Celebritology: Who's relevant in 2012-2013 according to Time, its readers and myself?

Celebritology is highly relevant to me in the field of news. In TV and films, I delve into actors and there relevance, but looking at every celebrity from every field and contemplating their relative importance to one another is a highly refined art for anyone writing about news because anyone writing articles for even a community level has to think objectively about who and what is newsworthy when undergoing both the pitching and selection process. I decided not only to dive into this year's poll that precedes Time's 100 Most Influential People issue but to publicize those results as well. In making my decisions, I openly admit I'm biased with personal relevance and the degree of personal contact I've had with the stories of these people, which is the filter through which we all experience and decide what is newsworthy. Here are the first fifty names out of the 153 candidates.

The numbers after the names are the percentage of online viewers who deemed them newsworthy/influential/relevant after which is my vote which is either Yes, No or Abstain (if I didn't have enough info to make a decision either way):

Ben Affleck-53%-Yes-His comeback story captivated us and in the process said a lot about our relationship with celebrities. Also, winning the Oscar for best picture and gaming the voting system in the process surely makes you relevant.

Roger Ailes (Fox News Chief)-Abstain-Just not educated enough about him and his role to know much. I'd argue that the most partisan news networks didn't shape the 2012 election as much as previous ones but I don't know his extent into it all

Bashar Assad-Yes-He's killed 70,000 people for godsakes. When the Onion writes an article that barely qualifies as satire and looks more as a desperate attempt to inform people of the atrocity, you're not only relevant, but more people should definitely know about you. Just to reiterate here, newsworthy doesn't necessarily qualify as a good thing.

Tammy Baldwin (Wisconsin politician and the first openly gay U.S. Senator)-82%-No-It's 2012. Being an openly gay anything except possibly professional sports player isn't enough to warrant relevance in my eyes. 

Benedict XVI-45%-No-Being the retiring Pope isn't as newsworthy as being the incoming Pope who looks to bring some real reforms and attitude changes, so I'd rather see the news coverage go to the new guy

David and Victoria Beckham-20%-Yes-I'm contradicting myself because I advocated not caring about a retiree in my last vote, but then again, Beckham's reign with MLS (and the end of that reign is newsworthy via its timeliness) did lead to spectacular growth for the league which provides a lesson to other leagues on how to create an international sensation. Victoria, on her own, is the least newsworthy entry on the entire list.

Fatou Bensouda (Gambian lawyer/UN Prosecutor)-75%-Yes-Although it's close to abstain because I'm not that well-informed on this issue

Beyonce-68%-Yes-An activist whose especially close to the Obama administration, one of the most popular singers of the present day, performed at both the Inaguration and the Superbowl, that qualifies in the world of arts

Kathryn Bigelow-63%-No-I saw the movie myself and it wasn't too far-removed from an episode of Homeland. In other words, Bigelow's not the first to explore the dark side to the world on terrorism and eloquently put it into art.

Michael Bloomberg-62%-Yes-As a remarkable politician who's usurping the very democratic ideal of term limits in the country's most powerful city, Bloomberg is nearly always relevant, but the timeliness angle helps which comes from the soda ban controversy and the gun laws

Usain Bolt-78%-Marginally Yes-In 2008 and 2009 he would be a resounding yes, but timeliness is about something new which he didn't necessarily do. He still made the biggest headlines in the Summer Olympics which is the biggest sporting event in history

Cory Booker-72%-Yes-This is almost an abstain for me, because while I'm well-informed about him as a person and how he's one of the country's most effective mayors and most forward-thinking and politicians, I am unclear as to his timeliness. I recently went to a talk by a couple young mayors and they both said they were heavily inspired by Booker which barely qualifies him in my relative experience. The point here is that news is timely and its also personally relevant.

