List Service

The Lox

The Delfonics - "Didn't I Blow Your Mind?" (mp3)
(purchase here)

A weekend of farewells to old friends and hellos to new ones, yet conversations constantly returned to partnership and compatibility. Wandering souls have tired of the tired old watering holes and moved onto the next frontier. Fortunately (or so they say), from Friendster to Match, there's a site with a specific criteria whereupon you will find your, uh, match.

So why do the choices look so familiar?

Perhaps because the critiera presumes too much: that we all have favorite music; that commonly shared favorite music means compatibility (or even vice versa); or simply that having favorite music says something concrete about a person. At its most painful, it can ask a person whose exposure to music is casual, at best (such as a radio backdrop), to cite specifics on the great unknown. And what is worse is that we have become so inundated with "favorite music" selections that certain popular picks lose their meaning altogether (was Fluxblog taking tokes from the same wacky to-backy last week??).

So, in an effort to help us all (non- and über-music folk alike) I now present to you a very incomplete list of what my colleagues and I feel are:

FAVORITE MUSIC CHOICES THAT SAY NOTHING ABOUT YOU:

• Tupac, Biggie, 50 Cent ~ All get a big, "N*a please."
  
• Interpol, The Strokes, The Killers ~ The inevitability of all things "Alternative." Ah, Clap You Hands and Say, Blah!
  
• Jimi, Zeppelin, Doors, Floyd and some other bands with white dudes I've seen on black t-shirts ~ Likewise, the inevitability of all things "Classic." Unless you're black. Then it's, like, whoa.
  
• Bob ~ And all by his lonesome, too. Who's trying to drop yardy knowledge on these boards?
  
• Dave Matthews ~ There's a "Band," too, right?
  
• Coldplay ~"You know how I know you're gay?"
  
• U2 ~ Usually means one of two things: the Lilith Fair route ("I also like Coldplay, Sarah McLachlan...") or the Generic Alternative (see Interpol... entry above). Both of which say... exactly.
  
• Neal Diamond ~ Gotta keep the list's novelty choice current.
  ...and, finally...
  
• The Beatles ~ Oddly enough, if someone posted a true king of rock, that may actually say something...
  

Please feel free to add, edit, comment... Because it don't mean a thing to me!