Archive for the 'Journey' Category
Top 10 Most Overplayed Songs At College Parties/College Bars
If you’re like me, you love the smell of mildewed beer in the morning. You know, that smell after a college party with 4 kegs of Natural Light or Milwaukee’s best. The bathroom has a caked over, black layer of filth on the floor and the toilet is clogged from that freshman co-ed’s mexican food vomit (she needs to learn how to drink, this is a public school damn it).
At any moment in the night you can walk into any college party in America and hear one of these songs being played from the sonically compromised, low-fi stereo and they have separated the left and right speaker, sending one to the living room and the other to the porch. If it’s a frat party, no one cares about destroying the house because subservient pledges will take care of it in the morning.
Whilst you are reading this list, just envision that ego-maniac dressed like he’s in a box at the Kentucky Derby pumping his fist in the air screaming the lyrics to his favorite overplayed song. He hasn’t purchased an album since the 90s and his iPod is basically a 100 song mixtape.
10. Van Morrison - Brown Eyed Girl
9. Garth Brooks - Friends In Low Places
8. Van Halen - Runnin’ With The Devil
7. Boston - More Than A Feeling
6. Anything by Jack Johnson or any other marginally talented acoustic guitar-based singer
5. Lynyrd Skynyrd - Sweet Home Alabama
4. Rick Springfield - Jessie’s Girl
3. Anything by or featuring Lil Wayne
2. Bon Jovi - Livin’ On A Prayer
1. Journey - Don’t Stop Believin’
^if you don’t hear this song at a party, you aren’t at a party.
Your Opinion And Why It May Not Matter
Opinions are like opinions, everyone has one. But what you may not know is that your opinion can be wrong. A Pretentious statement? Arrogant? Yeah probably. But I will be explaining to you a few examples of where this statement is applicable.
I am a firm believer that everyone is a product of their environment, nurture, and genetic factors, nature, are a very small percentage of our personalities. Your parents and your friends begin to mold your personality and who you will become as you begin to think for yourself and form opinions. Since this is a pop culture blog, I am going to limit this discussion to exclusively pop cultural topics.
First, we will begin with our parents. From the minute you are born to the day you move out of your parents’ house, it is your parents job to teach you what they know and mold you into a rational human being who can think for themselves. What we sometimes don’t realize is that at a very young age (baby, infant, toddler…) we don’t really have a choice concerning what we are exposed to.
Let’s say your dad is a die hard Kiss fan. He dresses you in patent leather, grows your hair out, and plays nothing but Hard Rock from the living room Hi-Fi system. Basically, for the first ten years of your life, all you hear is Kiss. It’s not like a five-year-old is going to go to pre-school and discuss the latest Joni Mitchell record or who their favorite Run DMC member is, therefore your home environment builds the basis for your personality. When I meet someone with no musical compass and who only listens to one genre of music, I think of their parents. If not their parents, their friends.
Music is the only art form that can define a generation. For the most part, you can walk into any public place, assess someone’s clothing and disposition, and determine what type of music they have on their iPod. If you walk up to people wearing all black makeup with holes in their face and a million tattoos, odds are if you bring up Miley Cyrus or Elvis Costello, they’re going to scoff at you.
Which brings me to my original point: Your opinion and why it may not matter. Let’s take random guy #1, we’ll call him “Dirk”. Dirk is president of his fraternity at Ole Miss University. Polo shirt, wears sunglasses at night, khaki pants, boat shoes, the whole nine yards. Dirk’s musical radar extends from about Jimmy Buffett to 3 Doors Down to Journey. He doesn’t listen to female country music at all. In fact, he hates it. Thinks it’s “gay”. I ask Dirk what he thinks of the latest Taylor Swift single, in which he replies “it sucks”. This is an example of when Dirk’s opinion does not matter. If you do not like a certain genre of music, you don’t have the ability to discern if something from that genre is good or bad. If I don’t like Greek food and someone offers me a bite of their Baba Ghanoush and I say “that’s terrible”, then my opinion is irrelevant … because I don’t like Greek food. In myself and Dirk’s situations, the correct answer would be “it’s not my style” or “I don’t like female country” or “I don’t like Greek food”.
The next time your wife/girlfriend/mistress/lover drags you to a Ballet that you obviously don’t want to attend and your co-workers ask “How was the ballet?” don’t say “it sucked,” say “it wasn’t enjoyable for me” …
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