David Bowie-82%-No-Yes, he's famous, but timeliness, guys: What have you done for me lately? The timeliness problem is why I cringe at the fact that Paul McCartney seems to get interviewed every two or three months by some gushy morning show anchor. It's also why I suspect he has a high vote

Ben Bernake-Abstain-I'm not well-informed about the topics in the business section of the newspaper

Jeff Bezos-84%-No-I can't vote yes for every internet CEO. I'm going to use timeliness here and suggest that Bezos is inevitably doing great things every year, but I don't remember hearing of anything particularly notable coming from Amazon

John Brennan-45%-Yes-His confirmation process was protested by innocent bystanders if that's not enough controversy for you. 

Connie Britton-30%-No-Please, she's not even a good actress. 

Warren Beatty-Abstain

Emad Burnat-(Palestinian documentarian whose 5 Broken Cameras was nominated for an Oscar)-83%-No-Being nominated for an Academy Award for best film makes you far more relevant than best documentary. Five films get nominated each year and far fewer than that number (What else besides Exit Through the Gift Shop, Waiting for Superman, An Inconvenient Truth, Michael Moore's films, Supersize Me do you guys actually remember?) actually make their way into the cultural consciousness. As someone who follows film, I haven't heard of that one (remember: personal relevance comes through personal experience so I'm judging based on whether something is newsworthy to me)

David Cameron-49%-Yes-The Prime Minister of Britain is big enough that I'll give a rare timeliness pass to. In other words, I know nothing about what he's done in the past 12 months, but I'll make an educated guess that he, being the PM of Great Britain has done plenty.

Sister Simone Campbell (Executive director of Network, a liberal Catholic advocacy group, and leader of the Nuns on the Bus movement to promote public programs for the poor)-83%-Yes-I've read about her in the news and with religion being a hot topic this year, that makes her more relevant

Robert Cantu (Neurosurgeon, co-director of Boston University’s Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy and a leading expert on concussions)-86%-Marginally Yes-The gimmick here is that he's being put in the Top 100 to put a face on the science community that's involved with the hot topic on football concussions. However, the question is whether Robert Cantu, himself, is significant in the battle against preventing concussions, or whether he's one of many professionals that is getting a disproportionate share of the credit. At the end of the day, I think the football concussion debate deserves a larger platform of readership which would be accomplished with Cantu's inclusion.

Robert Caro (Journalist and author of a 30-years-in-the-making Lyndon B. Johnson opus)-40%-Marginal Yes-Distinguishing between academics in terms of relevance is a difficult task because so many of them are quietly changing and influencing the world. Caro gets a yes from me because, if nothing else he's interesting (devoting 30 years of your life on a book about Lyndon Johnson, who would do that?) and I'd like to read more about him. 

Jackie Chan (Hong Kong martial-arts king and outspoken Chinese political appointee)-78%-No-His newsworthiness as a movie star (seriously, check the box office receipts on his films) is at least 10 years past its expiration date, and to what degree is he being an outspoken voice with regard to Chinese policy. It's like how at least one out of every three famous people in Hollywood is an ambassador for UNICEF. I admire your commitment to a cause, guys, but in very few cases have I ever been influenced by your message (not to take away from the people in those foreign countries hearing your message). 

Jessica Chastain-60%-Yes-Although she didn't win the Oscar, Chastain is one of the hottest and most relevant actresses in Hollywood and her amazing performance in Bigelow's film did a lot to capture the zeitgeist on the War on Terror. Bigelow made a film that, at the end of the day, proved unremarkable, but the performance of Chastain in that film is worth talking about. 

Ferrodon Abbasi-Davani (Head of Iran’s nuclear program)-49%-Abstain-I have no idea of his involvement with said nuclear program so a big fat abstain for me. 

Chan Guangang  (Activist holding China to account from exile in New York City)-84%-Yes-It's the difference between any old Civil Rights leader or Harriett Tubman or Rosa Parks. The latter examples are remarkable stories that moves and inspires us. Aside from causing an international incident, he inspires us.

Perry Chen, CEO of Kickstarter-94%-Yes-He's changing art and commerce so most definitely. He's the reason you cautiously vote no on someone like Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg or the Google guys. In technology news, always be on the lookout for the next best thing. 

Yao Chen, Chinese Microblogger-63%-No-Sorry lady, there's only room for one Chinese activist in our national cultural consciousness and Guangang took that spot, but you finish ahead of Jackie Chan in my book. 

