Monday, June 13, 2005

I found some crappy, sexxxy music when I was outside of my apartment

The wife bought a car several months ago, and the old owner's mix CD was still in it. I tried to listen to it, but it was absolute shit. I decided to bring it into the apartment today and give it another try, because I'm a masochist with a lot of free time (a winning combination!). On my way in, a mysterious cassette tape labeled "mix" was sitting on top of the mailboxes. I couldn't pass that up, either, and snatched it like I've snatched all your hearts. (A digression: Anytime someone in our apartment complex wants to get rid of something no one would ever buy, the silently understood system is to place it either on top of or directly below the mailboxes. Some items I've seen there include troll dolls, keychains, the little plastic couple from a wedding cake, a box full of accounting textbooks, Barry White 8-tracks, and a small vial of mysterious green liquid.) First up, I put the CD in. It was still shit, but this time I sampled all 18 hot tracks. These tracks were truly a combo platter of dung. The mix-maker's taste was catholic, but also reeked of butt. Many genres were disgraced: soul, hip-hop, country, alternative rock, metal, techno, indie rock, pop. There was even a dance version of a Bryan Adams song. Grade: B for Boring. I put the CD on top of the mailboxes. Next, I put in the mystery cassette. For about five minutes, I didn't even realize it was playing. "What is this?" I said to myself. "The sound of nothingness? A black hole? Inertia? Stasis? Did I forget to press play?" Then, I chuckled quietly to myself, for I realized my error. "Lo, it has been playing all along, unbeknownst to these naive vessels of sound I call my ears. And not just playing, but playing smooth jazz! The only music extant that provokes no response, neither emotional, nor intellectual, nor physical! Oh, smooth jazz! Your neutrality amuses me! You are like a particularly unmemorable carpet from an office I never visited!" In between the smooth jazzers, an R&B slow jam advised women to cook and clean for their man because "it's about give and take." A promising thesis, but this songster does not go far enough. Just when I was ready to chuck the cassette back on top of the mailboxes, a beautiful thing happened. An entire soul album followed the smooth jazz-fest. I am going to do some investigating and try to discover the name of the artist and the album, but for now, his identity remains a mystery. All I know so far is that he sounds like a middle-aged man and is fond of fuzz guitar solos, and the production values hint at a 1991-1995 vintage. The album, before it devolves into a series of boring ballads about halfway through, is one of the greatest things I've ever found on a mailbox. All the pre-ballad songs are mid-tempo funk jams detailing what kind of sex the singer is going to have, full of hilariously lazy double entendres and straightforward promises to a "sexy lady" to "get you naked," "get between the sheets," "make love on the floor," make love on the rug," "get the bed squeaking," and "open it wide, because I'm going in wherever I can." The best song is about him catching his "sexy lady" making it with some other guy upstairs while he's watching TV. He's having none of that, but he understands because the "bitch is so sexy" that no one can keep their hands off her. The greatest thing about all of this is that it's sung with a deadly seriousness (un)deserved by the material, like he's singing about drug abuse, AIDS victims, or poverty. He means business. When he sings about "getting freaky," he's singing from the heart. I love how serious he is about making love on rugs. I think I may have stumbled upon a neglected masterpiece, or at least a half-masterpiece. To paraphrase critic Dave Kehr (who was talking about the movie Gone with the Wind), "It isn't all that good, but somehow it's great."

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