And all that said, while I ultimately picked "Dreams" the song to feature, I would be perfectly content to never listen to another track from The Cranberries ever again. "Dreams," "Zombie," "Linger" ... you can keep them all. My wife loves them but I just find their music so... whiny.
There's no doubt their music has made an impact on people. 40 million records sold and eight Top 20 singles is no fluke. In fact, there's probably a lot of people in my generation who would list them as one of the most important bands of their formative years. And, sure, I can appreciate the complex emotions in their songs and the whole tortured artist thing. I really can. It''s just that their music is so... whiny.
Despite my distaste for their music, I was sad to hear that lead singer Dolores O'Riordan died earlier this year. It's never easy when a music icon passes away, especially someone who passes at the relatively young age of 46. She and her band had an immense influence around the world and I really wish I liked The Cranberries more than I do. It's just that their music is so... whiny.
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