Chris Christie-63%-Yes-Governors are so interesting in terms of newsworthiness because they usually are bright, colorful, and often uninhibited public figures with a lot more power than their national coverage usually merits. In the case of Christie with Hurricane Sandy and his influence on the presidential race, a resounding yes. 

Bill Clinton-Abstain-He's relevant every year and every political news election. It would be difficult to separate 2012 Bill Clinton from 2011 Bill Clinton from 2004 Bill Clinton so I won't even try. 

Hillary Clinton-Yes-Being Seceretary of State is already high enough on the relevance factor, but throwing in the fact that she was under scrutiny for Bengazi as she was exiting and that became one of the hot button issues in the 2012 race qualifies her

Tom Coburn-29%-No, Sorry esteemed Senator buddy, I live in Washington and read Politico on my commute often and your name hasn't popped up enough to my liking

Bryan Cranston-72%-No, as a TV blogger who's been exposed to message board discussions and articles along the lines of "Breaking Bad: Best show of the year, best show of all time, or single greatest thing since sliced bread" for the past five years or so, I'm calling B.S. on timeliness. Bryan Cranston and Breaking Bad have both been mind-boggingly deserving of praise for the past five years. Nothing new here. Especially since the show doesn't officially end till this summer. If you want to give Breaking Bad a relevance bump upon its finale, at least wait until the 2014 issue. 

Andrew Cuomo-75%-No. Being Governor of the one of the most important states in the country and the one that, by far, commands the most news coverage, doesn't automatically make you man of the year, sorry. Also, I'm not buying nepotism as an excuse here either. 

Paula Deen (Popular TV cooking personality raising awareness about diabetes)-20%-No-I have only barely heard of you and seriously doubt you're having as much of an effect on our consumption as the great Jamie Oliver has. As Emeril Lagasse, Padma Lakshmi, Rachel Ray, Ted Allen and a billion others have demonstrated: I'm sure you'll be replaced with the next, best thing on the Food Network before this issue goes to press.

Jack Dorsey (Twitter creator and a founder and CEO of Square, a company that allows smartphone users to process credit-card payments through their mobile devices)-88%-Yes-Twitter is growing but the advent of Square really seals it

Kim Dotcom (Eccentric Internet legend and creator of the controversial file-sharing site Megaupload who has seen his influence rise along with his legal troubles)-74%-No-I'm philosophically against this person's movement of the internet being free and open source and intellectual property be damned, but then again being a bad guy doesn't disqualify you from being newsworthy (as noted with Assad). Instead, it's the fact that wanting to free the internet is nothing new.  If we're going to acknowledge Kim dotcom, are we going to give news attention to the guys selling bootleg DVDs on Times Square or the person who steals candy from the candy store?

Gabby Douglas-88%-Yes-As opposed to the first openly gay senator, being the first black Gold Medal gymnast seems relevant to me because that is one of the premiere sports in the Olympics. Her post-racial attitude towards the accomplishment was also discussion-provoking. She was also AP female athlete of the year and that's the sort of quantifiable evidence you can use to her case

Dr. James Downing (Scientific director at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, where his Pediatric Cancer Genome Project is decoding the genetic drivers of childhood cancers)-98%-No-It's almost an abstain because I haven't heard of his project, but at the end of the day, I went with the argument against Robert Cantu and deemed him unnewsworthy because a lot of people are fighting cancer every year and I haven't read any newspaper headlines in the past 12 months that say "Cancer Cured!"

Lena Dunham-54%-No-This is based on the personal relevance angle here: I haven't seen her show which reflects how the landscape of TV has changed from 20 years ago. There are so many good must-see programs that practically no TV aficionado can see them all which dilutes the influence of any TV personality.

Daniel Ek (Founder and CEO of Spotify, the booming music-streaming service)-76%-No-When compares to twitter, square and kickstarter, I don't think Spotify makes the cut. First of all, Spotify's newness is diluted by the advent of Pandora which came first. Second of all, the crises revolving around the externalities of music sharing mostly happened in the 2000's. Youtube ads and itunes were the big heroes of the day.

