Aimee Mann.

I was introduced to Aimee Mann when I first watched Magnolia years ago. I bought the soundtrack based on her songs.
It's embarrassing to say but her songs were a comfort to me. She seemed to take the side of the lonely man, and it was reassuring to listen to her music every once in awhile. Not a lot of female artists I've encountered take that side as clearly as she has.

This isn't turning into a music forum, and I'm not trying to wallow in self-pity with these sad songs.

Just read in the textbook Mass Communication in Canada: Sixth Edition that "...Television creates couch potatoes. Radio causes us to imagine. Books make us think and separate us from social interaction. Magazines involve."

I think it's justifiable to say that these sentences are overly classifying. Take the comment on books. Reading a book separates us from socially interacting with other people? Hmm. I remember reading an article in a small library newspaper years back about how books can serve as 'friends for the lonely'. So with these two standpoints in mind, books simultaneously draw us away from other people and comfort us when we walk away from them. The key is to listen to the radio and read magazines for optimal mental/social stability.
Because as we all know, nothing stimulates the imagination more than radio DJs and the commercials they play.
And nothing involves us with the global village on a meaningful level more than magazines with tons of advertisements and articles reissuing the same ideas repeatedly.

But you know...keeping people interested in something calls for a level of controversy (in certain cases) and I suppose the authors of the textbook wanted to provoke conversation.
And I realize that by pointing out the discomforting conventions of radio and magazines doesn't let me expound on the ones that are doing it right (for example some university radio stations and Adbusters magazine).
And I know I'm not the most social person right now but that's due to moving to Toronto and not really knowing anyone who lives here. The same author stereotype which I don't conform to keeps persisting at a time when I don't need unneccessary stress from people's unfounded views. What's ironic is that later in the textbook on the subject of news stories, it's mentioned how news reports often don't contain the entire story and as a result it shrinks our thinking down to binary opposites and simplistic viewpoints of others. Like the classifications of different audiences for different communication mediums doesn't?
But that's what happens when you play with fire - you get burned, yet you create sparks.

Besides, if I took the textbook's intentions to heart and started listening to the radio (at least the popular channels) I doubt I'd hear uplifting music like this.

I couldn't care less about whatever ramifications stem from affiliating this song with my name. Typecasted, dismissed...o the sad artist. It's a simple, sublime song. The video has style, but it's marred by Berry's mysterious-looking gestures. I always hear this song with a deep bass sound (in the style of the BG refrain) when notes are played at the beginning, instead of the more upbeat sound.

I've been caught in the thick of schoolwork, but should have more involved content soon.

Oxygene 8, the collaboration between Vangelis and Jean-Michel Jarré, is one of my favourite songs to this date. The video made for it, although crisp, doesn't illustrate what the song means to me. This remake sounds much better than the original.

The album Oxygene was released in 1976, ahead of its time. I own it, and the song that I chose to post is one of the shorter yet most powerful tracks. You might think, with the song's sound and the album cover, that it's reminiscent of horror movies but I didn't find that comparison until other people mentioned it. It's just originality, precision, power and beauty... .

Neon lights.

Vangelis. This piece of music can't be forgotten.