Music Matters

So often in my life, I've got through the rough days with music... either listening to it, or in latter days creating it. I can equate every rough spot in my life to a particular song or album that seemed to speak to me at the time, to give me a sense that maybe I wasn't the only one going through crap, and helped me get past it somehow.

It seems this is the next of such times.

Being a child of the eighties, I think that it's important to be able to say that most of my favourite bands are still producing music, and generally good music at that. Three of my top five are still out there doing it, and all three have records coming out in the next few weeks. Erasure, granted, only has yet another greatest hits collection, but it comes with a whole slew of new remixes which is better than nothing.

Depeche Mode's latest offering promises to be one of my new favourites, if the leadoff single is any indication. I've been following their website with baited breath for all the details of the new single, and the video they released was the first glimpse of the sound of the album.

DEPECHE MODE - WRONG



I was immediately struck by this video, first by the images and then by the words. It seems to quite expertly capture just exactly how I've been feeling about myself lately, at least some of the time. I've even used the word to describe my situation, and my general outlook to people, even before I knew this was a track on the album. I told them that everything is just WRONG, how I feel, the choices I've made, and where I'm at in my life.

The more I listen to this, the more I know it's going to be a catalyst for me to get UNwrong. I can't say exactly how, but in the past, hearing your own thoughts echoed by someone else in a song can have a powerful effect on you. You may think, gee, do I really sound like that? Or it may just allow you to outlet it a bit by singing it really loud in your apartment. So far I've listened to this song about 6 times a day since I got it.

Depeche's next album is called Songs Of The Universe, and should be out in the next few weeks.

 

Next, we have Pet Shop Boys, probably my number one. While their first single, Love Etc., doesn't really speak to me in the same way that Wrong does, the first verse in the song follows another theme I've been talking about lately:

Boy it's tough getting on in the world
When the sun doesn't shine and a boy needs a girl
It’s about getting out of a rut, you need luck
But you’re stuck and you don’t know how...

Really, they couldn't have phrased this verse any better to accurately mirror what I've been thinking. I've been talking about being in a rut for some time now, and how I can't get out. You only have to read my last few blog posts to see that. I'm not sure what the whole intention or viewpoint of the song is in the minds of the Pet Shop Boys, but that one verse really reached out and slapped me.

PET SHOP BOYS - LOVE ETC.



The album, Yes, should be out next month.

 

So yeah. Is it just me reading too much into the music I'm listening to, or is there a message there?