Jimmy Fallon-66%-Marginal Yes-He's gotten more popular in the past couple years, his entertainment style is definitely new and relevant from a media-perspective (he incorporates facebook, the news, and twitter into his segments) and he's slotted to take over for Leno now so he's an even bigger player on the landscape.  

Mo Farrah-British track star-81%-Marginal Yes-I'm a beat writer for distance running so I think the guy's accomplishment is humongous when I realize how few people are able to double at the Olympics (especially in a British uniform). Aside from the personal perspective, I think as a hometown hero, he's also a somewhat of a big deal and star of the London Olympics

Melinda Gates-Abstain

Neil Gaiman (Prolific cult novelist with 1.8 million Twitter followes and an HBO show in the works)-96%-No-1.8 million Twitter followers was newsworthy outside the twittersphere in 2010 but not anymore. Voting yes for Neil would be breaking a long-standing journalistic rule: Don't give too much coverage to a guy who hasn't acomplished anything yet. An HBO show in the works isn't significant. The guy who made the now-cancelled "Sh%t My Parents Say" is a long-forgotten part of pop culture although he was a hot news item before the show aired

John Green (Teen fiction author and video blogger with legions of online fans)-95%-No-I'm on youtube a lot and have never heard of this guy and without a quantitative number of fans, I'm definitely in the no category. Again as with Neil, crossing over to mainstream media and succeeding wildly there is what would get my vote with internet media content wunderkinds. 

Roger Goodell (Commissioner of pro football, which remains America’s most popular sport despite a rising tide of safety concerns)-11%-As I mentioned before I think the safety concerns of football is very relevant and appropriate hot button topic.

Julian Fellowes-67%-Marginal Yes-I'm making a choice based on taste here between two shows I've never seen that Downtown Abbey is marginally worth talking about in the Time 100 Issue and voting Fellowes in.

Julia Gillard (Australian Prime Minister whose parliamentary speech about the opposition leader’s misogyny was heard around the world)-Abstain-Australia is either a G8 country or as important as one so if she was just elected Prime Minister I'd be more willing to consider her for a year, but the blurb doesn't say. A female head of state (see Brazil, Liberia, Argentina, Germany) is nothing new in this day of age and I'd expect that misogyny on the part of the opposition that's running against you isn't that new either, so nothing yes-worthy I can discern.

Tina Fey and Amy Poehler-93%-Marginal Yes-Tina Fey has been a media darling and surely eligible for this list A LOT of successive years. I'm inclined to put her through this year because she's been packaged with Amy Poehler who could maker the list on her own and it's appropriate because the two hosted a talk show.

Gabby Giffords-81%-A resounding yes-Gabby Giffords is a humongous news story and deserving hero that could command even more coverage than she's currently getting. If she were on every front page of America every day, I'm not sure I would mind

Seth Meyers-Yes-The great thing about watching SNL stars rise is up in the cultural consciousness is that they're really nobodies when they start out. I'm sure that new cast additions like Tim Robinson, Vanessa Bayer, Bobby Moynihan and Aidy Bryant are among the least-searched names in the entirety of IMDB. I think Meyers is one of the most relevant stand-up comedians, most promising awards show hosts (did you see him at the ESPY's) and most people don't know he's the head writer of SNL

A very overgeneralized argument for why songwriting dissapoints me as an art form

Hi followers, I'm back for the first time in a while....Happy new year and sorry for the delay....
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This is a large generalization I'm making and I don't expect to solve such a big and impossibly complex debate.

Look over at songfacts.com or and look up the meanings to a lot of songs. When asked what their songs mean, few artists ever give as impressive an explanation as the one you thought of in your head. In fact, most artists just say "I like keeping it vague so the user can take their own meaning."

Sometimes, I just feel like these artists are just string together a few rhyming words while they're high and just piece it together without much thought. I say this as someone who sometimes finds something profound to relate to in a song lyric and feels really empowered by that, so I've historically wanted to have a great respect for the people putting together these lyrics.

I was listening to the Greenday song 21 Guns and I related to it in so many ways. Without going into too much detail, I encountered someone I used to work for and I found myself dwelling on the pain from the bad of our relationship rather than the good of it. I related to the parts about the song regarding whether you know what's worth fighting for

So I wanted to see what it was about and BJ Arsmtrong had this to say:
"It brings up 21st Century Breakdown in a lot of ways, and the 21 gun-salute for someone that's fallen, but done in an arena rock 'n' roll sort of way."

I mean, that's so nothing at all. He just strung a piece of symbolism together and used to make a statement about war. Like he hasn't done that already or even done it far more effectively in the past. Billie Joe Armstrong was way more effective talking about war in interviews I've read than in the blurry symbolism hidden within three verses of song. If he already has the power to be articulate about how he feels about current events, why bother putting them into a song?

Maybe him and other songwriters have some meaning in their head but compare this to directors and screenwriters. Listen to DVD commentary or public appearances: they usually love to talk on end about what they were thinking and what they intended when they made films.

I don't mind that Billie Joe Armstrong had a different meaning in his head when he wrote the song than the way I interpreted it. I would be a little disappointed if he didn't put much thought into it at all.

I also think that songwriting is something that needs to defend itself more because screenwriting or directing is an undertaking which requires a tremendous amount of creative energy and effort. You can't just stumble onto a masterpiece that resonates with the zeitgeist of the times by pure chance. I'm more inclined to think that capturing the zeitgeist by pure chance is more possible when all you have to do is 200 words (21 Guns comes out to 221 words, with many sentences being duplicates) and your primary goal is to make them rhyme.

50 Favorite Songs based on their lyrics Part I

My friend Allen really got me thinking about songs that I like for their lyrics, so I started trying to make a list of my favorite songs for their lyrics.
Here are some criteria I used:
1. Because I'm not that well-versed on oldies, I just decided to make it 90's and 00's. I tried to eliminate covers. It's come to my attention long after I listened to a song that the particular song might not be original and the original might have been written earlier, but I'm not that well-versed on music that I know them all. Sadly, it made me half to eliminate Big Yellow Taxi and First Cut is the Deepest.
2. Again, the songs are on the basis of lyrics. I didn't do a song that had one line I liked. An example might be Sheryl Crowe's Soaking Up the Sun ("It's not having what you want, it's wanting what you've got") or Ben Fold's Five's Barrytown ("Don't think I am taken by the story's I have heard, I just read the daily truth and swear by every word")
3. The songs either are things that resonate with me or tell engaging stories. I like to think that everything I selected were well-written. But in terms of engaging stories, I think "Meet Virginia" paints very interesting portrait of a person I couldn't relate to but I wanted to hear more about, I'm not sure I particularly relate to. Ben Folds tells a ton of interesting and very random stories with his style and I was inclined to put more there if room allowed.
4. In the interest of balance, I tried to limit the Matchbox 20, Dave Matthews Band, Ben Folds and Counting Crows selection. In the case of four groups, there are many selections I could have interchanged with the ones I had and the list wouldn't have been any worse (For Matchbox 20: Shame, Last Beautiful Girl, Black and White People, All I Need, Downfall; for Counting Crows Angels of Silences, Round Here, Colorblind, Rain King; for DMB, Space Between, Lie in Our Graves, Typical Situation, Grace is Gone, Pay for What You Get, Raven, for Ben Folds Annie Waits, Barrytown, Zak and Sara, Still Fighting It, Army, Steven's Last Night in Town, etc.)
5. I go on the criteria of what makes it to my ears. I didn't make a conscious effort over the last 20 years to listen to every song ever created. I also make it mainstream. I htink if there's some independent band who's music I like but they don't get a lot of radio play, then the list isn't fun for you either.

So here's the loose 50 with some highlighted:
Dancing Nancies, DMB (1994)-"Could I have been anyone other than me?" is the question Dave Matthews asked himself as he was hitchhiking across the African desert. This song also made me afraid to turn 23 because of the line "23 and so tired of life, such a shame to throw it all away/Images grow darker, still/Could I have been anyone other than me" For all the mind-numbing depression that Matthews ruminates about during the verses, he breaks into an uplifting chorus filled with major chords about looking up to the sky and tasting what's the use in hurrying or in worrying. He then sings about dark clouds hanging overhead but him not being bothered about them.

Mad Season, Matchbox Twenty (2000)-This was my anthem in my freshman year of college as I lost my backpack (which is kind of a big deal), got my password stolen, and started feeling overwhelmed at a certain point in my second semester of college. For me, this song related to that feeling in college where everyone's smiley and happy but that there can be so much underneath that you have to let out. Rob Thomas has written about his mental struggles in a way that few others have and it's not a small statement to say that I've derived a lot of comfort from listening to him over the years.

Let’s See How Far We’ve Come, Matchbox Twenty (2007)-Rob Thomas and crew write this song about the apocolypse (Said pretty explicitly in "I believe the world is burning to the ground"...."I belive the world is coming to an end"). In an interview they said, "There's no reason we can't make the apocolypse sound sexy." I can't tell you how well I relate to this as I tend to catastrophize things and it's at those times, that you try to take a sort of moral inventory into your own life. "Waking up at the dawn of the end of the world, but it's feeling just like every other morning before. Now I'm wondering what my life is gonna mean if it's gone." Maybe the catastrophe being sung about is that the singer has to face himself and his own problems: "I started crying but I couldn't stop myself, I started running but there was nowhere to run to, I sat down on the street, took a look at myself said where you going you could be headed for hell." This echoes Rob Thomas' theme in "Long Day" with the lyrics: "It's me and I can't get myself to go away."

Over my Head, The Fray (2006)-As evidenced by the video, the subject of the song is a kid or possibly a young teenageer and the song feels like it's about an important moment or opportunity that was missed or handled the wrong way, and the pressure one faces in acting the right way in one of those crucial moments. I think this is an underacknowledged sentiment we all have: That saying the right thing at the right time can be hard, nevertheless, I love the song's sense of rhythm in the words and recurring use of certain words, "Let's rearrange, I wish you were a stranger I can disengage, just say that we agree and we'll never change....Let's disreguard as you lose another friend on the discard, as we lose the argument on a cable car." Notice the three "dis"-prefixes there?The other part of the song that's highly relevant to me is the fickleness of friendship he experiences. In the opening verse, he sings "I never knew that everyone was on a cue, to turn and run......I'd rather turn the other way than wait and see the smoke and who's still standing when it clears." He responds to this in the bridge about how for this one person who's friendship he cares about, he can feel the process of breaking off already happening ("Suddenly I become part of your past, I'm becoming the part that don't list, I'm losing you and it's effortless") and he is determined to "not let this go down until we torch it ourselves." The song's subject describes the process of losing touch with this one friend to be "effortless," or in other words, something that is going to naturally happen unless he makes a concerted effort to stop it, hence, torching it.

South of Nowhere, Gin Blossoms (1996)-"Meet me out past the cottonwoods where we ran as kids, straight out past the cemetary where the river turns to ditch." I love the sense of description and the overall fondness the writer expresses for his childhood nostalgia, that he both literally and figuratively wants to escape to. I love the directions to the place as well that serves as the hook in the chorus: "Straight back, far away, a long ways from here, just south of nowhere." I think the question behind the song is: Does this place actually exist?

Bigger than my Body, John Mayer (2003)-Is there anything better song lyric to think of when things aren't going your way and you feel like you're not realizing your full potential? "This is a call to the color blind, this is an IOU, stranded behind the horizon line, tired for something true, yes I'm grounded, got my wings clipped, I'm surrounded by all this pavement, yes I'll stumble while I'm waiting for my fuse to dry. Someday I'll fly. Someday I'll soar. Someday I'll be so damn much more. Because I'm bigger than my body gives me credit for." Like his song "Why Georgia," John Mayer's theme is to not just be passive to where life is taking you to and to stop and openly think about where things are heading.

On Love in Sadness, Jason Mraz (2003)-Jason Mraz has a humongous sense of creativity and can be very spontaneous with his lyrics. I've seen him in concert, and he seems to be able to spontaneously change and expand the lyrics to each of his songs. Hopefully, you can still download an extended version of "Curbside Prophet" somewhere. A lot of his songs relate to me, and his California laid-back attitude to life that I'd like to ideally adopt, but I went with "On Live in Sadness," because it captures romance and love and all that very well. He sets the bar for himself pretty high, with his first line "Sing about that love, oh, it's a bitter madness, sing about it in all my sadness..." as if noone in the history of writing songs has ever sung about love being bitter and sad before. Nevertheless, he captures the rush and adrenaline of it all, as if someone on coke is trying to explain the process: "So inevitably, well it still exists, ok then fine, i won't dismiss it and if I die well at least, I tried...We just lay awake in lust, and rust in the rain, and pour over everything we say we trust, will it happen again....," and I believe he also throws in a reference to 60's ladies man and James Bond knock-off Derek Flint, with the line "and I'm in Like Flint again."

In Too Deep, Sum 41 (2003)-This is the only Sum 41 song I like because in the other songs, the lead singer veers too far across the boundary between singing and yelling at the top of his lungs. Anyway, this is less deep than it is succinct, catchy and well-spoken: "Cause I'm in too deep, and I'm trying to keep, all the blood in my head, instead I'm going under." At the end of the song, the line is expanded to "Instead I'm going under with you." Like "On Love in Sadness" there's an adrenaline and rushed tone to this song, where the singer is almost expressing his feelings at the same rate he's discovering them himself.

Testing 1,2,3, Barenaked Ladies (2004)-Less depressing than the slightly more popular "Pinch Me" but of the same caliber, "Testing 1, 2, 3" continues in the Barenaked Ladies tradition of poking fun at themselves and at the world around them. They are not so much asking existential questions but rather asking if anyone notices them. They ask non-chalantly if they should get a new opinion, break a gold rule or get a little work done and break a sweat. The chorus goes: "Testing 1, 2, 3 can anybody hear me, if I shed the irony, would everybody cheer me, If I acted less like me...." (the last half of the last line changes per verse). I think every artist goes through that feeling. I'm even going through it now. Does anyone even care about my interpretation of these songs? There's also a great rhythm in the words as well: "Kind of like the last time, with a bunch of really fast rhymes, if I can just reverse time, I'd be set"

I’m With You, Avril Lavigne (2003)-I think for the tone of the song Sk8ter Boi also deserves a nod for lyrics that match the music, but if I had to chose one Avril Lavigne song, I would chose this one. It's not just the words but it's hard to ignore how the words match up to the music. The tone is very barren with an odd choice of strings filling in the sound as Avril Lavigne reveals a more vulnerable side of herself. There are two things happening within the song. She's in a specific situation where she's standing all alone somewhere, stranded by someone and on a larger scale, she's reflecting on how on this "damn cold night" she's trying to "figure out this life," and in this state she might be either so vulnerable or more likely so lost that she's willing to have anyone take her by the hand to someplace new singing "I don't know who you are but I'm with you." In the end, it's a cry for help or guidance of some sort.

Green and Grey, Nickel Creek (2002)-At their best, songs don't just express feelings but they tell a story. Nickel Creek and Ben Folds are very heavy into this among the bands that I listen to. Nickel Creek's most famous song that tells a story is The Lighthouse Tale, that tells a first-hand account of a suicide from the point of view of a lighthouse ("and off the edge of me he ran"), but another very interesting choice is the visual imagery of "Green and Grey." The first line: "In a room full of people and hanging on one person's breath/ We would all vote him most likely to be loved to death." What an odd award, not just to be loved but loved to death. It's somewhat nonsensical but gets your attention. Anyway, the story tells of a guy who performs and is adored by large crowds of people but is really very lonely on the inside. The chorus: "Green is color that everyone sees all around me, Grey is color I see around her, she's just a blur." You're tempted to think that the subject of the story is pining for this one girl and is unhappy because everyone likes him except for the one girl, but it might be the opposite. Why would he be pining for this one girl if he can't even see her. He said she was jsut a blur. In a latter verse, the story that starts to reveal he's just plain lonely: "We paid and we cheered. Now we're gone and to us that feels right. But for him every one of those evenings turns into a night. With another hotel room where he lays awake to pretend that he's doing fine with his notebook and discman for friends."

100 Years, Five for Fighting (2004)-This song is the exact opposite of most other rock songs which are modelled after Van Halen's "Right now...it's everything" theme. John Ondrasik is telling us we don't need to sieze the moment. After all, we have 100 years to live and "there's still time for you."

Ones that I have yet to elaborate on:Ants Marching, DMB; #41, DMB; Real World, Matchbox Twenty; How to Save a Life, The Fray; Game of Love, Michelle Branch feat. Santana; It's All Been Done, Barenaked Ladies; Your Winter, Sister Hazel; Angel, Sarah McLaughlin; Fallen, Sarah McLaughlin; Be Like That, 3 Doors Down; Then the Morning Comes, Smashmouth; Learn to Fly, Foo Fighters; Stars, Switchfoot; When I Look to the Sky, Train; Meet Virginia, Train; I’m About to Come Alive, Train; You’re a God, Vertical Horizon; Easy Tonight, Five for Fighting; Here is Gone, Goo Goo Dolls; Broadway is Dark Tonight, Goo Goo Dolls; Wonderful World, James Morrison; Why Georgia, John Mayer; No Such Thing, John Mayer; She Don’t Want Nobody Near, Counting Crows; Mr Jones, Counting Crows; Never Let You Go, 3rd Eye Blind; Selfless Cold and Composed, Ben Folds; Landed, Ben Folds; Speed of Sound, Coldplay; Silent All these Years, Tori Amos; Time, Hootie and the Blowfish; Travelling Soldier, Dixie Chicks; Goodbye is All We Have, Allison Krauss and Union Station; Walking on the Sun, Smashmouth; Stuck in a Moment, U2; When the Stars Go Blue, U2 feat. Coors; Dance Dance, Fall Out Boy; Dani California, Red Hot Chilli Peppers; Wake Me Up When September Ends, Greenday; Your Armor, Charlotte Martin

[Editorial Update: Over the years, I have done new editions of this series but I have not kept to these 50]

Congratulations to us for killing the record industry

I read an article from Rolling Stone recently (found here: http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/15137581/the_record_industrys_decline/2) that makes me even more aware if how our generation seems to have lost a sense of right or wrong in terms of artistic copyright theft.

We all understand it's wrong to steal a sweater from a department store but due to years of conditioning from Napster, the Napster copy-offs, and now Youtube, we don't seem to feel the same way about stealing a song, TV episode or movie.

If we want a song, TV show, or movie we don't ask "how much does it cost? can i find it at a reasonable price?" but rather "how quickly can i download it?", "is it on youtube yet?", "why not?" I'm not sure what it is that has separated us from our moral radar in this particular sector of consumption but I think it's among our most important. I would really hate to see an inability for those in the arts (musicians, scriptwriters, and filmmakers) to be able to commercially succeed when their material is being diluted by the Internet and not being properly acquired. Do we just assume that recording artists are so rich that they won't know the difference? Maybe, it's that we've always felt that concerts is where musicians make most of their money anyway. I think with youtube showing us live concerts, that gets diluted as well. I care more about that than whether everyone who comes out of the Gap with a new sweater has paid for it.

And that's what's being affected. If we truly respect the artists who we're flocking to on you tube and whose songs or TV episodes we're downloading, I would hope that we would respect them enough to support their endeavours commercially. I am not saying I have never downloaded anything ever, but I do make it a point to buy a CD here or there.

I also understand Youtube's potential to promote certain causes and artists although I believe it's shaky ground. If you post an entire episode of a TV show than that's crossing the line, because you take away any incentive for someone to go to itunes and buy the episode for $1.99.

I think there's a lot of emphasis on how the record executives should deal with this crisis, but there's very little emphasis on how we as consumers take responsibility for ourselves, as if that's just a moot point.